The Kibbutz and Private Property

Abstract

The Kibbutz is a free and voluntary experiment towards accomplishing Marx’s “full Communism” and the ideal of satisfying each member of the community according to his/her needs.

The founders of the Kibbutzim (in 1909) strove to build a new society based on freedom, equality, mutual help, tolerance, and brotherhood, excluding any sort of private property.

Second and third generations in the Kibbutz admire their parents’ revolution but are seeking now to increase their privacy.

In this research, the attitude of 350 Kibbutz members towards the central question of Private Property was explored. Only 25% of the sample still believe in the Pure Principle of avoiding any private property. Sixty per cent have some private money and/or property, and more than 80% predict that the Kibbutz will become a less and less egalitarian society in the future. All of them realize that in the present situation, many are living a white lie, but feel that the basic desire to possess is stronger than any ideological value. It is interesting to note that people still feel annoyed by the knowledge of other people’s private means, suggesting that ideology is stronger when others violate it, rather than oneself. The amount of money people own privately is small, and cannot change their basic standard of living, which is still dependent on the Kibbutz income. Perhaps it is the desire to have something of one’s own that matters, more than one’s real economic need.