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AK Press put out a really rather splendid little book on this, James Horrox's 'A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement,' which I can recommend to anybody and everybody. Understanding the movement in its entirety, however, may require a rather drastic reevaluation of what the word 'anarchy' means. Depending on how exactly you understand the word in the first place, of course.
No dictionaries, no definitions- that's just bourgeois dicatorship of words and linguistic hegemony!!!
-www.revleft.org-
Economic Left/Right: -6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
красные лисы
So you think ethnicity should disappear instead of being preserved?
What is the point in preserving it?
'So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song, And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting, O' those that they would throttle;, They needn't say the fault is ours, If blood should stain the wattle!"
- Henry Lawson
Even if there was "no point in preserving it", what's going to make it go away?
I've stayed at a Kibbutz, for a few days.
They started out as a left-democratic Socialist operation way back in the early days. They were genuinely akin to a 'commune'.
These days, however, fairness and equality are not part of their make up. They often contract services out, are not self-sufficient and have wage-labour.
You also have to remember that these are the people at the front line of settlement-building; racist as fuck.
It's not like they've achieved anything great. Their original vision was utopian and really was exogenous to the economic process: there was never gonna be any development, any great use of technology and so living standards are still very, VERY basic.
There is no point, it's not something that requires preservation, it's more than capable of preserving itself.
PFT! Weren't the kibutzim used as the frontline of the conflicts during the theft of Palestinian land? Didn't they have a bunch of nationalist militias in them used to ethnically cleanse Palestinians? I don't care how egalitarian they might have been for the Jews living there it doesn't mean jack if they can to engage in ethnic cleansing to acquire the land.
I also find it near impossible for Zionism to cross over with communism given the conflict between the inherently nationalist nature of Zionism(with the exception of cultural zionism) and the goal of internationalism.
Kibbutzim didn't fail, there are 270 of them in Israel.
Kibbutzim are not the only type of intentional communities, besides the kibbutz there are moshav shitufi (of which there are 40) and moshav ovdim (of which there are 405 in Israel). We could say that, while Kibbutzim are plain ol' communes, moshav shitufi are Bakunin-like, and moshav ovdim are Proudhon-like organized communities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshav
Also, Hutterite communes kick ass, they're growing like crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite
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And the Zionism "staring on the left" thing, I remembered reading this:
"Kafka attended meetings of the Klub Mladých, a Czech anarchist, anti-militarist and anti-clerical organization.[25] Hugo Bergmann, who attended both the same elementary and high schools as Kafka, had a falling out with Kafka during their last academic year (1900–1901) because "[Kafka's] socialism and my Zionism were much too strident." "Franz became a socialist, I became a Zionist in 1898. The synthesis of Zionism and socialism did not yet exist." Bergmann claims that Kafka openly wore a red carnation to school to show his support for socialism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafka#Political_views
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Last edited by fabian; 17th June 2012 at 23:07.
Are there Palestinians there? Few years ago I watched documentary about Kibutizm, I though was interesting but I don't remember there are Palestinians.
Is Israel Capitalist ?
Is Israel Capitalist ?
The problem with Kibbutzim was the weakness of the vanguard, or complete absence of one. People would start storing possessions like clothes and food in their own houses, rather than picking them up from the storehouse. The vanguard allowed this, and this failed to protect class consciousness. Eventually they caved in completely and allowed people cash allowances to spend as they wish. Once you get to that stage, class consciousness has failed as the proletariat is on a trajectory back towards capitalism.
Probably the reason the vanguard was so inadequate was because Kibbutzim were fundamentally religious/spiritualist in nature. Any socialist movement synthesized with backwards spiritualism is deeply flawed, imo.
Kibbutzim nowadays are nothing like what they used to be. They are basically racists religious communities now. Lots of turnover. Parents send their kids for stint in a kibbutz to toughen them up. They are also not independent - they are financed by the capitalist government. Organs of the bourgeois, essentially. They help solidify racial solidarity.
