TRANSFORMING KIBBUTZ RESEARCH TRUST AND MORAL LEADERSHIP IN THE RISE AND DECLINE OF DEMOCRATIC CULTURES Foreword by Professor Emanuel Marx New World Publishing Cleveland, Ohio, 2008 Website: http://www.transformingkibbutz.com
TRANSFORMING
KIBBUTZ RESEARCH TRUST AND MORAL LEADERSHIP IN
THE RISE AND DECLINE OF
DEMOCRATIC CULTURES
Foreword by Professor Emanuel Marx
New World Publishing
Cleveland, Ohio, 2008
Website: http://www.transformingkibbutz.com
Copyright 2008 The Author
It is declared hereby that all the material in this book is original, written by
the author who hold the copyright for it.
First Printing
ISBN: 0-9776818-1-5 PUBLISHE BY NEW WORLD PUBLISHING
Cleveland, Ohio net.silverquillpoetry.www
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For Emanuel Marx,
a dedicated authentic student, teacher and tutor,
and
For my late father, Yaakov (Kubek) Shapira,
a public servant, transformational leader all his life
CONTENTS Foreword by Prof. Emanuel Marx i Acknowledgements v
1. Introduction: The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary
Kibbutz Research 1 Simultaneous Use of Three Strategies and their Contradictions 3 CKP Users Ignored the Context of FOs and Their Negative Practices 5 Researchers Did Not Study How Rotatzia Enhanced Oligarchy 7 Historical and Current Proof of Rotatzia Failures 9 The Conundrum of Trust and Leadership Morality in DWOs 13 Decline and Resurrection in Kibbutzim and Cooperatives 16 Kibbutz Success Secrets and the Required Cultural Perspective 18
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 20
CKP Misses the Main Cultural Conflict of the Kibbutz Field 21 Cultural Uniqueness Three: Creativity 23 Cultural Uniqueness Four: Large Size, 3-4 Deck Federative Structure 25 Cultural Uniqueness Five: Egalitarian, Solidaristic Democracy 26 False Component: Economic Growth by Entrepreneurship 28 False Component: Rotatzia 29 A Non-Unique Component: Self-Work 31 A Non-Unique Component: High-Trust 34 Summary 38
3. CKP and the Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 40 Students Ignored Inventions, Inventors’ Struggles and Careers 40 Kibbutz Creativity Was Not a One-Generation Phenomenon 42 Recent Loss of Creativity and Viability 43 The Dependency Explanation: FOs’ Soft Budget Constraints 47 The 1950s-1960s Crisis did not Parallel the 1980s-1990s 48 FOs Counted on Unquestioned Support from Kibbutzim 49 Modeling Complacency: The Movements’ Delayed Downsizing 50 Dependency Ignored Extreme Differentiation of Kibbutzim 51 Ignorance of FO heads’ Irresponsibility 53 Other Explanations: The Grains of Truth are Lost in Omissions 54 Disastrous Separation of Sociology, History and Anthropology 55 Anthropologists Ignored the Effects of FOs and Societal Contexts 56
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 59 Supremacy Ignorance and the Confused Etiology of Stratification 61 Missing Classical Stratification Theorists in Kibbutz Literature 64 A Sociologist and Anthropologists Lay the Ground for the Miss 65 Surveys Missed Stratification but Were Scientifically Legitimized 66 Reviewers Missed Students’ Omissions and Sanctioned CKP 67 Kibbutz Member Researchers’ Vested Interests in the Omission 68 Critical Sociologists Found Stratification but Missed Pe’ilim 68
5. Additional Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 71 Kibbutz Movement – A Part of Encompassing Social Movements 71 Ignoring Kibbutz Oligarchization Followed that of the Histadrut 72 Mid-Levelers Became Main Actors with Oligarchization 74 Neglecting the Uniqueness of Pe’ilim and Its Symbolization 75 Neglecting the Violation of Egalitarianism by Pe’ilim 77 Neglecting FOs Differentiation from Kibbutzim 78 Evasion of Violation of Egalitarianism by Outside Sources 79 Blindness to FOs Control of Kibbutzim 80 Overlooking FOs 81
6. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, ‘Parachutings,’ and
Pe’ilim’s Fragile Status 89 Continuous FO Heads Controlled Circulative Managerial Careers 90 FO Heads’ Iron Law Continuity versus Lower Echelons’ Rotatzia 93
Pe’ilim Supremacy Due to Continuity Vs. Kibbutz Rotatzia 94 Self-Aggrandizement and Bureaucratic Growth 95 Institutionalized Rotatzia Served FO Heads’ Control of Pe’ilim 97 Variability of Rotatzia and Power Accumulation by Senior Pe’ilim 98 Few Ex-Chief Officers Returned to Lower Offices with FOs Growth 100 ‘Parachutings’ of Complete Outsiders and Their Fragile Status 102 Voluntary Resignation of Pe’ilim and Their Fragile Status 104 Frustrating and Purging Effective, Trusted and Creative Pe’ilim 105 Detached Pe’ilim Reigned, FO Heads Prevented Internal Promotion 107 Sidetracking of Creative Radicals: The Catch 22 of Rotatzia 109 How Was a Belief in Egalitarianism Maintained Despite Circulation? 111 Disenchantment with Violation of Egalitarianism Enhanced Exits 113 Compliance Due to a Change from Moral Choice to Expediency 114
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage and
Cliques 116 Rotazia Encouraged Patronage and Rule of Cliques 117 Research Ignored FOs, Patronage Remained Incomprehensible 118 Continuous Versus Circulative Patrons 120 Patronage Due to Continuous Key Local Jobs 122 Patronage was Integral to Oligarchic Processes 123
8. Flawed Democratic Control of FOs and Fringe Benefits
of Pe’ilim 126 Changing Reg.Ents’ Company Car Norms 127 Stratified FO Cars Symbolized Status, Unlike Most Kibbutz Cars 128 FOs’ Sticking to Company Cars System Served Pe’ilim Interests 130
New Solutions Would Have Required Admitting Stratification 132 Creativity Might Have Elevate Radicals into Potential Successors 133 Admors’ Choice, Self-Serving Officers and Flawed Democracy 135 Secured Supremacy of Pe’ilim Over Kibbutz Representatives 136 Superfluous Growth, Image Creation, Justified Distrust of Pe’ilim 137 A Lack of Genuine Representation Enhanced Flawed Democracy 138 Flawed Democracy Ruined Trust But Could Be Repaired 140 A Lack of Independent Mass Media 141
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality, and Performance 143 Charismatic or Transformational Leaders? 143 Trust and Organizational Performance 145 Leadership and Morality 146 Leading by Consent and High-Trust Relations is Problematic 148 The Cultural Context Perspective 151 Rotatzia’s Contrast with Highly Trusted Leadership 152
10. Transformational Leaders Became Self-Serving Conservatives, Autocratic Leftists 157
Early Era of High-Moral, Servant Radical Admors 158 Admors Ended Creativity and Turned to Sterile Leftism 160 In the Early Days Admors Contained Leftism 161 Admors’ Leftist Turn 1937-9, and Problematic Slide Explanation 162 Admors’ Growing Predicament Due to Political Inefficacy 164 Admors Dysfunction amid Fast Growth and Mounting Problems 166 Admors Enhanced Power by Leftist Changing of Cosmology 170
Abstention of Direct Involvement in Coping with Challenges 171 Some of the Costs of Leftism 173
11. Supremacy, Minimal Direct Involvement and Ineffective
Leadership 176 Minimal Involvement Defends ‘Parachuted’ Managers’ Authority 177 Hazan’s Uniqueness: Both Local and National Involvement 179 Tabenkin’s Protégé versus Yig’al Allon: Opposite Involvement Strategies 180 Suppressing Potential Successors Made Admors Indispensable 182 The Critical Failure in Absorption of Mass Immigration 186 Admors Prevented a Solution for Problematic Hevrot No’ar 187 Tabenkin’s Conservatism and KM’s Two Failed Attempts 189 Negative Outcomes of the Failure 190
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership 193 Field-Work Methods and the Kibbutzim Studied 193 Rama Reacts to Crisis: Self-Reinforcing Imitative Changes 194 Self-Serving Elite Members 196 Outside Work and Growing Inequity 196 Officers’ Ignorance of Unfairness 197 Was the Turn to the Outside Worthwhile? 198 Distrust, Dwindling Democracy and Failed Solutions 199 The Rise of Lesser Officers and Their Weakness 201 Distrust, Minimal Communication, Meager Promotion Prospects 201 Rama’s Self-Serving Power Elites 203 Veteran Pe’ilim Created a Tradition of Violating Egalitarianism 205 The Talented Followed Pe’ilim’s Violation of Egalitarianism 205 Weak Officers Surrendered to the Talented and the Economists 206
Rama’s Power Eclipse: Family Boarding, Private Construction 208 Low Morality of the Economic Elite 209 Low Morality of ‘the Slaves Who Turned Masters’ 209
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Divisiveness, Distrust, and Destructive Conflicts 211
The Power and Weakness of the Economists 212 Low-Trust Culture and the Threat From Below 213 Alienated Talented, Non-Credible Power, Destructive Conflicts 215 Dependency of the Talented on Officers 217 The Old Guard Shaped Rama as a Conservative Kibbutz 218
Rama’s Culture was Largely Shaped by Oligarchic FO Heads 220 Rotatzia Deterred Talents from Offices 222 Outstanding Success of a Tenured Genuine Branch Leader 224 Self-Enhancing Process of Self-Serving Anarchic Conservatism 225 Distrust + Divisiveness + Defensiveness + Doubt = Decline 227
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders 228 Hired Labor Deepened Moral Decline of Continuous Patrons 229 Circulation Only Slowed Down Power Accumulation and Moral Decline 230 A Leader’s Power Self-Perpetuation by Barring Industrialization 231 Conservative Meshkism, Olim’s Rule and a ‘Branch Man’ Image 233 Conservative Meshkism Disintegrated the Founders’ Group 235 Abstention of Plant’s Foundation Enhanced Circulative Career 237 Mediocre Clients and ‘Riding’ on a Group Interests 237 Mati Led Patrons’ Obstruction of Democracy 238 Exit Left Zealots, Expediency Seekers and Mediocre Loyalists 239 Kibbutz Chen: Superiority Retention and Leaders’ Moral Decline 240 Communal Boarding and Members’ Complacency 243 Retention of a Tiny Minority, Largely of Complacent Members 244 Veteran Leaders’ Corruption Was to Blame 246 A Complacent Selective Constituency Helped Leaders’ Corruption 247 Additional Ideological Factor: Backward Looking to the 1920s 248
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Who Appropriated Others’
Creativity 251 How Was Barak’s Advance to Autocracy Misinterpreted? 254 Enhanced Power, Prestige and Privileges, Minimal Accountability 256 Industrialization Geared to Kibbutz Ethos Required Creativity 257 FOs’ Conservatism, Creativity Loss and Veterans’ Natural Rights 259
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Curbed Rotatzia’s
Contrast With Creativity 263 Rotatzia Furthered the Iceberg Phenomenon in Leadership 263 Kochav’s Success 265 Leaders Solved the Plant’s Conflict Concerning Major Norms 266 High-Moral Old Guard Backed Execution of Radicals’ Solutions 268 Democracy Nurtured by Authentic, Credible Leaders 269 A Lively and Critical Local Press 270 Highly Involved High-Moral Leaders were Ascetic and Obedient 271
High Morality Enhanced Trust and Creativity 273 Special Appeals Committee Enhanced Social Justice 273 Strong Officers’ Authority and Much Discretion Pulled Talented 274 Leaders’ High Morality Explains the Curbing of Rotatzia’s Perils 275 High-Trust Culture: Members’ Discretion Bred Creativity 277 Officers Innovated, High-Trust Democracy Kept Leaders’ Status 279 High-Trust Culture: Long-Range Rewards for Contributions 280 Decentralization Enhanced Members’ Ingenuity and Innovation 281 Trust Due to Cultural Creativity Enhancing Value Consensus 282 Care for Needs of the Talented = No Self-Serving Power Elite 284 Without Creativity Officers Failed to Care for Special Needs 284 Creative Egalitarianism in Consumption 285 A Creative Solution to Problematic Work Tasks 287 Trust, Branch Leaders Creativity and Free Flow of Know-How 288 Ex-Managers Who Became Expert Artisans Enhanced Creativity 289 Informal Artisan Leaders: Coaching New Generation Creators 290
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Negative Impact Ruined Creativity 293
Consecutive Losses of Ran’s Transformational Leadership 294 Rotatzia Ruined Trust by Elevating Immature Chief Officers 296 Rotatzia Forestalled Trust Creation by Marring Problem-Solving 297 Rotatzia Derailed the Career of a Transformational Leader 298 Scale Problems and Unintended Consequences of Social Action 301 Cooperatives Tendency to Boost Failures Amplified Unknowns 303 Growth Detached Leaders from Problem-Solvers 304 Specialization Furthered Leaders’ Detachment 306 Partial Coping with Scale: Decentralized, Trust-Led, Small Units 307 Creative Solutions for Flexibility Loss: Giyusim and Shibutz 309 Plant Partnership Enabled Growth but Also Impaired Democracy 310 Scale Defeated Democracy Due to Decline of Trust and Creativity 311 Did Patrons and Pe’ilim Genuinely Care for Members Interests? 313 Patrons’ Dilemma: Trusted Headmen or Coercive Chiefs? 314 Price of Chieftainship: Missing Followers’ Beliefs, Aims, Hopes 315 Democracy Declined as Trust of Leaders and Creativity Declined 317 FOs’ Negative Impacts on Kochav’s Democracy 319 Low-Moral Oligarchic FOs Curbed Morality of Kochav’s Officers 320 No Vision: Personal Aims, Officer Shortages, Imitative Solutions 322 The FOs’ Role in the Continuation of Rotatzia-Driven Problems 325
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs 328 Circulation and Other Rotatzia’s Perils Were Missed 330
Patronage Promoted Conservative Loyalists, Marred Creativity 331 Missing Unique Elite Careers and Their Grave Consequences 332 Without a Renewed Socialist Vision, Radicals’ Incoherent Efforts Failed 333 Servant Leaders and High-Trust, Solidaristic Democracy Were Rare 334
‘Parachutings’, Imitative Hired Labor and Leaders Detachment 336 Ignoring Stryjan, Scale, Creativity and Democracy Problems 337 The Plausibility of High-Trust, Democratic and Creative FOs 338 Sustainable DWOs: High-Trust Cultures, High-Moral Leaders 340 Inside Successors and Grass-Roots Democracy 342 Slow Promotion 345 Extant Iron Law Solutions, Their Defects and the New Solution 346 Constituency: Membership and Eligibility to Participate in Voting 348 No Bi-Partisan Politics, Parliament of Directly Chosen Delegates 349 Can the Proposed Solution Make DWOs Sustainable for Decades? 351
Bibliography 355
Name Index 384 Subject Index 392
FOREWORD
The Israeli communal settlements (kibbutz, pl. kibbutzim) were
established a hundred years ago. The first communal settlement in
Palestine, Kinneret, was founded in 1910 and is still a thriving community.
It was the prototype of the kibbutz, a spearhead of the Zionist movement’s
project to acquire land all over Palestine and to settle Jews on it. The
policymakers of those days directed the socialist fervor of penniless young
Jewish men and women emigrants toward a colonialist project. The
Zionist Organization bought the land and supplied the funds for
establishing the colonies, while the socialist pioneers provided the
necessary manpower. The settlers labored to set up just and egalitarian
communities for Jews, without much regard for the Arab peasants some of
whom they had displaced. They were inspired by the ideal of a combined
national and personal redemption, for which many of them were ready to
sacrifice their own and their comrades’ and neighbors’ lives. The socialist
ideology thus served to cover up both the injustice against exploited early
pioneers and against dispossessed Arab peasants.
During that century the kibbutz engendered a voluminous political,
ideological and scholarly literature. Now comes Dr. Reuven Shapira and
argues that most of these writings misunderstood essential aspects of the
kibbutz. In particular, they did not treat the essentially non-democratic and
unchanging higher echelons of kibbutz leaders and the numerous
extraterritorial organizations and enterprises controlled by this elite. Nor
did they fully grasp the fact that the kibbutz has never sought to set up a
utopian society. It has always been integrated in the wider society and
shared many of its norms and beliefs. In the early days the kibbutzim
depended on the Zionist Organization. Its successor, the State of Israel,
also supported the kibbutzim for extended periods. The total dependence
of the early kibbutzim on external funding was a fundamental fact that no
one disputed. But even after they had made considerable headway in the
1930s-1950s, they renewed treating the State of Israel as a milch cow. Yet
in many accounts of kibbutzim this dependence was scarcely mentioned; it
was overshadowed by the interest aroused by the egalitarian way of life.
The anthropologists who studied the kibbutz were profoundly affected by
the ideological statements of their interlocutors and, even more so, by the
manner in which the socialist work ethos was translated into practice.
Forword: Transforming Kibbutz Research ii
Melford Spiro, author of the classic study Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia
candidly admits that he succumbed to the ideological pressure of the
constantly reiterated emphasis on work (1963: 18). The national kibbutz
leaders who controlled and manipulated this ideology remained outside
the accounts, largely because they spent most of their time away from
their home kibbutz. They worked from office buildings in Tel Aviv that
were located in the vicinity of the government center. These were the men
who mediated the flow of state funds to the kibbutzim, negotiated state
land and loans for kibbutz organizations, obtained state contracts for
kibbutz industries and, no less important, committed quotas of kibbutz
members for serving the interests of the Israeli Labor party and other
national bodies.
In the above passage I use the word ‘men’ deliberately, for practically
all the kibbutz leaders were men. Women were from the outset relegated
to the ‘inferior’ services, as the income-creating jobs were reserved for the
males. While some women worked in backbreaking manual tasks, such as
road building and harvesting, most of them worked in the ‘unproductive’
kitchens, laundries, nurseries and schools. The impact of the external
world on this sexual division of labor was unmistakable, and should have
alerted the students of the kibbutz to its participation in the world. But it
was consistently ignored in the research literature. A glaring example was
Tiger and Shepher’s (1977) study of women in the kibbutz. They treated
the kibbutz as a social isolate, which subscribed to a strict equality of the
sexes. Yet they found that most women worked in the caring and
educational services. Therefore they interpreted this peculiar division of
labor simply as the outcome of biologically conditioned preferences of
women.
The consternated reader may well ask: How can it be that three
generations of kibbutz students missed the true nature of these
phenomena, and only one scholar got it right? I argue that this may well be
the case: It is not unusual, even in scholarly work, for totally misconceived
mental constructs to persist. Just think of the way the tribe has since the
days of Morgan (1877) been construed as the overarching and most
inclusive unit of simple societies, and kinship as their cornerstone. When
Fried suggested in 1966 that tribes were not found in simple society, but
were an element of state control (Fried 1968: 18), he set off a discussion
that eventually led nowhere. The same happened to Schneider’s 1971
Forword: Transforming Kibbutz Research iii
argument that “kinship… does not exist in any culture known to man”
(Schneider 1984: vii); it was considered an interesting and provocative
formulation that was discussed for a decade or more, and then consigned
to oblivion. While both Fried and Schneider presented their arguments in
convincing detail, they had in their lifetime little impact on
anthropological theory and certainly did not cause a ‘paradigm change’.
Indeed, any scholar who, like The author, tries to change long-established
academic conceptions must be prepared for a long uphill struggle that will
not necessarily succeed.
The author was born and bred in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, has lived there
most of his life, and while he teaches in Western Galilee Academic
College in Acre, he and his family still reside in Gan Shmuel. He is also
deeply committed to the kibbutz way of life. Can such a person rise above
the deeply engrained self-evident beliefs embodied in daily praxis, and
critically examine his own community? The answer is not to be sought in
The author’s undoubted capacity to distance himself from his situation,
but rather in his burning desire to reform the kibbutz and make it again
viable. This has been the energy driving a research project that has
occupied his full attention for over thirty difficult years. His devotion to
the kibbutz has not blinded him to its failings. There is an obstinate spirit
in him that drives him to get to the root of matters, and the intellectual
honesty to face up to unpalatable realities. In his search for the truth The
author wrestles with the complex data and constantly revises and checks
his arguments, sometimes producing a dozen or more drafts, till he is
satisfied that he has got the right answers. Both the academic community
and the kibbutz members are deeply obliged to The author for having
written this erudite and profoundly practical study.
Dr. Emanuel Marx
Professor Emeritus
Tel Aviv University, Sociology and Anthropology Department
References
Fried, Morton H. “On the concept of ‘tribe’ and ‘tribal society’”. Pp. 3-20 in
Essays on the Problem of Tribe, June Helm (ed.). Proceedings of the 1967
Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society. Seattle:
American Ethnological Society, 1968. .
Forword: Transforming Kibbutz Research iv
Morgan, Lewis Henry. 1877. Ancient Society. New York: Holt.
Schneider, David M. 1984. A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Spiro, Melford E. 1963[1955]. Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia. New York:
Schocken.
Tiger, Lionel, and Joseph Shepher. 1977. Women in the Kibbutz.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the outcome of a very long intellectual journey commenced
48 years ago when I became a kibbutz member and, thus, involved in
coping with some of its main problems, with only minor success. An
initial intellectual thrust for this journey was provided by the ideas of
Ephraim Reiner, which led to my choice of Sociology studies.
Subsequently, Emanuel Marx taught me how the ethnographic study of
complex social phenomena could lead to a paradigmatic change which
would point to possible new solutions seemingly impossible within the
current paradigm, and he has been my teacher, reader and mentor for over
three decades. Don Handelman was an excellent critical reader, and the
late Dr. Israel Shepher introduced me to the rigorousness of doubting
questions and answers in the study of kibbutz, then supported my efforts at
understanding by careful reading of drafts of my book on the Regional
Enterprises of kibbutzim (plural of kibbutz), and helped me to cope with
colleagues’ misunderstanding of my radical conclusions. Gideon M.
Kressel helped me greatly by careful reading and criticism of many
papers, mostly unpublished, through which the ideas of the book were
gradually cemented into a coherent structure (at least in my mind). The
late Dafna N. Izraeli turned my attention to conflicting paradigms in
organizational literature and later read some drafts and gave candid
criticism that has helped me much, as have Dani Zamir and Amir Helman.
In clearing up my own misunderstandings, leading to the grasping of the
right paradigm, many others have provided me with crucial assistance by
commenting on drafts, papers and parts of the book. I thank Daniel De
Mal’ach, Moshe Shwartz, Victor Friedman, Ze’ev Shavit, Pinchas Shtern,
Dvora Kalekin-Fishman, Haim Shferber, Avi Kirschenbaum, Alex
Weingrod, Yossi Shavit, Esther Herzog, Efrat Noni-Weiss, Ofra Grinberg,
Avi Cordova, Gila Adar, Yuval Milo, Mira Baron, Yehuda Bien, Leora
Yaacobi, Zachary Shaeffer, Dan Bar-On, Michael Harrison, Baruch
Kanari, Moti Regev, and Daniel Breslau. I would especially like to thank
Nigel Rapport who commented on the first half of the manuscript, and
Itamar Rugovski and David Wesley whose comments on the whole book
were very helpful. Special thanks go to Martin Kett and Barbara Doron
whose questions while making my English readable have cleared up much
confusion, and to Rachel Kessel who exposed many unclear paragraphs
vi
while translating the book to Hebrew. However, any mistakes contained in
this book are my own.
I am also grateful for the financial help I received from the Golda Meir
Institute for Social Research and the Weizmann Zionism Research
Institute of Tel Aviv University, the Ben Gurion Fund of the Histadrut, the
Jewish National Fund Research Institute, Yad Tabenkin and Kibbutz Gan
Shmuel, which have helped in many other ways, as well.
Last but not least has been the support of my family, which barely
understood the prolongation of my journey and its unconventionality, but
has nevertheless made it possible.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: The Mistaken Paradigm of
Customary Kibbutz Research
Why kibbutz research requires transformation, a turnaround, a very
profound and extensive overhaul? Why is the kibbutz not comprehended
by both its students and other observers, including its members and many
ex-members? Is it not the most intensively studied of all small societies for
more than sixty years?
There is no question about it; the database of the Kibbutz Research
Institute at Haifa University includes more than 5000 publications.
However, almost all of this voluminous research has used a mistaken
paradigm that has led to major misunderstandings. The kibbutz was
grasped as a bounded entity defined by its territory, formal organization,
residents, economy and labor force. But already its first students Landshut
(2000[1944]) and Buber (1958[1945]) had pointed to the unique federative
organization of kibbutzim (plural of kibbutz), and I. Shepher (1980) had
disproved the simplistic bounded grasping by showing that a kibbutz
boundaries were demarcated differently by each defining factor. The
kibbutz was supposedly egalitarian and democratic, but although ever
since Landshut (2000[1944]) many students had exposed stratification and
continuous power holding by elites,1 some of its later students found no
stratification.2 However, I will show that even the former students had
missed most stratification of the kibbutz as they had ignored the upper
strata that dominated the kibbutz field by heading and managing inter-
kibbutz federative organizations (hereafter, FOs) or by representing them
in national leadership and executive offices. Although field theory was
introduced into social sciences by Kurt Lewin (1951) and advanced by
Bourdieu (1977) and Marx (1980), it was missed by kibbutz research. This
was a fatal oversight since the kibbutz became the most successful of all
communal societies by being a radical social movement, highly involved
1 Rosenfeld 1983[1951]; Spiro 1955; Kressel 1971; Fadida 1972; Shepher, I.
1983; Shapira 1987, 1990, 2005; Ben-Rafael 1986; Pavin 1996. 2 Talmon 1972; Shepher, Y. 1975; Blasi 1980; Shur 1987; Rosner 1991.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 2
in its surroundings and by creating a large and complex organizational
field, which included hundreds of communal kibbutzim, as well as
hundreds of bureaucratic, hierarchic and autocratic FOs which
implemented this involvement. FO heads, executives and representatives
dominated the field and enjoyed power, prestige, privileges, intangible
capitals and job continuity far greater than officers of kibbutzim. Thus,
without studying FOs as an integral part of the field, kibbutz society was
incomprehensible.
No other communal society has been so profoundly shaped by its
involvement in national, social and political struggles, nor has any
communal society developed a large web of FOs. At most, communal
societies have had a common spiritual leadership, have maintained
informal ties, and have had some economic cooperation. These societies
have always been radical and egalitarian, having a glorious vision of a
new, better and more just society, leading to a belief in the millenarian
elimination of all social injustices. They have tried to embody their
exhilarating ideas by creating radical cultures, hoping that the surrounding
society would follow, but have always failed to achieve such emulation. A
major reason has been that, except for the kibbutz, all communes which
have succeeded in terms of a large and stable membership, long endurance
and economic success giving them leverage for societal change, have
channeled their main efforts inward. They have not taken part in national
efforts such as wars, and they have intensified communal networks,
insulating members from the rest of society. Their cultures have
blossomed at the price of social marginalization.3
The kibbutz was just the opposite: intensive societal involvement was
integral to its spearheading of a much larger social movement, Zionism,
aimed at creating a new, better society for a renewed Jewish nation in
Palestine (Landshut 2000[1944]). On the one hand, kibbutz was an
exceptional success, as this objective succeeded, while the kibbutz became
“…a highly successful enterprise by virtue of its longevity (compared to
almost every other utopian movement), as well as any other criterion by
which the success of social systems is judged” (Spiro 1983: 4). On the
other hand, despite the kibbutz taking on the hardest missions of Zionism
and obtaining the support of non-socialist leaders who gave it a large
3 Landshut 2000[1944]; Knaani 1960; Oved 1988; Pitzer 1997.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 3
portion of World Zionist Organization (WZO) resources, it had only minor
influence on the structuring of the Jewish community in Palestine, and
then on Israeli society. Even among Zionist socialists it remained a small
minority, and after four decades of successful pioneering culminating in a
leading role in the winning of the 1948 War of Independence, the new
State of Israel opted for a capitalist course of development, contrary to
kibbutz socialist ideals. The two main kibbutz federations, which
consisted of some 80% of kibbutzim, remained outside the government,
and their members and supporters who commanded some half of the units
in this war, were marginalized and ousted from the army.4
Simultaneous Use of Three Strategies and their
Contradictions One plausible reaction to such a failure could have been isolationism,
similar to other communal societies. A second option was to fight back,
trying to change society through political and other means open to social
movements in a democracy, while a third was to adopt new societal aims,
while trading the efforts kibbutzim made at their promotion for
advantages. The kibbutz movement simultaneously used all three
strategies, succeeding with a remarkable list of achievements, and growing
far beyond any other communal society to 269 communes, 129,000
inhabitants, and hundreds of FOs with tens of thousands of employees at
its peak, in the mid-1980s (Chap. 5). Most FOs catered to kibbutz aims
and needs and performed a large variety of functions for which each
kibbutz was too small a unit.5 However, kibbutz discourse evaded FOs
although over 4000 kibbutz members headed and administered them, and
so did kibbutz researchers (Chap. 3). A member of veteran Kibbutz
Kochav (fictive name of a successful kibbutz; Chaps. 16-17) has said:
“The kibbutz is not, as we imagine, an isolated community. We very much
belong to the outside, but since members don’t want to sit and discuss our
relations with the entities [on the outside] to which we belong, we are not
coping with the problem. In order to explain the problem, we must
4 Near 1992-1997; Yaar et al. 1994; Tzachor 1997. 5 Barkai 1977; Spiro 1983; Stryjan 1989; Maron 1997. On FOs: Rosolio 1975,
1999; Cohen, A. 1978; Shapira 1978, 1978/9, 1986, 1987, 1995a, 1995b; Brum
1986; Niv & Bar-On 1992.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 4
recognize it, and maybe we do not want to do that…”
The speaker was too young to know that this question had often been
discussed in Kochav’s early days, but then kibbutz leaders externalized
FOs, and kibbutz students followed suit and ignored them, avoiding
conflicts with leaders in order to gain their cooperation by adopting their
egalitarian image of kibbutz, which FO study would have disproved
(Shapira 2005). Thus, even elementary data, such as the number of
employees, the scope of operations and the financial status were
unavailable for most FOs. For example, the true number of employees of
FOs called the Regional Enterprises (Hereafter Reg.Ents. Shapira 1987),
was three times larger than the one quoted by kibbutz member authors
Gelb and Criden (1974: 276. Compare: Cohen, A. 1978: 109). The main
reason was that, although FOs were integral for the simultaneous use of
the three strategies, their cultures negated kibbutz ones. Quite early Buber
(1958[1945]: 141) had asserted that FOs must operate “...under the same
principle that operate in their [kibbutzim] internal structure”. However,
even the main FOs, called the Movements, which were headed by main
leaders and were egalitarian and democratic at first, with success became
oligarchic: Leaders continued for life and deputies for decades; they
accumulated power, prestige and other intangible capitals, centralized rule
and depressed democracy, promoting conservative loyalists and
suppressing critics and radicals (cf. Hirschman 1970). They enlarged their
own and loyalist privileges in accord with Michels’s (1959[1915]) “Iron
Law of Oligarchy”, while using political extremism to defend power
(Chaps. 10-11). Strong leadership fitted the second and third strategies,
but conservative autocracy negated kibbutz ethos and impaired essential
cultural components such as the creativity required to keep the kibbutz
egalitarian and democratic amid growth and success (Stryjan 1989;
Brumann 2000). Stryjan found that with success, growth and complexity,
self-managed organizations such as cooperatives introduced hired labor,
hierarchy, bureaucracy and autocracy that curbed democracy and
creativity. This then caused stagnation and either failure or crises leading
to transformation into capitalist firms. Only kibbutzim were exempted by
remaining relatively small, democratic and creative, eagerly shared
knowledge of successful innovations which were adopted by other
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 5
kibbutzim, while FOs performed functions that required economies of
scale.6 Brumman’s (2000) study of all known successful communal
societies corroborated this: Only communes with a federative structure
continued to succeed beyond the life span of their founders, since this
structure gave individual communes autonomy that prevented suppression
of local creativity by a leader of the whole communal society who had
become an autocratic ruler.
The sad fact was that despite critique of oligarchic and autocratic FOs
which emerged in the kibbutz press since the 1970s, kibbutz students
avoided FOs as did kibbutz members, ignoring the few FO studies that had
been done (Footnote 5). They accepted the FOs definition as non-kibbutz
entities by using the customary kibbutz paradigm (CKP for short) in which
a kibbutz was not a unit of a large, federatively organized social
movement led by privileged power elites whose main careers were made
in FOs or on their behalf in outside bureaucracies. They therefore treated
kibbutz as an isolated commune to be studied like other communal
societies, ignoring Landshut, Buber, Stryjan and others who had pointed to
the decisive role of kibbutz unique federative organizing.7
CKP Users Ignored the Context of FOs with Negative
Practices However, when Stryjan was published in 1989, reality had radically
changed and kibbutz success explained by him had vanished: Most FOs
and kibbutzim were in ruins, deep in a huge debt crisis which has required
two national rescue packages costing the government billions (in $US
terms).8 Many FOs had gone bankrupt; most of the rest were radically
downsized, while a wave of capitalist practices engulfed kibbutzim and
FOs.9 Stryjan had taken an important step toward eliminating the mistaken
6 See support in: Gherardi & Masiero 1990; Semler 1993; Russell 1995; Ingram
& Simons 2002. 7 Even Niv & Bar-On’s (1992) study of FOs role in kibbutz success ignored these
works. 8 On the crisis: Krol 1989; Talmi 1993; Ben-Rafael 1997; Leviatan et al. 1998.
On lack of improvement: Halperin 1999; Dloomi 2000; Bashan 2001; Lazar
2001. 9 Kressel 1992; Pavin 1994; Bien 1995; Rosner & Getz 1996; Ben-Rafael 1997;
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 6
CKP by which students externalized and ignored FOs, but he still missed
the mark since kibbutzim and FOs were together a complex organizational
field in which it was impossible to explain one hemisphere properly,
without studying the other. Moreover, it was essential to untangle the
impact of both hemispheres on its variety of units, their mutual
relationships and relations with the encompassing society.
Stryjan’s mistake was that, like CKP users, he ignored the impact of
contexts on kibbutzim, i.e., both FOs and capitalist society. For instance,
Simons and Ingram (1997) found that use of capital markets by kibbutzim
for financing industrialization, enhanced the capitalist practice of hired
labor. Ethnographers tend to miss impact of contexts, said Marx (1985:
147), and so did kibbutz ones who missed the impact of the context of
conformist, capitalist-like, low-trust FOs, on radical, high-trust kibbutz
cultures.10 FOs were aimed at defending kibbutzim from market pressures
and providing them with unique services, but became Trojan Horses of
capitalist society inside them. The FO functionaries called pe’ilim
(literally: activists. Singular: pa’il), who consisted of kibbutz elite
members, gained extra power, prestige, privileges and job continuity, or
maintained advantages by circulation among FO and kibbutz offices.
Many became autocratic oligarchs, diminished collectivism, democracy,
egalitarianism, solidarity, trust and creative innovation by which problems
caused by growth and success could be solved in accord with the radical
ethos. Stryjan did not allude to works which depicted FOs’ capitalist-like
cultures and their negation of kibbutz cultures,11 and so he missed the fact
that low-trust, hierarchic FOs managed by kibbutz elite members,
negatively impacted kibbutz high-trust, egalitarian cultures. As careers of
most elite members, and especially of the most powerful ones, advanced
primarily in FOs or on their behalf in national executives, their local status
and power in kibbutzim were elevated by high-level outside jobs (Cabinet
Ministers, Knesset [Parliament] Members, Jewish Agency executives, FO
Rosolio 1999.
10 On importance of context: Marx 1985; Bryman et al. 1996. On high- vs. low-
trust cultures: Dore 1973; Fox 1974; Ouchi 1981; Fukuyama 1995; Shapira
1987, 1995b. On kibbutz cultures: Next chapter. 11 Rosolio 1975; Cohen R. 1978; Ron 1978; Shapira 1978, 1978/9, 1986, 1987;
Brum 1986.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 7
heads, etc.), with conspicuous symbols which procured local supremacy.
Anthropologist Rosenfeld (1983[1951]) had already found that the highest
status in Kvutzat Kiriat Anavim12 was held by senior pe’ilim, as was found
by other ethnographers who sought the connection between outside and
inside statuses and powers.13 However, they, too, missed the
oligarchization of the kibbutz field and low-moral, self-serving practices
of many senior pe’ilim (Chap. 4).
Researchers Did Not Study How Rotatzia Enhanced
Oligrachy Stryjan discussed the degeneration of democracy with growth and
economic success (1989: 86-91), but as was usual in organizational
democracy literature,14 he ignored the leadership factor, Michels’s Iron
Law, Jay’s (1969) critique of Machiavellianism and Hirschman’s (1970,
1982) decline theories due to leaders promoting only loyalists and shifting
to private ends. Following dominant kibbutz students, Stryjan supposed
that the rotatzia norm (meaning: rotation) aimed at preventing oligarchy
by replacing officers every few years, indeed prevented it.15 He missed
both the lack of rotatzia in the field’s highest echelons such as prime
leaders, Cabinet Ministers, Knesset Members and FO heads, as well as the
growing rareness of genuine rotatzia in mid- and low-management, i.e.,
officers returning to the ranks and workers taking their place.
With growth of FOs creating many new managerial jobs, most kibbutz
ex-chief officers became pe’ilim, and their prospects of coming back to the
ranks involuntarily became negligible; they either found a continuous
pe’ilut (being a pa’il), or circulated to other offices in the field, or got an
office outside it, or left.16 Few mid-level pe’ilim continued pe’ilut for life, 12 “Kvutza” was called early kibbutz which preferred smallness (Landshut 2000
[1944]). 13 Leshem 1969; Fadida 1972; Topel 1979; Rayman 1981; Shapira 1990, 1992;
Argaman 1997. 14 C.f. Whyte & Whyte 1988, Morrison 1991; Russell & Rus 1991; Lafferty &
Rosenshtein 1993; Heller et al. 1998; Darr & Lewin 2001; Cloke & Goldsmith
2002; Darr & Stern 2002; Sen 2003. 15 Their works: Leviatan 1978, 1993; Rosner 1964, 1982; Talmon 1972; Cohen &
Rosner 1988. 16 Ron 1978; Shapira 1978, 1987, 1990; Helman 1987. Leshem (1969) did not
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 8
while the majority circulated and sometimes returned to kibbutz chief
offices; only some lesser ones returned to the ranks. Many continuous
pe’ilim and circulators became conservative self-servers and suppressed
innovators who sought new solutions for pressing problems.17 The
seemingly egalitarian, high-moral rotatzia, which was hailed by students
as a main reason for kibbutz success, was, in fact, a negative practice. It
encouraged self-serving circulation of conservative officers among
privileged FO jobs as clients of FO heads or executives, while intermittent
returning to kibbutz chief offices enhanced their local dominance. Their
success in the circulation was due to FO heads’ patronage which promoted
conservatism, while patronage enhanced FO heads accumulation of power,
intangible capitals and privileges; thus rotatzia enhanced autocracy,
conservatism and Machiavellianism.
Rotatzia helps to explain why, despite democratic and egalitarian ethos,
prime leaders continued for half a century: It magnified the oligarchic
process by detaching power from responsibility; power was concentrated
at the continuous top, while responsibility rested on fast-changing mid-
and low-level officers.18 This invited conservative, hands-off management,
self-serving shirking of essential leadership tasks in which one could fail
and lose prestige and power which might lead to demotion. Yaakov
Hazan, one of the two prime leaders of the Kibbutz Artzi federation (KA
for short), declared at its convention (I was present): “Leadership is not
done rotationally”. Indeed, genuine leadership that solves major public
problems requires creativity which necessitates a long time horizon
(Jaques 1990), and high-trust relations among actors which require time
and motivation to create (Fox 1974; Axelrod 1984). However, continuous
FO heads and executives thrived on lower echelons’ rotatzia which caused
allude to this, but many of his cases support it. Masculine terminology is used
as continuity and/or circulation were true of most men, but very rare among
women who almost never became oligarchic leaders. 17 This accorded Michels (1959[1915]) and Hirschman (1970, 1982). See: Beilin
1984; Shapira 1987, 1990, 1992a, 1992b; Kynan 1989; Kafkafi 1988, 1992,
1998; Vilan 1993; Rosolio 1999; Aharoni 2000; Shure 2001. 18 For example, chief officers of younger Ichud Movement’s kibbutzim served
about 1.6 years, and veteran kibbutzim about 3.3 years (Meged & Sobol 1970:
27).
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 9
distrust and depressed creativity, as it marred careers of young officers
who promoted public aims by innovation: Their successes were a menace
to the authority of conservative patrons and their loyalists. Hence,
innovators received, at most, passing glory, but rarely office continuity
and promotion. They were mostly demoted and sidetracked although they
knew what would solve major problems, how to achieve it, and had
enough public trust to carry out their ideas. In contrast, mediocre
conservative officers who sought power, status and privileges, were
promoted to FOs due to loyalty to their heads (cf. Hirschman 1970), and
either continued in jobs or circulated among offices, obtaining power,
prestige and privileges which symbolized high status and enhanced power
(cf. Lenski 1966). Often such pe’ilim became local oligarchs as patrons of
younger mediocre officers, ruining trust, democracy, egalitarianism and
creativity (Chaps. 12-17).
Kibbutz students missed this: surveys never asked about it, and those
ethnographers who saw local oligarchs and patronage, did not expose the
fragile status of kibbutz officers and low-rank pe’ilim due to rotatzia,
missing findings which pointed to this fragility such as Leshem’s (1969).
Nor did they untangle how this fragility crippled problem-solving by
innovators and deterred many of them from assuming offices, causing
major leadership failures due to managerial brain-drain. While
problematic abstention of taking offices by competent members was a
well-known phenomenon, called ‘internal leaving’ (Am’ad & Palgi 1986),
as it was not connected to rotatzia’s perils, kibbutz students failed to
explain it.
Historical and Current Proof of Rotatzia Failures Kibbutz research ignored rotatzia literature which has shown that its
principle element, a fixed and short time in office, was tried and failed in
ancient Athens, 2400 years ago, in Imperial China from about 1300 to
1949, in Latin American presidential regimes, in the US army and in the
Israeli armed forces. Its recurring failures remained unrecognized without
integration of research findings of various disciplines (cf. Wallerstein
2004). Time in office was short in order to prevent power and capitals
accumulation by which officers could bar succession. In Athens, it was
one year, Imperial China’s district magistrates were given three years, and
Latin America’s one-term-only presidents have four to six years. In
Imperial China, power was also limited by ‘parachuting’, sending a
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 10
nominee to be a district officer and magistrate over 165 miles away from
home. The inevitable price was weak, inexperienced and ineffective
officers who soon learned that they could not promote public aims and
shifted to personal ends, resulting in rampant corruption, which, in some
eras, brought the majority of them to trial.19 Low morality was built-in:
Aristophanes, Athens’ famous playwright, depicted rotatzia as “the rule of
embezzlement and evil... leadership is the interest of complete
ignoramuses and the lowest of degenerates” (Fuks 1976: 56). In the Israeli
armed forces, Colonel (Reserve) Dr. Vald (1987: 158) found that “rotatzia
turned into a sacred ritual kept zealously because it served promotion
needs ...of unprofessional, inexpert and inexperienced officers”. Gabriel
and Savage (1981), Segal (1981) and other students explained US military
failure in Viet Nam by rotation of both soldiers and officers which marred
trust and solidarity both within and between hierarchic ranks. Henderson
(1990) found the US army “hollow”, without effective fighting units due
to a lack of trust and solidarity because of the rotation system. Guest
(1962), Gabarro (1987), myself (1987, 1995a, 1995b), and Oplatka (2002)
supported this: New outsider managers, as was common in the kibbutz
field and in other cases of rotatzia, needed years to build trust with
subordinates, to learn local problems thoroughly and to invent, test and
implement radical solutions. Rotatzia, however, marred trust building, left
little time for its use and made success at radical changes implausible;
hence it encouraged officers’ conservatism.
Though kibbutz research explained adaptability and innovation by
rotatzia, it never referred to this literature and rarely bothered to study
how it really functioned. Since the mid-1970s the kibbutz press criticized
extra continuity of pe’ilim, both continuous and circulative, but rotatzia
was studied only inside kibbutzim by survey researches, ignoring this
press and ethnographies untangling circulative continuity of pe’ilim and
the fact that circulators became local patrons much like continuous pe’ilim
(e.g. Topel 1979). Students missed the dark side, the non-democratic face
of rotatzia: both types of pe’ilim acted as local patrons who controlled
19 On Athens: Burn 1964; Bowra 1971; Fuks 1976. On China: Chang 1955;
Chow 1966; Folsom 1968; Watt 1972. On Latin America: Davis 1958; Sanders
1989; Linz 1990; Mainwaring 1990. On shifting to personal aims: Hirschman
1982.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 11
clients’ circulation in managerial jobs and through them a kibbutz.20 Other
structural failures were also missed: With FOs growth creating many new
offices, an ex-pa’il taking a kibbutz office was often provisional, until his
next pe’ilut commenced; thus he evaded major problems or camouflaged
solutions (Chaps. 12-14). Often ex-pe’ilim took only lesser jobs as it was
easier to find a successor for these when a pe’ilut became available
(Fadida 1972: 89). Am’ad and Palgi (1986) missed this reason for ‘internal
leaving’, failing to notice that asking to be freed for pe’ilut from an office
before a term had ended and a successor had been found, was grasped as
“careerism” and led to gossip or even open criticism. However, members
might not dare to oppose it in the General Assembly by raising their
hands, as this could precipitate revenge by an injured protagonist, and
since in most cases, after a short time, he got approval for another
pe’ilut.21
Heidenheimer’s (1970: 184-8) critique of the corrupt US public service
supports the above: High turnover of officers due to political nominations
created a structure without adequate motivators to grasp public office as a
public trust; hence, relatively few officers were truly public servants,
dedicated to solving public problems when it required paying some
personal price. Among the hundreds of pe’ilim and ex-pe’ilim whom I
studied from 1975 to 1992, only a few were corrupt like US officials, but
not many more were truly public servants either. Rotatzia demoted many
of these, preventing office continuity by which trust gained by early truly
public service, enhanced solving harder problems later on. For instance,
Pericles brought Athens to its Golden Age, 444-429 B.C., since he had
become Strategos, the only office in which reelection was allowed, and
due to fourteen reelections he succeeded. Rotatzia is a Procrustean bed for
genuine leaders aimed at the public good; it legitimizes their replacements
without intrinsic reason, and deprives them of a clear mandate that defends
authority used positively. This deters talented radicals from offices and
enhances continuity of mediocre officers. They defend their fragile status
20 Critical publications concerning rotatzia will be detailed. Kibbutz rotatzia
studies: Meged & Sobol 1970; Leviatan 1978, 1993; Helman 1987; Einat 1991;
Shapira 1995a. 21 Vilan 1993: 247-8; Kafkafi 1998: 30. On the General Assembly voting:
Argaman 1997.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 12
by low morality: evading coping with difficult problems, masking failures
or blaming them on others, taking credit for successes, even those which
one tried to abort, nurturing ties with patrons, not bothering about public
interest and concealing or camouflaging its evasion, just keeping the
image of caring for it.22 Kibbutz rotatzia often failed to replace such
officers who ignored informal pressures to resign, using patrons’ backing
and the lack of a formal succession timetable, no clear-cut procedures and
no open competition for offices. As Banfield (1958) has shown and others
supported (See Chap. 9), low morality ruins trust in an officer: commoners
who discern shirking of duties and seeking private ends as well as its
concealment, resist his decisions and orders. Then the officer uses
coercion that ruins trust: he centralizes control, threatens and then
punishes inconformity, monopolizes information, rewards and promotes
his loyalists, and sidetracks, demotes and pushes to exit critics who are
truly public servants.23
Many FO heads used such means from the early days to control both
hired employees and pe’ilim, but even if some coercion was legitimate for
the former, it was illegitimate for pe’ilim who, as kibbutz members, had to
be trusted as co-owners and part of democratic decision-making. As this
was rare in FOs, and as pe’ilim included a majority of kibbutz power
elites, it was clear that the true dynamics of kibbutz society were
inexplicable without untangling the malfunctioning of this
incommensurate control. Moreover, by ignoring this, kibbutz research
missed dealing with the leadership factor although ample evidence has
proved its decisive role in both large organizations and social
movements.24
22 Dalton 1959; Maccoby 1976; Shapira 1987; Jackall 1988; Scharfstein 1995;
Chaps. 12, 14, 15. 23 Michels 1959[1915]; Dalton 1959; Jay 1969; Hirschman 1970; Shapira 1987,
1995b. 24 Guest 1962; Downton 1973; Greenleaf 1977; Geneen 1984; Sieff 1988; DePree
1990; Graham 1991; Sergiovanni 1992; Kouzes & Posner 1993; Terry 1993;
Brumann 2000; Guiliani 2002.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 13
The Conundrum of Trust and Leadership Morality in
DWOs Burns (1978) points to dependence of long-term viable democracy upon
transformational leaders who make radical changes, required to solve
major problems that impair the advance of public interests, aims and
wishes. Organizational theorists and practitioners have alluded to the high-
trust level required between transformational leaders and followers in
order to overcome the hurdles of radical changes, and have recognized that
high-trust required high-moral behavior by public servant leaders.25 While
it was clear that the kibbutz movement could not overcome the huge
obstacles it faced in the early era without such highly trusted leaders, the
ultra-long continuity of its prime leaders, their oligarchization and self-
serving behavior (to be described later), proved that their morality had
already started to decline in the late 1930s. This was four decades before
they vanished and the peak of success of the kibbutz system. So how was
this success possible in such a fast-changing environment and in a fast-
growing system, while leaders were oligarchic and conservative? Can the
explanation of this unique society reveal the secrets of the trust and
leadership conundrum in democratic work organizations (DWOs) which
will change basic ideas about the possibilities of making democratic
management viable for good? Can it pave the way to its replacement of
bureaucracy as a main control mode of large work organizations, as has
been proposed by some authors?26
“Democratic Work Organizations” is a better term than “Self-Managed
Organizations” used by Stryjan (1989), since it indicates their culture’s
main feature, a high-trust, solidaristic democracy that requires no market
forces to coerce people to take their jobs, and no hierarchic, autocratic
bureaucracy to control their work, since managers are chosen and replaced
by them, as has been in successful kibbutzim. In principle, an individual is
chosen manager since he is trusted by the majority, and is replaced when
trust vanishes. However, the growing interest in trust as a prime factor of
25 See sources in previous footnote and: Banfield 1958; Ouchi 1981; Shapira
1987, 1995b, 2001; Harvey-Jones 1988; Kets De Vries 1993; Hosmer 1995;
O’Toole 1999; Cloke & Goldsmith 2002. 26 Whyte & Whyte 1988; Morrison 1991; Semler 1993; Cloke & Goldsmith
2002; Sen 2003.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 14
organizations and societies emphasizes the omission of this factor in
industrial democracy literature, making it barely relevant for the
advancement of DWOs theory and practice.27 The kibbutz experience
would point in the same direction: success was achieved by effective
democracy and high-trust cultures, led by competent, effective and high-
moral leaders committed to common aims. These leaders modeled hard
work and asceticism, and motivated members to achieve these aims by
seeking new solutions to problems, even when such solutions enhanced
members’ prestige and curbed their own.28 Stryjan’s (1989) finding that
democracy in cooperatives declined with success and growth, missed the
fact that concomitant oligarchization of leadership was a major reason for
it, for growing distrust of officers and for loss of work motivation curbing
efficiency, effectiveness and innovation required to compete in markets.
Without effective democracy, the ample power of a leader prevents
members’ distrust from bringing about his succession; hence, the DWO is
led to inevitable deterioration, since there is no one with supreme authority
to replace him, unlike many public firms. This is a prime reason for the
fact that, despite many successful DWOs, low-trust, coercive
bureaucracies, whose acute and insoluble ailments have been documented
by a vast literature, have remained hegemonic among large
organizations.29
This continued hegemony raises a troubling question for everyone who
believes in democracy: Why is democracy preferred in the control of
states and communities, but not in work organizations? Moreover, with
globalization and the large number of firms that are much larger, richer
and more powerful than many states, not to mention communities, can the
latter remain democratic while the former are autocratic? Feenberg (1995)
27 This literature: footnote 14. Trust in organizations: Hosmer 1995; Bigley &
Pearce 1998; Korczynski 2000; Adler 2001; Dierkes et al. 2001; Maister et al.
2001; Reed 2001; Shapira 2001; Noteboom 2002; Kramer & Cook 2004;
Preece 2004. Trust in societies: Gambetta 1988; Fukuyama 1995; Misztal
1996; Govier 1997; Seligman 1997; Putnam 2000; Cook 2001. 28 Dore (1973: Chap. 9) exposed this in a high-trust Japanese firm. 29 It is too vast to refer more than classics: Selznick 1949; Roy 1952; Gouldner
1954, 1955; Parkinson 1957; Dalton 1959; Crozier 1964; Presthus 1964; Jay
1969; Peter & Hull 1969.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 15
has pointed to this drawback of Western democracies, explaining it by
modern technology’s tendency to lend itself to autocratic administration,
although “in a different social context it could just as well be operated
democratically” (p. 4). Creating such a context requires creativity, but
modern technology encourages scale that depresses creativity, as in
Stryjan’s theory of DWOs failing and becoming capitalist firms with
success and growth. Scale enhances a leader’s power that tends to
encourage self-perpetuation efforts by neutralizing democracy, another
reason for a DWO becoming an autocratic and oligarchic bureaucracy
without creativity. This decisive problem has never been solved by any
DWO, including the kibbutz.
This problem is decisive since power and intangible capitals
accumulation by leaders enhance themselves by additional means to those
cited by Michels and Hirschman. For instance, privileges that assure
loyalty of deputies and staff also add prestige and enhance power that
engenders more privileges, adding prestige and power in a cycle, until the
price of power increment exceeds profit (Lenski 1966; Harris 1990: 365-
85). However, while an oligarchic leader may hold power for half a
century, like prime kibbutz leaders did, his dysfunction phase in which he
becomes a self-serving conservative may commence after less than a
decade (Hambrick & Fukutomi 1991). To avert this, US corporations
encourage 87% of their heads to retire within 12 years by generous
endowments called “golden parachutes” (Vancil 1987: 79). Without any
replacement mechanism or with an ineffective one such as rotatzia, past
effective leaders tend to be dysfunctional for dozens of years. According
to Lord Acton they are corrupted, and according to Kets De Vries (1993)
extra continuity multiplies the negative metamorphic effects of power on
these leaders and their organizations. Worse still, when they vanish,
deterioration tends to deepen since the successor who has to cope with
problems left by decades of a leader’s dysfunction is usually a loyalist
who lacks critical thinking, and, due to this deficiency, he fails
(Hirschman 1970). Thus, without a solution for succeeding leaders just as
they enter the dysfunction phase and become self-serving conservatives,
successful DWOs’ effectiveness, efficiency, democracy, trust and
creativity are virtually doomed. Even if a successful DWO survives
decades of its leader’s self-serving conservatism, an uncritical loyalist
successor furthers the degeneration of the culture by which it succeeded.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 16
Eventual collapse is prevented usually only if the inept successor is
replaced by a talented outsider who uses hierarchy and market controls
rather than trust and democracy, save the firm by cancelling the remnants
of the DWO culture.30
Decline and Resurrection in Kibbutzim and Cooperatives Neither DWO students, nor post-modernists and other critics of
modernism have given any positive answers to this troubling scenario, nor
have they offered new ways of democratic, timely succession of leaders
that would curb it. The alleged kibbutz solution, rotatzia, encouraged
oligarchy and the Hirschmanian purging of radical creative talents,
enhanced continuity of FO heads who became self-serving conservatives,
emasculated democracy and curbed solidarity, trust and creativity both in
FOs and in kibbutzim. Hence, something else or, perhaps, additional
factors, must explain how, despite these phenomena, most kibbutzim
succeeded for four additional decades and some even continue to succeed
up to the present, seven additional decades, while their main leaders were
dysfunctional and their loyalist successors did even worse.
In veteran Kibbutz Kochav (established in the 1920s), I found renewed
creativity from the mid-1950s, when a new generation of radicals entered
chief offices. Their creative solutions renewed trust, egalitarianism and
solidarity, revitalizing their kibbutz and other kibbutzim that imitated it.
This revitalization of local culture engendered a social context in which
modern technologies lent themselves to democratic management in accord
with Feenberg (1995), and the kibbutz flourished. However, rotatzia soon
demoted and sidetracked the radicals as they did not advance to
prestigious FO jobs after finishing short local terms, or were soon replaced
in FO jobs due to clashes with conservative superiors, so they returned to
local lesser jobs and/or left. Loyalists of the conservative old guard who
were promoted to FO jobs, subdued innovators, creativity vanished, and
with it adaptability and profitability (Shapira 1990). The dominant
scientific coalition of kibbutz students has ignored my findings, although
these could have explained both past kibbutz success, despite conservative
30 On outsider successors see: Gouldner 1954; Chung et al. 1987; Shapira 1987;
Cannella & Lubatkin 1993.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 17
Movement leaders, and its more recent crisis and decline.31 Moreover,
kibbutz literature depicted leaders as charismatic, but I have found that
both these radicals and the old guard were transformational leaders who
trusted followers and encouraged use of their own faculties for creative
problem-solving, unlike charismatic leaders who urge the public to follow
their solutions without questioning their rationale which only they
understand.32 Furthermore, creative innovations by radicals were
successfully implemented due to the above tradition of trusting followers,
and because old guard leaders remained high-moral and democratic
locally, though their power and prestige largely stemmed from high-level
jobs in conservative FOs. Thus, they mostly opposed innovations, but they
remained democratic, and due to high morality, they never used power to
obstruct innovations, as patrons in other, more conservative kibbutzim had
done, as they became low-moral quite early and obstructed innovations by
various undemocratic means, aiming at preventing ascendance of new,
radical powers (Chaps. 12, 14, 15).
Interestingly, the bulk of large, veteran kibbutzim, to which the
majority of kibbutz population belonged resurrected in their fourth and
fifth decades (1960-1980). This occurrence is explicable by the high
morality of the old guard and the democratic tradition it created, together
with the rise of second generation radicals to chief kibbutz offices and
their following old guard morality but not its conservatism. This seemed to
resemble Staber’s (1989) Canadian cooperatives: resurrection emerged if
kibbutzim overcame the ‘mid-life crises’ of their second and third
decades.33 It seemed that, since the late 1930s, old guard leaders had
entered a dysfunction phase. Negative metamorphic effects of continuous
power encouraged the blocking of creativity in kibbutzim, causing the
‘mid-life crises’ of the 1950s,34 and then, a new generation radicals had
revitalized them. But how did they accomplish this, despite the growing
31 On such coalitions: Collins 1975: Chap. 9. On ignoring my findings see:
Shapira 2005. 32 Leaders were charismatic: Rayman 1981: 268; Argaman 1997: 216; Ben-
Rafael 1997: 45; Niv & Bar-On 1992: 221; Rosolio 1999: 23. Charismatic
versus transformational leaders: Barbuto 1997; Beyer 1999. 33 See some support by findings of French cooperatives by Estrin & Jones 1992. 34 Near 1997; Rosolio 1999; Shalem 2000.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 18
imitative impact of powerful FOs? Does this impact explain the fact that
these cases were rare, and creativity soon vanished again, while
innovations prolonged organizational success for some decades but the re-
ascent of conservative, uncritical loyalists led to the current crisis? Why,
despite the dominance of FOs and conservative pe’ilim, did most
kibbutzim imitate these innovations in the resurrection period and even
adopt norms that reduced pe’ilim privileges, although conservative FO
heads and pe’ilim dominated the field? Can an explanation of this complex
development lead to a new paradigm that integrates FOs and kibbutzim,
corrects Stryjan’s omissions and provides a new model that points to
solutions which can turn “impossible” DWOs into an attractive
alternatives to bureaucracies?
Kibbutz Success Secrets and the Required Cultural
Perspective Both the dominant kibbutz scientific coalition and Stryjan missed secrets
of high-trust, democratic and creative cultures which made kibbutzim
effective, efficient and adaptable for so long: transformational, public
servant leaders (Greenleaf 1977; Graham 1991) who remained highly
moral locally, even after they had become conservative FO heads, and the
democratic tradition shaped by such servant leaders. The main reason for
these omissions was the lack of FO research and the use of mistaken
customary research paradigm that missed kibbutz uniqueness. Another
was the disregard of ethnographies that exposed local dominance of
kibbutzim by informal power structures consisting of patrons who were
pe’ilim and/or ex-pe’ilim, their clients and loyalists, or patrons and cliques
who managed large, mass hired-labor local plants while imitating pe’ilim
with Movement backing (Kressel 1971, 1974). A third reason was the
fluctuations of creativity due to cultural struggles between FOs and
kibbutzim, and within each type, especially when a high-moral second
generation of radicals emerged, and the fourth reason was confusing trust
and leadership literature (Chap. 9). The fifth reason was that industrial
democracy literature ignored leadership and oligarchy as did Stryjan,35 the
sixth reason was schisms among disciplines which prevented the use of
35 This literature: footnote 14; only Cloke & Goldsmith (2002: Ch. 11) deal with
leadership, and only normatively, ignore its ample complications.
1. The Mistaken Paradigm of Customary Kibbutz Research 19
one discipline’s findings for others’ benefit (Wallerstein 2004), and the
seventh was preference by dominant social researchers for promoting their
own careers over scientific progress (Shapira 2005).
Anthropologist Hammersley (1992) has pointed to the problematic
record of ethnographies in the development of new theories. However, I
will outline a kibbutz success and decline theory, in accordance with more
positive views of organizational anthropology,36 by using the multiple
ethnographies made during dozens of years in various parts of kibbutz
society. I will also utilize the fact that this society has been intensely
studied, using lessons of long experience in kibbutz executive jobs
(Shapira 2005) and the help of organizational anthropology classics and
moral leadership studies, which have been ignored by both kibbutz and
DWO students. I will point to a new kibbutz theory that leads to a trust
and moral leadership model which explores possible democratic solutions
for the Iron Law and Hirschman’s (1970, 1982) problems, without
stratification-enhancing solution such as “Golden Parachutes”. Its
cornerstone is the choice and succession of leaders in a way that
encourages solidaristic democracy, high-trust culture and creativity. This
may prevent the tendency of DWOs to imitate capitalist firms with success
and growth, and to fail more frequently than such firms during periods of
recession (Hirschman 1984). In this way, large, federatively organized
DWOs can become an attractive alternative to authoritarian bureaucracies.
The advancement of a new, better DWOs theory is greatly needed for
the creation of more just and effective alternatives to current coercive
bureaucracies. However, without a cultural perspective that exposes the
components of kibbutz cultures that brought success, the reasoning behind
this idea and its potential for giving rise to sustainable DWOs will remain
unclear. Bate (1997) pointed to the negative effects of four decades of
separation of organizational behaviorists and sociologists from
organizational ethnography. DWOs research followed the former; hence, it
lacked a cultural perspective. Thus, the next step towards comprehending
kibbutz and proposing a new model for sustainable DWOs, is introducing
this perspective.
36 Czarniawska-Joerges 1992; Martin 1992; Linstead et al. 1996; Bate 1997;
James et al. 1997.
CHAPTER 2
Kibbutz Cultural Perspective
The discussion of kibbutz cultural perspective first requires clarification of
the concept of culture. Although the study of cultures has become of
central interest for many disciplines, the definition of culture remained
varied. For Geertz (1973), cultures are meaning structures that control
human behavior, while for Harris (1990) and Vaughan (1996), they are
collections of practical solutions for existential problems. Bourdieu (1990:
86) has connected these views: Cultures are “symbolic systems [that] owe
their practical coherence – that is, on the one hand, their unity and
regularity, and on the other, their ‘fussiness’, their irregularities and even
incoherences, … being inscribed in the logic of their genesis and
functioning - to the fact that they are the product of practices that can
fulfill their practical functions only in so far as they implement...
principles that are not only coherent… and compatible with the objective
conditions – but also practical,… easy to master and use, because they
obey a ‘pure’ economic logic”. However, Perrow (1970) observed
organizational cultures and found that what is practical and logical for one
organization may be illogical for another with the same formal aims but
with different strategy, technology, market niche, tenure of employees,
their know-how and competences.1 In the same vein, Hawthorn (1991) has
pointed out that plausible alternatives with different logics to a solution
that has been chosen, have usually been forgotten with the latter’s success.
However, the plausibility of alternatives changes due to the creativity
of human action (Joas 1996): an alternative which is implausible with
existing knowledge, skills, tools and technologies, becomes plausible with
new ones, overcoming prior obstacles. Creativity is decisive for communal
societies as they have been interested in turning stirring, utopian ideas into
reality by creating unique cultures (Stryjan 1989). Such societies control
almost all aspects of their members’ lives much like total institutions, but
since, unlike such institutions, members are free to leave, they have to
attract and retain them by adding other rewards and special mechanisms
1 For quite a similar point, see Cappelli & Crocker-Hefter (1996).
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 21
that enhance solidarity and commitment.2 Since a culture is a system of
meanings that serves as a control mechanism of behavior, communal
societies tend toward isolationism as a defense mechanism for unique
meaning systems of radical cultures against the homogenizing pressures of
dominant cultures (DiMaggio & Powell 1983). Participants of a typical
successful social movement, however, need no such defense, as they find
that, what is meaningful in their own lives, intersects with societal
changes, both those they aspire to bring about, and those they have already
generated.
A successful social movement causes changes both within itself and in
the surrounding society (Turner 1983), while a successful communal
movement (except for the kibbutz) changes only itself and, at most, a
nearby region, rather than a whole society (Berger 1987). No wonder
social movements research and communal studies have been divorced
from one another; students of communes did not assess their effects on
society and rarely those of societal contexts on communes. For instance, in
the Amsterdam Conference of the International Communal Studies
Association in 1998, not even one lecture out of 115 was devoted to the
study of these effects.3 On the other hand, research of social movements
has, until recently, ignored a main concern of communal studies:
members’ community motives and commitment mechanisms.4
CKP Misses the Main Cultural Conflict of the Kibbutz
Field The divorce of communal studies from social movement research helped
kibbutz students to miss the field’s main cultural conflict and the
incoherences it created. If a culture mixes together “coherence, unity and
regularities” and “‘fussiness’, irregularities and even incoherences” as
Bourdieu asserted, then the cultures of the kibbutz field which included
2 Landshut 2000[1944]: Chap. 5; Knaani 1960; Kanter 1972; Shepher, I. &
Shapira 1992. 3 The same was true of earlier conferences, for instance in Israel 1985 (Gorni et
al. 1987). 4 In communal studies: Knaani 1960; Kanter 1972; Shepher, I. & Shapira 1992.
In social movement studies: Melucci 1989; Downton & Wehr 1991; Gamson
1991; Kendrick 1991.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 22
both egalitarian communes and bureaucratic, stratified FOs, mixed
coherent with incoherent values, beliefs, norms and action modes. This
mix solved many existential problems, but harmed the creation of a
coherent alternative meaning structure to that of the undemocratic
organizations of encompassing society. Such a meaning structure is
essential for a radical social movement in order to keep members’ faith in
its cause, to attract new members and prevent departures, to engender
conformity and to motivate efforts at promoting its aims.5 Did kibbutz
creativity solve existential problems of growth which brought success, as
Stryjan (1989) asserted, but not solved the field’s main contradictions and
cultural incoherences resulting from leaders’ conservatism and
suppression of innovators which engendered cultural decline and failure?
The exceptional success of kibbutz was explained by its being
“adaptive and highly creative” (another study said it “mastered the art of
change”),6 but no study explained how this was possible with
conservative, oligarchic and autocratic leaders who remained in office for
half a century, truly a Michelian nightmare. The use of CKP excluded FOs
with quasi-capitalist cultures from kibbutz study, missing the main change
process, oligarchization, which negated creativity by breeding a large and
conspicuous conservative elite of pe’ilim whose upper strata violated
rotatzia, or violated its intention by circulating between managerial jobs,
accumulating power, intangible capitals and privileges on a different scale
than officers of kibbutzim (Chaps. 6-8).7 However, to what degree did the
creativity of kibbutzim overcome the cultural conflict FOs engendered,
and to what extent was an alternative meaning structure maintained with
oligarchic and bureaucratic FOs growing up to employing most kibbutz
elite members? Both exceptional past successes of kibbutz and its recent
decline were inexplicable when ignoring this cultural conflict and its
negative effect on the movement’s alternative meaning structure. This
conflict raises questions: How was so large a membership mobilized
5 Downton 1973; Downton & Wehr 1991; Gamson 1991; Kendrick 1991;
Swidler 1995. 6 See respectively: Spiro 1983: 4; Niv & Bar-On 1992: 215. Also: Stryjan 1989;
Brumann 2000. 7 On such capitals and privileges see: Bourdieu 1977, 1984, 1988, 1996a;
Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992; Harris 1990: 365-76.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 23
despite the fact that FOs harmed the movement’s democratic and
egalitarian meaning structure? If Zionist enthusiasm explained this
mobilization, how did the kibbutz continue to grow for four decades after
1948 when this zest had subsided as the Israeli state took over Zionist
tasks which hitherto had been fulfilled by kibbutzim? To what extent was
members’ commitment for the movement’s cause harmed due to the
violation by oligarchic FOs of the kibbutz ethos? Hambrick and Mason
(1984) found that organizations tended to reflect their heads; hence, to
what extent did kibbutzim reflect the oligarchization of local heads and
how much that of FO heads? If creativity ended due to its suppression by
national leaders, why did not the fact that the most powerful leaders
vanished in 1970-1 enhanced creativity and why the resurrection period
did not continue after the 1970s? Why were all solutions used by
kibbutzim to cope with the 1980s debt crisis capitalistic rather than
renewing socialist cultures? A clue to the answers can only be found by
delving further into kibbutz cultures.
Cultural Uniqueness Three: Creativity Chapter One discussed two unique cultural components of kibbutz,
unknown in other successful communal societies: a federative structure
and much involvement in surrounding society. Creativity, the invention of
original solutions for problems, is the third unique component which
explains kibbutz exceptional success, but no one has studied its
distribution in the field and along its history. Stryjan has integrated
creativity theoretically with workplace democracy and federative
structure, and Brumann (2000) supported him by pointing to the decisive
role of federative structure in limiting dominance of successful,
continuous oligarchic leaders, a dominance leading to stagnation and
decline. Creativity was essential for maintaining other cultural
components in large and variegated kibbutzim: solidaristic democracy,
self-work and high-trust relations. Hutterites and other successful
communes retained uniqueness by seclusion and conservatism (after an
initial creativity period: Oved 1988; Brumman 2000), while involved
kibbutzim maintained their uniqueness against societal capitalist gravity
by both creatively solving problems caused by growth and success, and by
leading societal progress in many sectors, remaining competitive in
markets, and coping with surrounding society’s threats of a brain-drain by
offering the talented members career opportunities, material and non-
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 24
material rewards.8 However, even when innovation was studied, creative
solutions and the careers of radicals who invented and introduced them
were not. Hence, this part of kibbutz history remained unknown and its
etiology unexplored. Until Stryjan’s (1989) study, creativity was not
considered decisive for DWOs; even recent DWOs and kibbutz literature
have ignored it and Stryjan’s theory,9 but DWOs cannot maintain their
radical cultures and challenge surrounding cultures without creative
problem-solving. My study strongly support Stryjan’s thesis that creativity
is the decisive factor that maintains DWOs viability, adaptability and
competitiveness, essential for overcoming problems of scale,
specialization and diversity so that democracy and egalitarianism are
thriving despite scale problems escorting success.
Creativity negates the new institutional approach of organizational
sociologists which DWO student Russell used (1995: 5): “The
organizational models they [founders of organizations] choose are always
selected from among those that are made available to them by their society
and their era”. However, no society or era made the kibbutz model
available to its founders; it was their own creation by trial and error of
various organizational types: small kvutza, moshav, collective moshav,
large kvutza, ‘organic’ kibbutz and “work battalion”.10 The ‘Iron Cage’
hypothesis of this approach forecasts that only organizations which
conform to societal norms succeed in the long run,11 but the most
successful periods of kibbutz, 1930s-1940s and 1960s-1970s, were the
opposite, exhibiting creative non-conformity, in accord with Stryjan, while
during its crisis periods, 1950s-early-1960s and 1980s-onward,
conservatism reigned along with capitalist conformity. Furthermore, I will
demonstrate that in all five kibbutz case studies, the success of unique
kibbutz culture positively correlated with creativity, much like many other
communes, Mondragon cooperatives, Brazilian Semco, and other
8 On gravity of social fields: Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992. On rewards and
retention: Rosner 1964; Shapira 1979a, 1980; Shepher I. & Shapira 1992;
Chapters 13, 15-17. 9 Hence Stryjan 1989 is not referred to by any of their publications cited here. 10 Landshut 2000[1944]; Buber 1958[1945]); Willner 1969; Yaar et al. 1994;
Goldstein 2003: 120. 11 DiMaggio & Powell 1983; Powell & DiMaggio 1991.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 25
organizations with unique cultures, including US nuclear submarines.12
Cultural Uniqueness Four: Large Size and 3-4 Deck
Structure Van den Berge and Peter (1988) see “nepotistic communism” as a prime
factor which explains the exceptional success of both Hutterites and
kibbutzim. However, how can nepotism be a main factor among the
thousands of officers who managed some 500 units, kibbutzim and FOs,
who emigrated from dozens of countries, who were mostly replaced every
few years, while only a negligible number of them were relatives?
Nepotism seemingly explained the success of a Hutterite commune
averaging 100 inhabitants of ten-twenty families, almost all of whom were
its offspring and their spouses, coming from similar communes, but not a
kibbutz, five to ten times larger, where most members came from outside
the field.13 Nepotism negates choosing officers in accordance with
competence, ingenuity and commitment to public aims; this suited
Hutterite conservatism with norms and practices four centuries old and
virtually no creativity, but rather adoption of societal innovation only in
the production sector.
Stryjan explained kibbutz success by economy of scale which did not
bar creativity due to a federative structure that kept units small, and
Brumann (2000) corroborated this view. As I will show, smallness was
achieved despite successful kibbutzim being large, by federating semi-
autonomous branches producing for different markets. Thus, the field has
a three-deck federative structure: FOs, kibbutzim and kibbutz branches.
Moreover, large branches such as kibbutz factories often federated semi-
autonomous production units; hence, it was a four-deck federative
structure which enhanced creativity (Shapira 1979a, 1980).
Quite a similar structure explained the success of Semler’s (1993)
democratic group of firms Semco, while one explanation for the 1974
crisis of Mondragon cooperatives was the lack of such structure in their
12 Burns & Stalker 1961; Whyte & Whyte 1988; DePree 1990; Morrison 1991;
Semler 1993; Bierly III & Spender 1995; Cappelli & Crocker-Hefter 1996;
Buckingham & Coffman 1999. 13 Kibbutzim: Maron 1988, 1992. Hutterites: Holzach 1982; Oved 1988; Baer-
Lambach 1992.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 26
larger cooperative which numbered thousands, and such a structure was
subsequently created (Whyte & Whyte 1988: 91-102; 159-65). Autonomy
of branches brought diversification which enhanced economic growth,
while, due to mechanization and factory automation, many branches
gained considerable scale even without hired labor.14 Many conservative
younger kibbutzim suffered very high exit rates and brain-drain, remained
small, rarely gained such a scale and were unsuccessful (Chaps. 14-15),
while veteran kibbutzim such as Kochav, with 956 inhabitants in 1986,
better restricted Hirschman’s (1970) negative selection of radicals,
conserving brain-power and creativity. Even conservative veteran Rama
(fictive name; Chaps. 12-13) grew to some 700 inhabitants and kept
enough second generation talents by offering jobs and specializations so
that many of these talents became skilled, effective and esteemed workers
and artisans. Another example: the self-work plant of Carmelit offered its
some hundred employees about 35 specializations (Chap. 15). Even when
oligarchic conservatism and leftism caused crises and mass exit of the
disenchanted, large kibbutzim retained enough brain-power to remain
viable, while many smaller ones failed.
A successful kibbutz is large, often surpassing the most successful
Shaker and Amana communes of 450-600 inhabitants (Oved 1988;
Latimore 1991). This is supported by Brumann (2000), who found that
viable, long-lasting communes numbered 75-500 members, i.e., some 120-
800 inhabitants. A major reason for communes scale limit is that a leader
can personally know everyone and nurture high-trust relations in a
working unit of up to 500 people (Jay 1972: 106). As such relations are
essential for other components of kibbutz culture (See below), in accord
with this limit, successful kibbutzim whose creativity maintained cultural
uniqueness, numbered up to five hundred working members and, together
with children and disabled elderly, up to 800-900 inhabitants.
Cultural Uniqueness Five: Egalitarian, Solidaristic
Democracy The fifth unique component is democracy, which all students have cited.
Contrary to other successful communes in which democracy was informal
at best, Rosner (1993: 373-4) pointed out that kibbutz was a community
14 Drin-Drabkin 1961; Barkai 1977; Shapira 1980; Don 1988; Rosner 1992.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 27
based on “solidarity …and mutual trust [that] is the condition for its
functioning,” “direct and participatory democracy, …negotiations, a two-
way flow of views and information… and voice…” (italics original).
Solidarity due to high mutual trust and common radical aims, points to the
non-adversarial nature of kibbutz democracy, contrary to capitalist
democracy. This is decisive for creativity amid growth, specialization and
sophistication, three factors that tend to suppress the trust and solidarity
which are essential for knowledge sharing and creativity.15 Though it is
obvious that solidarity and egalitarianism go hand in hand, the type of
egalitarianism is less clear. For Rosner and Getz (1996: 34-5), the kibbutz
“pivotal principle” is “from each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs”, but Rosner’s definition of kibbutz cited above did
not mention the principle’s first half at all, while its second half was
different (“…the distribution of all material rewards is equal, mostly
according to need”) and was not considered a main factor to be mention,
as was in Rosner’s (1991) definition of kibbutz. Moreover, need did not
explain the building and allocation of larger and better flats to more
tenured members, though this was and still is a major norm which has
provided greater rewards to those who have invested more efforts in their
kibbutz. This norm meant a principle of equity instead of equality in the
allocation of the largest material reward type. Another set of norms did not
accord needs, but rather a “mechanical” equality, furnishing goods by
either a time norm (“everyone is given a new shirt annually”), or a
quantity norm (“everyone is entitled to a pair of boots which are repaired
or replaced when damaged”).
It is clear that the “pivotal principle” is only one among several
egalitarian principles used by kibbutzim. It is better grasped as a part of
kibbutz ethos, and it is less pivotal than democracy which equalizes
members’ power which determines the realization of egalitarianism. Many
communes were non-democratic, such as religious ones, but, in kibbutz,
democracy was an integral part of egalitarianism, though some students
have missed this. Their failure to take note of this can be understood in
light of the oligarchization of the field which depressed democracy and
egalitarianism, and by democracy succeeding only when and where high-
15 Deutsch 1962; Guest 1962; Zand 1972, 1997; Dore 1973; Shapira 1987, 1995b;
Saxenian 1994; Powell et al. 1996; Adler 2001; Preece 2004.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 28
moral kibbutz local leaders nullified the negative impact of FO heads’
low-moral conservatism and appropriation of privileges. This allowed
innovators to advance to kibbutz management and to introduce original
solutions that provided answers to ordinary members’ distresses and
encouraged participation in the democratic process, as during Carmelit’s
and Kochav’s periods of creativity (Chaps. 15-16).
False Component: Economic Growth by Entrepreneurship For Ben-Rafael (1997: 15-18) the “most outstanding feature” of kibbutz is
the “progress-entrepreneurship principle” which “justifies its very
existence”. This means priority to economic success and growth, but R.
Cohen’s (1978) seminal work proves that this priority negated kibbutz
ethos, and the history of the first four decades of pioneering, up to the
1950s, disproves Ben-Rafael’s claim, indicating that unprofitable aims
were supreme: The establishment of kibbutzim in desolate areas with little
prospects for economic viability, sending hundreds of the most talented
members to the Jewish Diaspora and to local urban centers to educate
youth for pioneering, conscripting thousands of members to smuggle
Jewish immigrants from Europe and to found, equip, train and sustain the
underground Palmach army, sending thousands of members to serve in the
Jewish Brigade during World War II, and sustaining national parties.
Economic success has gained priority only since the 1950s, after the
state took over Zionist tasks, and after oligarchization had commenced,
when the two prime leaders, Tabenkin and Yaari, shifted from pursuing
kibbutz cause by encouraging creativity, to conservative power self-
perpetuation. The two concentrated control, curtailed Movements’
democracy and moved to adoration of Stalin’s totalitarian, barbarous
regime which totally negated the humane and democratic kibbutz ethos,
but legitimized their office continuity, suppression of radicals, curtailing
of democracy, censorship of publications and self-admiration, similar to
Stalin’s (Chaps. 10-11). These moves enhanced the isolation of the two
movements and caused major crises, helping to suppress the talented who
tried to cope with problems creatively, barring their success and
ascendance to potential successors. Innovation was allowed only in the
economic sector, but much of it was imitative, used capitalist practices,
both in FOs and kibbutz industry. Ben-Rafael and most other students
have missed this decisive change which led to a brain-drain of creative
talent, turned the energy of most political activists to barren leftism, and
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 29
let conformists prioritize economic growth by capitalist practices. Whether
they succeeded or failed, kibbutz ethos always damaged and sooner or
later vanished, as in other similar communal cases.16
False Component: Rotatzia Rotatzia was also grasped as integral to kibbutz democracy and
egalitarianism, a solution for oligarchic tendencies and a measure against
conservatism, but as has been explained, it did the opposite. Rotatzia is not
integral since it negates democracy: it prevents the public from deciding
which officer is effective and is trusted to continue, and which officer is
not and thus replaced. Rotatzia encouraged anti-democratic rule by
unelected patrons and their clients whose managerial careers advanced
independent of their degree of success on the job and the amount of
members’ trust; it placed officers in a Procrustean bed that severely
shortened the incumbency of trusted, successful officers, to fit maximal
bearable longevity of incompetents and/or self-servers. Instead of
differentiating between the two and rewarding the former with continuity
for their successes in promoting public aims, rotazia cut their wings while
not preventing self-servers from using oligarchic means to continue,
including continuing by circulating among authority jobs thanks to
patronage.17 Rotatzia nullified effectiveness and efficiency as yardsticks
for deciding officers’ continuity, turned local chief offices into mere
springboards to lucrative FO jobs, and shortened actual terms of officers
as they hurried to take advantage of FO job openings. Mediocre officers
who did not find such openings, often continued beyond the norm, as they
were loyal clients of patrons who kept them in jobs even when they failed
(Chaps. 14-16).
Rotatzia is not integral since the rapid managerial turnover it
engenders, curbs trust, cooperation and long time-horizons, all essential
for both creativity and solidaristic democracy.18 Oplatka’s (2002) study of
school managers reveals the decisiveness of continuity for creativity:
16 Knaani 1960; Kressel 1974, 1983; Shapira 1979a, 1980; Oved 1988; Chaps.
12-17. 17 Dalton 1959; Shapira 1987; Luthans 1988; Chaps. 7, 14-15. 18 Dore 1973; Fox 1974; Ouchi 1981; Axelrod 1984; Shapira 1987, 1995b; Jaques
1990.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 30
Experience as teachers, plus some years on the job, enhanced reflection of
one’s own competencies and office powers, realistic expectations of
partners and commitment to them which led to the creation of new
solutions:
“At first they adopted a managerial pattern, passive toward school aims…
only solved day-to-day problems… defined as success the achieving of
extant aims and conserving school [functioning]. With years on the job,
however, they adopted a leadership pattern… [in which] they actively tried
to shape aims… tried to pull the team after them and enhance its
motivation, cognizant that it is impossible to implement their vision
without its participation” (p. 191).
Had rotatzia prevailed in these cases, all major creativity would have
been prevented. Rotatzia was not integral historically, but rather,
institutionalized only in the 1950s, i.e., after oligarchization (Topel 1990;
Chap. 17). As it enhanced the power and continuity of FO heads, its
service to their interests explained institutionalization. Direct proof that it
was not integral is provided by religious kibbutzim which did not
institutionalized it, and unlike secular kibbutzim, did not become
devastated by huge debts. Fishman (1993) explained their success by
religiosity, but Knaani’s (1960: 45-54) historical analysis of religious
American communes negated this explanation, as did economists of the
Religious Kibbutz Movement who explained this success by the fact that
chief officers continued for long periods as they were rarely offered
promotion to FO high-level jobs which were monopolized by pe’ilim of
secular kibbutzim (Amudim 1990). Thus, success was explained by
continuity of effective local chief officers. However, without any
provision that barred leadership degeneration due to extra continuity, these
kibbutzim seemingly suffered from ultra-conservatism; signs were lack of
original solutions to major problems, imitation of innovations made by
secular kibbutzim and phenomena of ultra-conservatism (See Br”t 1998:
101, 110).
Another proof that rotatzia was not integral: Most officers’ terms
where rotatzia was assumed to prevail were non-normative. Only a
minority, 25%-33% of kibbutz branch managers, served normative terms,
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 31
while the majority served either longer or shorter terms.19 An even smaller
minority, only 15% of pe’ilim of regional FO Mishkay Hamerkaz served
normative terms stipulated by statutes.20 This was not incidental; as I will
show, rotatzia enhanced rule by unelected and unaccountable continuous
patrons and their clients, who subverted the authority of critically minded
officers, failed in many of their innovative problem-solving efforts and
encouraged officers to shift from public to private ends, in accord with
Hirschman’s (1982) theory. Thus, timing of succession was often decided
by officers’ career considerations that mostly did not accord normative
terms.
Freeman (1974) found that egalitarianism in social movements which
barred formal democratic leaders’ choice and replacement, was a
smokescreen that masked continuous power-holding by unelected leaders;
likewise rotatzia was a mask of egalitarianism that served dominance by
continuous, oligarchic FO heads, their loyalists and clients who impaired
efforts by others to promote public ends. As was explained, rotatzia has
never prevented oligarchy ever since ancient Athens days, though it has
been tried in various forms in organizations and states. I will show that a
solution is only a democratic one that prevents oligarchic continuity,
Hirschmanian processes and Machiavellianism by timely replacement of
officers distrusted by knowledgeable role-partners, and enhancing
continuity and promotion to the top for effective and highly trusted public
servant officers who become transformational leaders whenever it is
required, promote collaborative problem-solving and encourage creativity
(Chap. 18).
A Non-Unique Component: Self-Work Self-work is a factor known to be decisive in communal histories, and all
students have agreed that hired labor has impacted communalism
negatively (Knaani 1960; Oved 1988). However, like rotatzia, self-work
adherence differed from kibbutz to kibbutz; many industrialized kibbutzim
19 Deduced from Leviatan (1978) and Einat (1991) data. Norms were informal,
hence averages were taken as norms, and plus or minus a year was defined as
normative. 20 Name is fictive. Oficial norm was five years for managers and four for others.
Annual Report 1976.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 32
violated it despite leaders’ preaching, and prospered for dozens of years.21
This seems to indicate that self-work was only an ideology, and other facts
support such an interpretation: A) It was not practiced by FOs. B) Hired
labor was disqualified by a Marxist argument which was part of leftist
ideology that negated democratic ethos (Chap. 10). However, I will show
that self-work is integral to DWOs, except for unique solitary work
settings, such as taxi driving (Darr & Lewin 2001); their democratic and
high-trust cultures require equal decision-making rights, negating the
differentiation between members and hired employees. Hired labor breeds
growth, bureaucracy, conservatism and oligarchy (Stryjan 1989),
diminishing and ruining solidaristic democracy, egalitarianism, trust and
creativity. The Marxist argument against hired labor, in fact legitimized it,
only required paying higher wages in order to prevent exploitation. This
masked the reality that many of the negative effects of hired labor were
independent of exploitation, while the economic success it brought about
was relatively short-lived, as proved by both the early economic collapse
of most of the kibbutzim which used mass hired labor in the 1980s debt
crisis, and by the many kibbutz plants which used it and failed.22
No communal culture has been sustained with mass hired labor for
more than two generations, and kibbutzim were no exception: all those
with mass hired labor up to the 1980s had already abandoned
communalism, and those which introduced it later seemed to follow suit,
unless solutions were found to make hired workers full partners in high-
trust, democratic cultures. Hutterites maintained self-work for centuries,
while two generations after abandoning it, Amana communes became
capitalistic, and Shaker communes almost vanished. In these communes,
self-work was a part of viewing manual labor as a holy service, and
leaders continued partial participation with the rank and file, even while
leading thousands of people.23 Kibbutz ethos sanctified manual labor, but
21 Daniel 1975; Zamir 1979; Rosner et al. 1980. 22 No one studied it, while it usually caused a factory closure. A partial list of
such closed factories: Ashalim, Askar, Arigay Matzuba, Deco, Deganit, Eitan,
Gal-On, Galax, Hanita, Habonim, Karmit, Kelet, Maspenat Kysaria, Mitzpe,
Matar, Na’aman, Netzer Sireni (2 plants), Noga, Noon, Oranim, Rimon,
Shemer, Silora, Sinus, Ta’al, Tafnukim. 23 Knaani 1960: 73-6; Oved 1988: Chap. 3, 4, 17.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 33
soon after establishing the Movements in 1927-9, top leaders abandoned
it; in the 1940s hundreds of pe’ilim followed, and, in the 1960s, thousands.
Only in self-work kibbutzim such as Hatzerim and Geva, or those which
rid themselves of hired labor early, such as Kochav and Gan Shmuel, did I
meet pe’ilim and chief officers helping in shift-work on factory lines in the
1970s-1980s, as in Carmelit until the 1990s (Chap. 15).24 All five were
among the most successful kibbutzim, both economically and socially.
Integrality of self-work is also proved by early observations of
successful kibbutzim, such as that of Pearlman (1938: 102) who saw one
solution for self-work, offspring starting to work at the ages of eight-nine,
and sixteen year olds working four hours a day (p. 151). In the mid-1980s,
sixteen year olds worked three hours a day in self-work Kochav and Gan
Shmuel, but this decreased and almost vanished in Gan Shmuel after hired
labor was resumed in the 1990s. In kibbutz ethos, work is a moral service
to one’s commune, in the same way that family members work in their
households, while hired labor means expediency, making work a
commodity which people sell to gain their livelihood. This is antithetic to
kibbutz culture, and, like ‘progress-entrepreneurship’, has misled students
who have been blinded by the many kibbutzim which have used it for
dozens of years without obvious signs of decline. This is explicable by
their imitating creative, self-work kibbutzim whose solutions had curbed
the negative impact of hired labor (see below).
Kressel’s best ethnography of Netzer Sireni (1971, 1974, 1983; name is
real) and my ethnographies of kibbutz industry (1977, 1979a, 1980)
support self-work integrality. Mass hired labor has promoted rule by
oligarchic patrons and their cliques of loyalists, and encouraged other
capitalist practices. These practices have subverted democracy, enhanced
inequality and nepotism, the use of seduction, threats and coercion,
including Machiavellian divide et impera. They have ruined solidarity and
trust, culminating in fierce factional struggles and seizure of control by
court rulings. But instead of learning from Kressel’s study of how hired
labor ruined kibbutz culture, his findings have been denounced by authors
of the dominant scientific coalition,25 and then ignored by studying effects
24 Carmelit is fictive name, while Hatzerim, Geva and Gan Shmuel are real
names. 25 Ben-David 1975; Shepher, Y. 1975.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 34
of hired labor only on factories as if these were not integral parts of
kibbutzim, missing the etiology our ethnographies have exposed.26
Moreover, the use of CKP encouraged evasion of the impact of hired
labor in FOs on use of hired labor by kibbutzim. For instance, Kibbutz
Rama’s (Fictive name) hired labor factory was initiated by an ex-pa’il as
he finished managing a hired labor regional plant (Chap. 12). Another fact
missed by CKP students: The negative effects of hired labor which we
exposed were moderated in many kibbutzim by imitating creative
kibbutzim, including the retention of self-work in agriculture,
consumption services and education. This imitation retained communal
culture outside industry and curbed the negative cultural impact of its
hired labor. For example, in 1962, Kochav pioneered egalitarian sharing
cars of pe’ilim by members on weekends. Rama which limited use of hired
labor, partially imitated car sharing, while Netzer Sireni without such
limitation did not imitate (Kressel 1983). Even Rama’s partial imitation
prevented the rampant inequality and wide distrust of Netzer Sireni’s self-
serving leaders which caused a mass exodus of kibbutz offspring (Kressel
1974). Thus, the imitation of creative kibbutzim countered capitalistic
gravity caused by hired labor, explaining the preservation of considerable
communalism, egalitarianism and trust.
A Non-Unique Component: High-Trust
The last, though not least, cultural component is high-trust due to high-
moral leaders. The concepts of trust and leadership are both problematic
and pivotal; hence trust is clarified here, while its connection to leadership
and its complications are discussed in Chapter 9. “The notion of ‘trust’ is a
bit slippery”, said Blalock (1989: 123), and both its definitions and uses
have differed considerably.27 Moreover, while both many students and
successful business leaders have recognized its decisiveness and have
pointed to basic differences between high- and low-trust organizational
cultures,28 due to the divorce between organizational ethnography and
26 Zamir 1979; Rosner et al. 1980; Shimony 1983. 27 See reviews by Hosmer (1995), Bigley & Pearce (1998) and Korczynski
(2000). 28 Banfield 1958; Deutsch 1958, 1962; Guest 1962; McGregor 1967; Jay 1972;
Zand 1972; Dore 1973; Fox 1974; Riker 1974; Rohlen 1974; Ouchi 1981;
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 35
organizational behaviorists and sociologists (Bate 1997), theories and
methods of the latter have remained inappropriate for the study of cultural
dynamics (Barely & Tolbert 1997), and these have been ignored by
behaviorists and sociologists. Even in the 1990s, when trust research
surged, high-trust cultures were rarely regarded since they negated US and
UK conventions where most research was done.29 For instance, Guest
found (1962: 42-4, 47-8) that a new manager’s unconventional behavior
created trust and caused success, but while the best managers among the
some 80,000 studied over the last 25 years by the Gallup Organization
have been violators of conventions who created trust with employees
(Buckingham & Coffman 1999: 16, 26, 38-9, 83, 171), this study did not
index trust, nor did it refer to works on trust.
Moreover, the meaning of trust and its usage in organization studies
have differed markedly from its sociological usage in the explanation of
societal orders,30 and organizational students have also differed: Bradach
and Eccles (1989) grasped hierarchy, market and trust as three control
mechanisms which are combined to create plural forms, but Gouldner
(1955: 160-2) had already pointed to market forces diminishing trust, and
accordingly the works cited below found that hierarchic control based on
coercion by market forces maintained low-trust cultures. High-trust
cultures emerge in egalitarian, communal or cooperative settings in which
hierarchy is minimal and labor markets are irrelevant (Rosner 1993;
Shapira 2001), in R&D sectors of innovative firms and in high-tech firms
where highly educated and specialized employees hold ample firm-
specific know-how which labor markets are unable to substitute. In these
cultures coercion is often minimal as it is ineffective for employees who
hold precious know-how (Rifkin & Harrar 1988: Chap. 10). Instead,
competent leaders aim at consensus concerning goals, means, division of
tasks, duties and rewards by open communication, sincerely admit
mistakes, promote collaborative problem-solving and juniors’ creativity,
and care for their interests. In return, employees contribute information
and know-how for cooperative problem-solving efforts, while superiors
Geneen 1984; Shapira 1987; Harvey-Jones 1988; Sieff 1988; Fukuyama 1995.
29 Dore 1973; Ouchi 1981; Webb & Cleary 1994; Stein 2001. 30 Gambetta 1988; Misztal 1996; Govier 1997; Seligman 1997; Putnam 2000;
Cook 2001.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 36
allow them much discretion, enhancing mutual trust, performance and
innovation, as well as further learning, adaptability and creativity.31
Unfortunately, DWOs and kibbutz research have missed this literature,
mistakenly explaining kibbutz innovation by rotatzia.32 Stryjan explained
it by smallness and sharing of innovations among kibbutzim, although
such sharing negated the societal conventions of using secrecy and
patenting to guard innovations. Kibbutz sharing was due to solidarity and
high-trust among members of a social movement unified by a common
cause, conflicts with surrounding society and coping with harsh
environments. However, kibbutz plants which used capitalist practices
when established in the early 1940s, rarely shared innovations;
competition and secrecy were common. Sharing innovations characterized
self-work agricultural branches which did not compete in markets, as FOs
marketed their produce cooperatively. Cooperative marketing created
common interests, enhanced trust, minimized secrecy and streamlined the
flow of knowledge and innovations among kibbutzim. Streamlining was
aided by other cooperative institutions: cooperative studies at the Ruppin
Agricultural College, the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture, the
Ministry of Agriculture’s extension services, the Vulcani Research
Institute, Hazera seeds production FO, etc.33
In many other areas of kibbutz life, such as education, health,
consumption, personal services, administration and the arts, cooperation
through FOs created trust and enhanced creativity, but only if high-moral
pe’ilim strove for public aims and sought effectiveness and innovation.
This was rare among pe’ilim loyal to conservative FO heads who sought
power, privileges, career advancement and self-aggrandizement; they used
knowledge as a power resource, and did not build the trust required for
sharing of knowledge and innovations (Shapira 1987, 1995b). Rosner
(1993: 373-4) is right: “Solidarity …and mutual trust is the condition for
31 See footnote 28 and: Powell 1990; Ring & Van de Ven 1992; Semler 1993;
Webb & Cleary 1994; Shapira 1995b, 2001; Lewicki & Bunker 1996; Kramer
1996; Hart & Saunders 1997; Miller 2001; Altman 2002; McEvily et al. 2003. 32 Only Niv and Bar-On (1992) point to federative structure enhancing
innovation. 33 Near 1997: 98, 236-8, 308-12. For similar findings in innovative industry:
Dodgson 1993; Saxenian 1994; Powell et al. 1996.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 37
[successful kibbutz] functioning”, but as a veteran privileged pa’il
himself, he missed seeing how oligarchic leaders and the stratified,
privileged stratum of pe’ilim curbed trust and solidarity. This caused
brain-drain and the Hirschmanian exit of disenchanted critical thinkers and
radical innovators, or their abstention from public office, known as
‘internal leaving’ (Am’ad & Palgi 1986), which left offices to low-moral,
mediocre officers who further ruined solidarity and trust.
The ruin of solidarity and trust was also missed because, for most
kibbutz leaders, hired labor was a socialist sin, to be eradicated, not a
solution to a problem which could only be prevented by creative solutions.
The dominant scientific coalition followed them, and though kibbutz
factories used hired labor from the 1940s, for three decades, up to the mid-
1970s, the dominant scientific coalition ignored it.34 Then, as was
explained, hired labor in a plant was studied as if the plant’s capitalist
practice did not impact kibbutz culture, supporting efforts by kibbutzim to
differentiate themselves from this "sin" while enjoying its fruits.35 Hired
labor diminishes trust since hiring an employee means s/he is less trusted
to care for organizational aims and interests than owners; hence, his/her
discretion is limited and short-range, s/he is given minimal information,
and is uninvolved in decision-making (Fox 1974: Chap. 2). Hiring
someone turns his/her work into a commodity; prices of commodities were
decided by markets, and market forces diminish trust (Gouldner 1955:
161-2; Shapira 1987). Market forces also cause turnover which engenders
distrust, as Axelrod (1984) found and Whyte (1992: 176) supported. This
was especially so in FOs: rotational pe’ilim were ‘parachuted’ to manage
FOs of which they were almost completely ignorant, engendering distrust
both among pe’ilim and with knowledgeable hired employees (Shapira
1987, 1995b; Chap. 6).
Hutterites kept enough trust by ultra-conservative consumption habits,
minimal turnover, self-work and isolationism, while, by remaining small,
social control was tight, discretion minimal and high-trust inessential.36
34 The dominant scientific coalition: Shapira 2005. Hired labor in the 1940s:
Daniel 1975. Studies in the 1970s: next footnote. 35 Leviatan 1975; Shapira 1979a, 1980; Zamir 1979; Rosner et al. 1980; Shimony
1983. 36 Hutterites: Holzach 1982; Baer-Lambach 1992. Smallness: Jay 1972; Harris
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 38
Early kvutzot Degania, Kinneret and others, however, aimed at high-trust
and solidarity by a family-like smallness: “The family is a place of trusting
and giving – as opposed to the market”, said Bourdieu (1996b: 20). With
growth, Degania split like Hutterite communes (Near 1992: 31-51; 80-1),
but, while the ideal of family-like smallness was abandoned later on, trust
was not, as Rosner (1993) has pointed out. However, as was usual in
organizational sociology until recently, he and his colleagues did not study
trust.
Summary
Successful kibbutz cultures which remained viable for long periods, well
beyond life span of founders, included seven major components:
1. Much societal involvement,
2. Federative structure: kibbutzim organized by a web of FOs,
3. Creativity,
4. Large collectivist communes with internal federative structures,
5. Egalitarian, solidaristic democracy,
6. Self-work,
7. High-trust relationships.
The creation and maintenance of these components, except for societal
involvement, became problematic as early as the 1940s with growth,
success, use of hired labor and oligarchization, since these components
were interrelated and supported each other: Smallness of work units due to
federative structures, both between and within kibbutzim, enhanced
creativity, solidaristic democracy and high-trust relations which motivated
both work efforts and taking on managerial jobs by most talented
members despite negative balance of rewards (Rosner 1964), while scale
of FOs gave kibbutzim societal leverage, explaining, for instance, kibbutz-
like culture in the underground Palmach army (Chap. 10). The outcome
was phenomenal growth and success, which was furthered by capitalist-
like industrialization in the 1940s. However, the establishment of the
Israeli state made societal involvement problematic, as, for instance, it
engendered pressure to use hired labor (Chap. 11). But coping with this
problem by combining strategies (seclusion, political struggle, quid pro
quo), and with other problems incurred by growth, required creative
1990: 344.
2. Kibbutz Cultural Perspective 39
leadership. However, prime leaders had already become conservatives
who suppressed democracy and creativity aimed at advancing the kibbutz
cause. Their negative leadership enhanced abandonment of cultural
uniqueness in favor of capitalist practices even before major research
efforts commenced. This situation made it harder to discern the cultural
components of kibbutz success, and as researchers ignored FOs, did not
seek a field theory but used mistaken CKP along with other mistakes (to
be exposed later on), they missed these cultural components and the
cultural conflict in the field, which together with negative leadership
explained kibbutz decline. Thus, the efforts to explain kibbutz without
comprehending the cultures of its field and with no historical perspective
of their changes, have gone astray with odd ideas of “nepotistic
communism”, “pivotal principle”, and “progress-entrepreneurship”. Let us
seek further how they have failed to develop a good kibbutz theory.
CHAPTER 3
The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory
“In science there is nothing more practical than a good theory” to cite the
well-known psychologist Kurt Lewin. The type of theory that fits a
movement aimed at radical societal change is what the eminent sociologist
Whyte (1992) has called Social Theory for Action, that is, a theory that
explains how the movement has been acting to bring about a societal
change. Such a theory is clearly more relevant for the kibbutz movement
case than for other communal societies, since only the kibbutz has tried to
impact societal changes by collective political actions and much societal
involvement, unlike all other communal societies. Whyte has explained
the creation of such a theory as the outcome of the study of social
processes of innovation, and of intelligent dialogue between scientists,
inventors and implementers of changes. However, I have rarely witnessed
such a dialogue in the case of kibbutz social research; rarely have its
students taken an interest in the study of innovation processes and their
explanation by aims, fears, interests and careers of the actors, or by local
and societal contexts as well as other factors. Even those few who pointed
to creativity being a main reason for kibbutz success, did not study the
social processes that have enhanced or depressed it (e.g., Niv & Bar-On
1992). Only the diffusion of two innovations imported from the
surrounding society has been studied.1
Students Ignored Inventions, Inventors’ Struggles and
Careers Even when social scientists have studied kibbutz innovations, they have
ignored inventors, the obstacles they have faced in the creation and
implementation of original innovations, their coping and overcoming these
obstacles and the impact on their careers and further creativity. For
instance, the communal boarding of children in nurseries (lina
meshutefet): scientists were interested in its effects on child rearing and on
members’ participation in collective life, but ignored technical and
1 Gurevitch & Levi 1973; Bar-Gal 1976.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 41
organizational innovations that made it feasible.2 One example is the
collective intercom through which night watchwomen could both locate
and connect with every child who had awakened in adjacent nurseries
(Bowes 1989: 18). Gorkin (1971: 89-100) depicted how this system
successfully coped with special problems of a warfare situation on a
border kibbutz. In my kibbutz, it enabled two night watchwomen to care
for some 50 babies and infants, aged six weeks to three years, in addition
to some 120 children, aged seven to twelve in thirteen scattered children’s
houses. The three kindergartens (ages three to seven) with 60-65 children,
were cared for by two additional solutions: 1) A parent on nightly duty
slept in each kindergarten and coped with children who awakened after
nightmares prevalent at these ages. 2) A change from single-age
kindergartens to mixed-aged ones, enabled older children to help younger
ones in overcoming some problems.
These solutions, however, could not succeed without competent, trusted
kindergarten teams. As a parent, I periodically slept in one kindergarten
where, often, no child awakened all night long. This kindergarten was
operated by a well-trained, experienced and continuous kibbutz member
team, led by a talented teacher who was highly trusted by both children
and parents. All this was absent in another kindergarten where children
awakened me, one after another, every night I slept there, and getting them
back to sleep was quite hard, and sometimes took an hour or more. In this
case, the team head was a young, short-tenured and inexperienced hired,
non-member teacher, who supposedly had authority over an oft-changing
staff, some of whom were also hired outsiders. Disagreements and
conflicts among team members abounded and inhibited trust among
parents and children. The renowned psychologist Erickson (1950) has
pointed to the decisiveness of trust between young children and their
caretakers for successful upbringing, but no one studied whether trust
differences between kindergartens explained the problem of awakening
and nightmares, nor was the question of how kibbutz officers’ behavior
impacted kindergarten teams explored: Did officers care for the essential
needs of these teams, trust them and allow them enough discretion, as Fox
(1974) explained high-trust authority relations? Did such relations
encourage job continuity, learning from experience and creative problem-
2 Rabin 1965; Bettelheim 1969. On its effects on participation: Shepher, Y. 1967.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 42
solving? The vast literature cited above has pointed to high trust level
being a prime factor of creativity, but kibbutz studies ignored it, so the
impact of trust on creativity and its role in the etiology of the above
differences which I witnessed were not explored, nor was how failures
such as the second kindergarten case accelerated the painful and costly
abandonment of communal boarding in the 1970s-1980s.
Kibbutz Creativity Was Not a One-Generation
Phenomenon Kibbutz social scientists did not study creativity, although it was crucial.
Creativity was not a one-generation phenomenon explained by exceptional
circumstances which encouraged radical solutions. Kibbutzim have been
adaptive and creative long after the radicalism of the founders vanished or
they became marginal, and pragmatic younger joiners and kibbutz
offspring became a majority (Rosner et al. 1978), holding managerial jobs
and making most decisions. For instance, almost all officers were of
younger generations in the late 1950s when old crops were replaced due to
surpluses causing falling prices and other changes, leading to the
introduction of cotton, and then to mass building of reservoirs for winter
rain accumulation to irrigate the cotton (Shalem 2000). In most
agricultural sectors, kibbutzim led changes and innovation up to the early
1980s, and some even afterwards. Only recently, in more and more
sectors, have moshavim (semi-collective villages; Willner 1969) and
private farmers taken the lead.
Another major change largely executed by pragmatists was the move
from agriculture to industry, very successful by all accounts. Many
kibbutz factories were successful innovative leaders of their respective
industries,3 and, thus, lasted much longer than competitors. An example is
the citrus and tomato processing industry whose leader is Gan Shmuel
Foods (US$119 million sales in 2005): In the 1960s this sector included
some twenty plants, mostly private. Since then, some fifteen have closed,
while three of the five that survived are profitable kibbutz factories. In the
1950s-1960s, when many kibbutzim industrialized, innovation
characterized the plastics industry; thus, a large number of kibbutzim
3 Barkai 1977; Rosner 1982, 1992; Shimony 1983; Don 1988; Schwartz & Naor
2000: 57-9.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 43
entered this sector and still hold some half of Israel’s plastics production.
The largest firm, Netafim, which pioneered drip irrigation, is a cooperative
of three kibbutzim with annual sales in 2003 of US$267 million in 80
countries; the 316 kibbutz factories employed 27,200, and sales amounted
to US$4.5 billion, of which US$2.2 billion were exports (Hakibbutz
2004).
Parallel industrial growth was carried out by commercial-industrial FOs
known as Mifalim Azoriim (meaning: Regional Enterprises; thereafter:
Reg.Ents). In contrast to a few small plants with a few dozen employees at
the end of the 1950s, in 1977, there were 155 plants and firms with over
10,000 employees.4 As the hundreds of kibbutz and FO factories required
thousands of qualified personnel, kibbutzim radically changed their
attitude to higher education. Up to the 1950s, a college education was
accorded almost only to prospective teachers, and in the 1950s, managerial
and professional courses for chief officers and branch managers were
added, but since the 1960s, higher education has proliferated and has
gradually become common to all, much of it in new regional colleges,
initiated and led by pe’ilim.5
Recent Loss of Creativity and Viability However, since the 1980s, kibbutzim have presented fewer and fewer
signs of creative innovation that once distinguished them. Without new
solutions for communal boarding problems, it was abandoned in favor of
family boarding and caused huge investments in the enlargement of
members’ flats, which was one of the main reasons for huge debts.
Kibbutz industry remained in traditional, mature sectors with falling
productivity, efficiency and profitability, at a time when much of Israel’s
industry turned to innovative, high-tech areas and flourished.6 Almost all
changes since the debt crisis began in 1986, have been imitations of
capitalist society. They were legitimized by the use of concepts such as 4 The name is in the plural as each Reg.Ents concern owns a number of plants;
some authors count a smaller number due to different definitions of
subsidiaries. See Rosolio 1975; Rayman 1981; Malchi 1978; Shapira 1978,
1978/9, 1987; Brum 1986. 5 Gamson 1977; Noy 1977; Leviatan et al. 1998: xi; Personal experience at these
colleges. 6 Leviatan et al. 1998: 160; Peleg 1999; Lifshitz 2001.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 44
privatization, and the yardstick for decisions was mostly short-term
profitability. Kibbutz values were reinterpreted according to values of the
capitalist Israeli society. Instead of ‘from each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs’, in the early 1990s, a majority of members
preferred connecting a member’s consumption to his/her production.
Instead of aiming at a more just society, a better quality of life was
targeted, and, if hired labor was required, even the cheapest labor imported
from third-world countries was introduced to kibbutzim, as it was in the
outside society.7 New ways of making money not used in the past became
acceptable, such as real estate transactions, commerce and
commercialization of social, personal and educational services.8
More and more ‘conservative innovations’, i.e. conforming to capitalist
norms, have been preferred over creative solutions, as well as more
bureaucracy, hierarchy and centralism emerging in kibbutz management,
characteristics known in the literature as inimical to creative innovation.9
With dwindling agriculture and the debt crisis, many FOs were sold,
closed or radically downsized. Following conformist kibbutzim, Reg.Ents
furthered conformity by abandoning egalitarian salaries, and their high-
salaried heads became even more dominant than before.10 A massive
brain-drain ensued. I had already found this to be true in 1977 in kibbutz
plants with hired labor, as, for instance, in a metal engineering plant
(Chap. 6), but in the 1980s, it became a general problem, especially among
academics with technologically valued, marketable skills.11
A former radical movement became a conservative field lacking both
creativity and leadership. When top officials of the TKM (acronym of
Tnuaa Kibbutzit Meuchedet, i.e., United Kibbutz Movement) faced
serious dilemmas, they never reached decisions, letting individual
kibbutzim make “a continuous process of ‘small’ decisions which
accumulated into a major change” to adoption of most capitalist norms
7 Kressel 1992; Ravid 1992; Halevi 1994; Keene 1995; Rosner & Getz 1996. 8 Rosner & Getz 1996; Ben-Rafael 1997; Chaps. 12-15. 9 Ben-Rafael 1986; Adar et al. 1993. In the literature: Burns & Stalker 1961;
Guest 1962; Crozier 1964; Jay 1972; Dore 1973; Harvey-Jones 1988; Sieff
1988; Semler 1993. 10 Yahel 1991; Lifshitz 1992, 1997; Halevi 1997a. 11 Shapira 1980; Sheaffer & Helman 1994; Halevi 1997b.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 45
(Avrahami 1993: 87). Lack of trusted leaders was widespread in
kibbutzim; kibbutz chief officers did not view themselves as leaders, but
rather, as managers in charge of extant practices, nor did most members
see them as leaders, often with good reason, as many of them shirked
accountability, lost credibility and did not cope with acute problems.12
Instead of coping with challenges by inventing solutions, they usually
called in consultants who often suggested solution packages used by
outside firms, without examining their suitability for kibbutzim (Dloomi
2000). Acceptance of these packages often furthered distrust between
officers and members, and paralyzed organized change (Pavin 1994; Bien
1995). Without proper solutions, anarchy tended to emerge as members
turned to individualistic solutions that violated communal norms, as the
case of Kibbutz Rama will show (Chaps. 12-13).
Kibbutz demography signaled loss of viability: While Israel’s
population increased in the 1990s by some 20%, kibbutz population
declined by some 10% from its peak of 129,300 in 1991. Israel’s
population aged during this decade by an average of 1.8 years, but that of
kibbutzim by 2.9 years, and a main reason for both this and declining
population was a massive exit of offspring, many of whom emigrated from
Israel.13 Another reason was the low birth rate: In the 170 kibbutzim of the
TKM, yearly births plummeted from 1,250 in 1990 to 578 in 1999.
Moreover, 25% of these births took place in ten kibbutzim; the other 160
kibbutzim had an average of only 2.7 births each; in almost all of them,
the number of deaths exceeded births (Binenfeld 2000). In order to
maintain a minimal, viable scale community, many small kibbutzim
initiated establishment of adjacent neighborhoods of non-kibbutz
inhabitants who would use their services (Bashan 2000c).
If this loss of viability had been properly understood by kibbutz
students, they might have used their theory and analyses to help overcome
the crisis and create solutions that would promote kibbutz uniqueness. In
recent decades they were mostly kibbutz members with a personal interest
in a turnaround of their ailing communes, but almost none of them was
among the scores of consultants who were called in to help kibbutzim with
their efforts at change, and none successfully renewed communal culture.
12 Kressel 1991; Leviatan 1992; Kerem 1994; Liberman 1997; Chaps. 12, 14. 13 Rosner & Getz 1996; Sabar 1996; Maron 1997; Statistical 1999.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 46
Researchers and kibbutz officers were mostly at loggerheads: Researchers
often saw changes implemented by officers as the main causes of new
problems, with little or no improvement of previous ones, while officers
rejected criticism, pointing to the lack of proven better solutions on the
part of researchers.14 Yet it seems that the poignant critique of Chester I.
Barnard, an executive who became an academic, of the meager
contribution of social science to management practices, has held true in
this case:
“Always, it seems to me, the social scientists - from whatever side they
approached - just reached the edge of organization as I experienced it, and
retreated. Rarely did they seem to me to sense the processes of
coordination and decision that underlie a large part, at least, of the
phenomenon they described” (Barnard 1938: viii).
Kibbutz students did not study creativity and rarely sensed the
processes that underlie it; hence, they could not explain the relatively
sudden reversal, whereby even kibbutzim which had been creative for
decades, became conservative imitators of capitalist society, relinquishing
the creativity which had served them so well in the past. If the kibbutzim
had managed to escape the negative impact of FOs’ oligarchization for
almost four decades, why did they abruptly surrender? Why did their
internal democracy fail to produce leaders able and willing to cope with
the crisis by inventiveness, as had been the case up to the 1980s?
The domination of conservative, oligarchic movement leaders could not
explain this, as the most powerful of them, Tabenkin and Yaari, had
already vanished, and furthermore, they had become conservatives long
before, in the 1940s.15 Conservative deputies and heirs had much less
power and influence, as indicated by the inventiveness of the late 1950s-
1970s. Many facts point to the possibility that up to the 1980s even
conservative kibbutzim usually imitated creative ones, while when, at last,
creativity vanished even among creative kibbutzim, most kibbutzim turned
to imitating capitalist solutions. But if this is so, why did this occur in the
1980s and not before? Did creative kibbutzim maintain creativity for
decades despite FOs’ conservatism, as they were not dependent on FOs,
14 Leviatan 1992, 1994, 1998; Rosner & Getz 1996: 235; Liberman 1997. 15 See Chapter 10 and histories: Beilin 1984; Kynan 1989; Kafkafi 1992.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 47
and therefore, largely ignored their conservatism? But why were only a
minority creative, although veteran, large and successful kibbutzim were
quite independent?
The Dependency Explanation: FOs’ Soft Budget
Constraints According to Ben-Rafael et al. (1994: 123) the kibbutzim served national
missions and FOs were the vehicle through which Israeli society rewarded
them, but as sweets harm the teeth, rewards harm the capability of
organizations to cope with problems: “These rewards advanced kibbutz
economy, but ...the possibility of gaining resources by political means did
not engender decision-making processes or action modes based on the
rationale of maximizing economic efficiency, and made kibbutzim more
dependent on allocation by political centers”. This is the essence of
Rosolio’s (1999) dependency explanation for the kibbutz debt crises, using
economist Kornai’s concept of ‘soft budget constraints’ which he had used
to explain the failure of the Soviet Bloc economy.
At first however, let us rid ourselves of the simplistic view of the
kibbutz crisis, according to which kibbutzim failed like the Soviet Bloc,
since both used wrong Marxist collectivist ideas. This view ignores the
huge difference between a totalitarian and dictatorial empire of some 400
million people, with coercive state means and an autonomous economy
that gained political sway over large part of the globe, and an open,
voluntary, relatively egalitarian and democratic innovative society without
such coercive means whose size was some 1/3000 of this empire, which
competed against outside firms in local and global markets, and competed
with other societies, including those abroad, for the attraction, retention
and commitment of members.16 It had succeeded when it had adhered to
an ethos and culture which was the antithesis of that of the Soviet Bloc,
and suffered a major setback when identifying with this bloc (Chap. 10).
Now to Rosolio’s (1999) dependency explanation which says:
Complacency was the negative effect of FOs’ help to kibbutzim, as
officers became used to working with ‘soft budget constraints’, i.e.,
budgets that were only partially constrained by the yield of kibbutz
economies. A large part of these budgets were a function of relations with
16 Landshut 2000[1944]; Kanter 1972; Shepher, I. & Shapira 1992.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 48
FOs and financing enlisted from national sources. Thus, kibbutz officers
saw good relations with FOs as a key to prosperity, rather than seeking
efficient production, cost reduction and innovation. The dependency on
FO support ruined kibbutz capacity to compete in markets, and when
societal changes caused cuts in outside help, crises ensued, both in the
1950s-1960s and then, in the 1980s-1990s.
The 1950s-1960s Crisis did not Parallel the 1980s-1990s The first question mark for this explanation must be raised regarding the
paralleling of the 1950s with the 1980s. If creativity characterized
kibbutzim in the 1960s-1970s, how could conservative complacency
explain the first crisis? Indeed, Shalem’s (2000) study of the centralized
credit system which Avraham Brum initiated in the early 1960s (Chap. 5)
as the main vehicle for helping kibbutzim during this crisis, negates this
explanation. He found some signs of complacency, but “(i)t is impossible
to say unequivocally that the motivation for efficiency did not operate in
kibbutzim. After all, it is impossible to ignore achievements of kibbutz
agriculture in these years gained by improving production systems,
enlarging yields and turning to more profitable crops” (p. 146-7). Only a
small part of the debt which kibbutzim accumulated was due to
mismanagement and the rising standard of living; most of it was caused by
good investments in production whose success caused surpluses in
markets, and prices falling below costs. Kibbutzim soon turned to new,
export crops, such as cotton and avocado, and to industrialization (p. 43).
For these capital intensive ventures, however, they had no proper
financing due to meager revenues of extant crops and the unwillingness of
banks to finance their investments. They used expensive, short-term loans
from other sources to finance them, and this caused debt growth (p. 49).
Thus, the main mistake was too much initiative without enough
consideration of the financial straits which dysfunctioning Movement
heads had ignored, despite the fact that this was the prime problem of
kibbutz economy for years, rather than complacent conservatism as
Rosolio has asserted.17 Only Brum, a mid-level pa’il, with the help of his
like and Ministry of Agriculture officials solved the problem (Chaps. 5).
17 See Gelb’s (2001: 97-101) testimony how a kibbutz treasurer coped with these
straits. Leaders’ dysfunction: Chaps. 10-11.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 49
FO Heads Counted on Unquestioned Support from
Kibbutzim The 1980s crisis was seemingly in accord with the dependency thesis:
Much outside financing of investments, mostly in kibbutz industry which
was then considered a success story, led to failures which exposed
complacency: uncritical and/or too conservative choice of technologies,
too optimistic projections of demand, as was usual in the Reg.Ents.18
However, according to Rosolio himself (1975, 1999), my work (1978/9,
1986, 1987, 1990) and the following chapters, FO heads dominated the
field and led complacency, while kibbutz managers just followed, inter
alia to prove loyalty and to advance to FO jobs. Indeed, Rosolio’s (1999)
own depiction, among others, supports refutation of the dependency thesis,
as were my 1978/9 findings: complacent FO heads behaved as if
subservient kibbutzim would pay for whatever excessive expenses the FOs
incurred. The 1977 Israeli political upheaval brought political opponents
of the kibbutzim to power and they never hid their intention to pressure
kibbutzim, termed by the Prime Minister as “prideful millionaires”.
Nevertheless, in 1982, TKM heads initiated a grandiose plan to set up 21
new kibbutzim without any outside financing, recruiting hundreds of new
pe’ilim and large sums of money from kibbutzim, while simultaneously
encouraging them to raise the standard of living, although many could not
afford to (Rosolio 1999: 61-8). TKM doubled the number of pe’ilim, from
668 in 1981 to 1336 in 1985, and added 100 cars to its 384 car fleet. At the
same time, TKM’s kibbutzim which ended the fiscal year of 1982 with a
total profit of some 40 million $US, ended the fiscal year of 1985 with
losses totaling 200 million $US.19
This was an era of very unstable economy: abrupt governmental
economic policy changes, every year or so a new finance minister,
inflation that doubled yearly to the hyperinflation of 435% in 1984, the
protracted war in Lebanon which devastated the economy, the bankruptcy
of the banking system, and the stock exchange collapse causing heavy
losses to investors, including kibbutzim (Lewin 1988). But heads of TKM
and other FOs, such as head of Milu’ot Reg.Ents’ Fridman found this the
18 Shapira 1978/9, 1987; Lifshitz 1986a; Abramovitz 1988. 19 Avrahami 1993: 44; Rosolio 1995: 66-70.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 50
right time to pursue policies that were clearly megalomanic (Chap. 6). A
TKM ex-general secretary said (Avrahami 1993: 78):
“It was a euphoric era; there was a feeling of no limit to our power. Out of
this euphoria, there was a feeling that the Movement [TKM] could take
over governmental and Jewish Agency roles in colonization... At the Givat
Ha’im convention, it was decided that, each year, two-three kibbutzim
would be established. [People] did not read the map of the new reality; that
there was no one who could finance these new settlements...”.
Avrahami (1993) found the same sentiments in other discussions, and
Eli Zamir, one of TKM’s two heads, pointed out that megalomania led
both TKM and KA20 to speculative activity in financial and real estate
markets in order to finance whatever extant resources could not cover
(Avrahami 1993: 23-4). One outcome was the fiasco known as the Balas
affair: an FO-owned clearinghouse, Eshet-Ksafim, invested some $100
million with a swindler who promised an interest rate slightly higher than
the banks, and almost half of this money was lost (Rosolio 1995: 59). The
KA invested large sums of money in real estate transactions, some of
which caused heavy losses.21 FO losses during 1984-1988 caused a growth
of some half a billion dollars in the net debt of the kibbutz system in 1988
(Krol 1989). The megalomania during hard times, when financial
institutions were collapsing and caution was called for, was possible
because FO heads counted on the unquestioned support of kibbutzim in
cases of failure, as in the past (Chap. 6); hence, dependency was in the
opposite direction of Rosolio’s assertion.
Modeling Complacency: The Movements’ Delayed
Downsizing This is also proved by Movement complacency after the drastic economic
policy change of July 1985. As they were assured of kibbutz support, the
Movements heads delayed downsizing for seven years after this
megalomania proved disastrous, and the radical new economic policy of
July 1985 halted hyperinflation at once, causing real interest rates to soar
to Mafia interest heights, up to 230% annually. This new policy was
20 The KA was the other main kibbutz Movement with 78 kibbutzim. 21 Arieli 1987; Lifshitz 1987, 1993, 1999; Ben-Hilel 1988b; Peleg 1991;
Petersburg 1994; Chap. 14.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 51
hostile to producers, such as kibbutzim, who were dependent on loans, and
clearly favored the banks almost all of which were nationalized in the
1983 collapse. It soon became clear that the kibbutz system had to take
drastic austerity measures in order to pay back expensive loans in order to
halt a snowball of uncontrolled debt growth. Sadly, instead of leading the
move by cutting inflated bureaucracy, sending pe’ilim back to work in
kibbutzim, selling cars and excess assets and urging all FOs to do the
same, TKM and KA heads resisted cuts and other FO heads followed suit.
Despite the fact that most kibbutzim and FOs were hit hard and even many
of the profitable ones started to lose money (e.g. Talmi 1993), and despite
the bankruptcies of some FOs, it took seven years of pressure by chief
kibbutz officers and a deepening crisis to downsize TKM to its 1981
level.22 TKM heads resisted, as they believed this hostile policy was a
passing pathology and a more favorable policy would soon emerge. They
were clearly conservative complacent (Rosolio 1999: 68). KA’s case was
quite similar; downsizing was delayed for years and took almost a decade.
It was continued later and, in 1997, the KA had only 175 pe’ilim, one fifth
of the number of 1985 (Lifshitz 1990; Gilboa 1991, 1997), while no sign
of this cut seemed to hamper the functioning of kibbutzim. It was clear
that Movement bureaucracy was inflated even before the 1980s, due to
excessive growth, because of the extreme power of FO heads, as will be
proved.
Dependency Ignored Extreme Differentiation of Kibbutzim An additional flaw of Rosolio’s thesis is the extreme differentiation among
kibbutzim which makes sweeping generalizations futile. Education
professor Moshe Kerem, a veteran of Kibbutz Gesher Haziv, put it
succinctly (1994: 242):
“Present-day kibbutzim… vary tremendously from one another. The
difference between a kibbutz that earns millions and one that owes them is
enormous, and one cannot refer to them in the same breath. For instance, a
member of [Kibbutz] Mizra can expect to have surgery in Houston, Texas,
within a few days, while a member of Gesher Haziv for a lack of finances
may, at best, have to wait several months. This means that we are no
longer talking about differences within a single organizational framework,
22 Leshem 1986; Yadlin 1989. For detailed analysis: Avrahami 1993: 35-44.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 52
but about two entities that… cannot be talked about in the same breath”.
Like fellow sociologists, Rosolio ignored ethnographies which did not
find any dependency on FOs in large industrialized kibbutzim like Mizra,
Hanita, Hazorea, Carmlit, Kochav, Rama and dozens of other successful
kibbutzim which were the backbone of the system, consisting of the
majority of the population.23 During the 1950s-1960s crisis, some of these
kibbutzim required financial help, but for only a limited period, as they
were healthy socially and economically (Shalem 2000: 118). Many of
these veterans were creative, successfully industrialized and competed in
local and global markets. They had paid for excessive costs of FOs, served
as managerial training grounds for future pe’ilim and provided costly
academic education for them. They educated hundreds of hevrot no’ar24
and sent hundreds of pe’ilim to guide urban youth organizations, while
most of their thousands of graduates had been sent to failing younger
kibbutzim and soon left (Chaps. 14-15). Only during the current crisis
were many of these kibbutzim in trouble, after paying for the lion’s share
of FO megalomania and inefficiency, both in taxes and in unpaid work by
pe’ilim. However, authors who noted the mini-state character of TKM’s
behavior, ignored the crucial question of who paid for and who gained
from it.25 Even conservative veteran Kibbutz Rama, which was devastated
in the 1950s by the exit of a large group of young members, and which
industrialized only in 1968, needed special financial help only in the early
1960s, but then, not again until the late 1980s. Continuous dependency
upon Movements’ help characterized smaller, younger kibbutzim which
remained non-viable due to conservative autocracy, high exit rates and
brain-drain (Chaps. 14-15). Gesher Haziv seems to have been one of them.
The dependency thesis ignored extreme differences among kibbutzim;
hence, it did not explain the failure of the large and hitherto successful
ones.
23 Rayman 1981; Shatil 1977; Schwartz & Naor 2000; Maron 1988: Table 6;
Chaps. 12-13, 15-17. 24 Hevrot no’ar were groups of non-offspring youth educated for kibbutz life
(Chap. 11). 25 Kedem 1988b; Lanir 1990; Avrahami 1993; Rosolio 1993.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 53
Ignorance of FO Heads’ Irresponsibility Unlike Rosolio, who differentiated kibbutzim from FOs, the explanation
by Ben-Rafael (1997) ignored the difference, viewing the kibbutz system
as a unified mass and clearing FO heads of responsibility for the failure of
the kibbutz system to cope with the hostile environment. He says (p. 201):
“The crisis hit the kibbutz federations [i.e., Movements] by surprise”, but
not explains how it surprised them after eight years during which
animosity toward the kibbutz movement was orchestrated by the Prime
Minister, after the changing and chaotic national economic policies proved
hostile to capital intensive, high-trust kibbutz cultures, based on rewards in
the long-run (cf. Dore 1973; Fox 1974; Ouchi 1981). He ignored FO
megalomania and other irresponsible acts, such as the Balas Affair, which
caused a large part of the debts; for him, the crisis “might be seen as
failure of managers and federations guiding bodies”; only “in the turmoil,
the kibbutz federation was the first to be accused of mismanagement” (p.
202). Ignoring my Reg.Ents study (1987) which revealed that such
irresponsible mismanagement was endemic for FOs, he ignores the way in
which FO heads dominated the field and kibbutz officers followed their
guidance.
If main leaders were not primarily responsible for the mistakes, who
was? For Ben-Rafael, it was the “conjunction between unpredicted
external circumstances and the shaking of the basis of kibbutzniks’ self-
legitimization. This crisis has primarily concerned the kibbutz’s very
identity…” (p. 202-3). Nonetheless, external circumstances were not truly
unpredicted, but complacent FO heads ignored them for years, aiming at
enhancing power, prestige and privileges by bureaucratic growth (cf.
Parkinson 1957). How could shaken self-legitimization explain financial
losses and debts? Were they not explained by FOs’ megalomania, failures
and the encouragement of a rising standard of living during hard times that
called for the opposite, enhancing complacency of kibbutz managers? An
identity crisis can hardly explain extra conservatism and declining
economic efficiency which bred losses, while it was the complacency of
conservative FO leaders that explained both these losses and FO failures,
outcomes that engendered identity crisis and shaken self-legitimization.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 54
Other Explanations: The Grains of Truth are Lost in
Omissions Analyses by Leviatan et al. (1998) contain important grains of truth that
are lost among the many omissions resulting from the use of CKP, while
ignoring Stryjan, the trust and leadership conundrum, history and
ethnographies. The authors explain (p. 159) the crisis as caused by
kibbutzim having forsaken the “three main conditions” which they had
retained for many decades of success:
“(1) holding unchanged the basic principles and values that define kibbutz
distinctiveness, while constantly adapting their concrete expressions to
changing circumstances; (2) keeping a balance between the realization of
values of individualism and collectivism; and (3) having congruency
among domains of life and the domains’ principles of conduct”.
The first condition corresponds to my kibbutz cultural perspective, but
although FOs integrality to kibbutz is admitted (p. 148), the negation of
FO cultures to kibbutz values and principles is not, nor is their oligarchic
and conservative impact, neither the dominance of FO heads and pe’ilim
due to violating these principles and values. Without citing all these, and
evading the gradual forsaking of kibbutz values and principles by main
leaders and pe’ilim since the late 1930s (as will be shown), the analysis by
Leviatan et al. does not explain which principles and values were forsaken
in the early 1980s and how this caused the crisis.
The second condition is untrue, non-historical and ignores the
oligarchic change and its impact. Up to 1948, collectivism was clearly
preferred and was a main reason for success as it was congruent with
kibbutz movement goals and societal ends. Thereafter, however, there was
no genuine balancing, since personal whims of pe’ilim and other officers
were attended to much more than those of other members, as the formers
blocked or violated egalitarian solutions which would have enabled
members’ individualism by sharing their privileges (Chaps. 4, 8, 12-17).
The third condition, “congruency among domains of life and the
domains’ principles of conduct”, requires leadership. Who else could
bring such congruency except for leaders who impact all domains?
However, the book mentions leadership only once (p. 92), in contrast to
the mention of management some thirty times. The difference between the
two is commonly defined as “leaders care about doing the right things”,
while “managers care about doing things right”. Doing the right things
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 55
was decisive for congruency. For instance, the right thing that promoted
self-work in kibbutz factories was the creation of a shift-work sharing
system and personally modeling it, as did factory managers in Carmelit,
Kochav and other kibbutzim (Shapira 1977; Chaps. 15-16). Other
managers who suffered shift worker shortages but were tightly controlled
by conservative patrons (Chaps. 7, 15), used the available incongruent
solution of hired labor. As the book ignores the vanishing of creative
leaders who promoted kibbutz principles, and the ascendance to hegemony
of their opposites, it fails to explain the loss of congruency.26
The book rightly concludes (p. 162) “The kibbutz movement has
weathered major crises by being innovative and by its members being
committed to continue their form of life”, but the list of components of
this “form of life” (pp. 159-60) ignores egalitarianism, self-work, high-
trust and large scale, four major components of successful kibbutz
cultures. Thus, another reason for the book’s failure to explain the crisis is
the lack of a valid definition of kibbutz cultural uniqueness, as it ignores
ethnographies and other accounts of elite members’ uses of capitalist
practices which diminished cultural uniqueness.
Disastrous Separation of Sociology, History and
Anthropology Veteran student of organizations and Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon
proposed (1992: 20) that organizational research should be seen as
analogous to biology, where an attempt has been made for some centuries
to understand plants and animals by a profound investigation of each of
their species:
“Now, I’m not suggesting that we should go out and describe... a million
firms; but we might at least get on with the task and see if we can describe
the first thousand. ...it is better to form an aggregate from empirical
knowledge of a thousand firms, or five, than from direct knowledge of
none”.
Voluminous kibbutz literature has never really formed an aggregate
picture of the kibbutz field using direct knowledge of some of its
26 Both types of officers are depicted by ethnographies which the book ignores:
Kressel 1971, 1974, 1983; Fadida 1972; Shapira 1978, 1978/9, 1980a, 1980b,
1987, 1990, 1995a, 1995b; Topel 1979.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 56
‘species’, since it has both ignored one of its two types of ‘species’,
namely FOs, and their manifold influences on the other type, kibbutzim.
Moreover, the few late studies of FOs were differentiated: social scientists
studied the Reg.Ents.,27 while historians studied the Movements. “The
separation of sociology and history is a disastrous division, and one totally
devoid of epistemological justification...” said Bourdieu and Wacquant
(1992: 90. Likewise: Wallerstein 2004). This was especially disastrous in
the case of kibbutz research due to the unique structure of this society. The
task of historians is studying societal changes and their causes. However,
without sociological theories of large organizations, social movements and
power elites, they missed the most important historical change which had
occurred from the 1930s onward, the change from creative democracy
headed by transformational leaders, to conservative oligarchic leftist
autocracy (Chap. 11). They were blind to the impact of continuity of
Movement heads by oligarchic means on the development of a privileged,
powerful oligarchy of FO heads and senior pe’ilim and its negative impact
on kibbutzim and on their relations with Israeli society.
Anthropologists Ignored the Effects of FOs and Societal
Contexts Marx (1985: 141) pointed out that “there is irony in that the historian is
used to following processes, although the data flow he receives is usually
not abundant, while the anthropologist, who has rich data on changes, does
not always bother to describe them”. While historians, lacking details of
the change to oligarchic rule, have missed this historic change,
anthropologists, who have seen some of its signs, rarely bother to describe
them, and have not analyzed the impact on kibbutz cultures of power and
capitals gained in FOs by pe’ilim, missing their pervasive effects on
hegemony in the field.28 Goldschmidt (1990) has pointed out the decisive
importance of the study of careers even in the egalitarian cultures of
hunters and gatherers,29 but, without studying FOs where thousands of
27 Rosolio 1975; Cohen, A. 1978; Shapira 1978, 1978/9, 1987. 28 On hegemony see: Gramsci 1974; Bourdieu 1977, 1984, 1988; Comaroff &
Comaroff 1992. 29 On these cultures’ egalitarianism see also: Harris 1990; Bird-David 1990,
1992.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 57
elite members developed their careers, CKP users, including
anthropologists, have missed major parts of elite careers and the pivotal
role of FOs in engendering oligarchy, brain-drain and the suppression of
radical officers, their demotion, sidetracking and exiting in accord with
Hirschman’s (1970) theory.
Theories and methods of organizational sociologists and behaviorists
are inappropriate for studying the dynamics of cultures (Barley & Tolbert
1997). Anthropologists were better equipped for this, and, indeed, some of
them described declining democracy, growing inequality, stratification
and diminishing trust in kibbutzim, and a few even discerned some impact
of FOs. Unfortunately, criticism of ‘innocent’, ‘realistic’, non-historical
ethnography30 was valid for them: Without a historical perspective of the
kibbutz movement, no reference to Landshut (2000[1944]) and Buber
(1958[1945]) who pointed to FOs integrality, and no study of FOs’ impact
on elite members’ careers, they missed how FOs’ growth, success and
leadership continuity bred conservatism and oligarchy which caused
mounting cultural conflicts between FOs and kibbutzim, as well as within
each category. For Buber (1958[1945]: 141) “…the truly structural task of
the new Village Communes [i.e., kibbutzim] begins with their federation,
that is their union under the same principle that operates in their internal
structure”, but anthropologists missed the evasion of this structural task by
kibbutz leaders, as both pe’ilim and non-pe’ilim informants ignored it,
each for different reasons, while FOs were beyond anthropologists’
horizon.
Anthropologists were aiming at “understanding at the expense of
seeing”, as Linstead et al. (1996: 7) put it; they tried to understand kibbutz
without seeing it in context. “The hardest part of a researcher’s
[anthropological] work is to discern the context of phenomena” said Marx
(1985: 147).31 Kibbutz anthropologists did not discern the profound
contextual effects of FOs and capitalist cultures, because they used CKP to
explain what they saw. CKP prevented their trying to grasp what was
meant by a member who said: “The kibbutz is not… an isolated
community. We very much belong to the outside,… members don’t want
to sit and discuss our relations with the entities to which we belong…”.
30 Comaroff & Comaroff 1992; Hammersley 1992; Van Maanen 1995. 31 See also: Pettigrew 1995: 95; Bryman et al. 1996.
3. The Lack of a Good Kibbutz Theory 58
They ignored such utterances, and the educated kibbutz members who
read their publications adopted CKP by which was ignored the thwarting
of kibbutz principles by FOs and pe’ilim. Ignorance by members, in turn,
helped later anthropologists ignore FOs, which, in turn, enhanced
ignorance on the part of sociologists and behaviorists. Without Bourdieu’s
(1977, 1984) concepts of field and intangible capitals which were rarely
used in American and Israeli academic circles, and with no reference to
DWOs literature on the role of federative structures,32 kibbutz was not
grasped as a small unit heavily involved in a large, complex and stratified
field.
An additional omission is captured by Freeman’s (1974) insight that
even in an egalitarian, formally unorganized grouping, leaders would soon
emerge, whether due to their traits and/or social ties and/or other
intangible and tangible capitals, and would use the egalitarian image as a
smoke screen for concealing dominance.33 Kibbutz students should have
been suspicious of the social ties pe’ilim created on FO jobs and other
capitals they accumulated there, largely shaping kibbutz power elites,
much more than local, fast-changing jobs. However, without considering
FO impacts, without recognizing emerging dominance in accord with
Freeman’s insight, and without research regarding the bearing of outside
careers on local status and power, it was impossible for researchers to
discern the reality of kibbutz stratification.
32 Whyte & Whyte 1988; Stryjan 1989; Gherardi & Masiero 1990; Brumann
2000. 33 This was corroborated by Sasson-Levy’s (1995) ethnography of an Israeli
radical social movement.
CHAPTER 4
The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification
“...[O]ne cannot be satisfied with an explanatory model incapable of
differentiating people whom ordinary intuition in the specific universe tells
us are quite different” (Bourdieu, in Wacqaunt 1989: 7-8).
In general, researchers have missed kibbutz stratification. The kibbutz is
supposedly egalitarian. Hence, what should logically be more studied and
understood than the extent of its egalitarianism and the shape of its
stratification, which have tangible expressions that enlighten their study?
How is it that after six decades of research, some scholars have found no
stratification,1 while others have found three or four strata?2 Similarly,
each researcher has found a different top stratum, consisting of either:
1. The main officers of each kibbutz (Landshut 2000[1944]),
2. A few members of a kibbutz who belonged to the kibbutz movement
leadership (Rosenfeld 1983[1951]),
3. A few members who rotated main local offices among themselves
(Spiro 1955; Rayman 1981),
4. A kibbutz’s chief economic officers (Schwartz 1955; Vallier 1962),
5. The three managers of a kibbutz’s two plants (Kressel 1971, 1983),
6. Four members who circulated between chief offices, positions as
emissaries abroad, and Movement jobs (Fadida 1972),
7. The three patrons whose clients managed a kibbutz (Topel 1979),
8. 20% of members with highest authority, prestige and influence (Ben-
Rafael 1986),
9. A ‘Mafia’ of veteran pioneers who managed the kibbutz (Bowes
1989: 71),
10. Chief officers, some ex-officers, main branch managers and
“members in continuous but less important roles” (Ben-Rafael &
Yaar 1992: 30),
11. Technocrats who often obtained Movement jobs (Ben-Rafael 1996:
1 Talmon 1972; Shepher, Y. 1975; Blasi 1980; Shur 1987; Rosner 1991. 2 Rosenfeld 1983[1951]; Kressel 1971; Fadida 1972; Ben-Rafael 1986; Shapira
1990; Pavin 1996.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 60
62),
12. A local power oligarchy (Rosolio 1999: 29),
13. The head of the economic committee’s ruling clique (Schwartz &
Naor 2000).
Ordinary intuition, however, tells us that all of these are mistaken. High
above all those mentioned as top strata, were Itzhak Tabenkin, Me’ir Yaari
and Yaakov Hazan who, for a half century headed the main Movements,
Kibbutz Meuchad (hereafter KM) and Kibbutz Artzi (KA), with some
80% of kibbutz population up to 1952, and some 66% afterwards, as KM
lost members and kibbutzim to the Ichud Hakibbutzim Vehakvutzot
Movement (hereafter Ichud). Both historians and ex-pe’ilim unanimously
depicted the three as extremely powerful figures with national leadership
status.3 The three headed the two main Movements and their affiliated
political parties, were Knesset (parliament) Members for dozens of years
and members of its main committees. Like Admors in Hassidic courts
(acronym of “our lord, teacher and Rabbi”), they sent deputies to be
Cabinet Ministers, and executives of the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut,
the huge federation of all Socialist movements and trade unions (hence,
the term “Admors” is used thereafter); they chose pe’ilim for hundreds of
other FO jobs and members of Movements’ quasi-parliaments.4 Haim
Shure, a disciple of Yaari and Hazan and a pa’il who headed KA’s youth
movement, edited its daily, Al Hamishmar, and held a seat on its
Executive Committee (Vaad Po’el) for 45 years, depicted their guru-like
status thus (2001: 66):
“There were two who were called ‘The Historic Leadership’, i.e. the
permanent leaders, as opposed to all others who were under the rule of
rotatzia, i.e. they had to go back to the ranks every some years”. “The
permanent leaders were not elected as were all others. They were there
from the creation of the world, like Everest or other mountains, and no
human hand could remove them”.
Their supremacy was clearly symbolized by special privileges. I
3 Historians: Beilin 1984; Shavit 1985; Kafkafi 1992; Kynan 1989; Near 1992-
1997; Keshet 1995; Tzachor 1997; Porat 2000; Kanari 2003. Ex-pe’ilim:
Talmon 1990; Vilan 1993; Tzur 1996; Manor 1997; Shem-Tov 1997; Shure
1997, 2001; Aharoni 2000; Cohen M. 2000; Gilboa 2000. 4 Vilan 1993; Ben-Rafael 1997: 141; Near 1997; Armoni 2000; Gelb 2001; Gvirtz 2003.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 61
remember their arrival in minister-style chauffeured fancy American cars
to lecture at Giv’at Haviva, KA’s seminar center, in 1956, surprising us,
KA’s twelfth-graders, gathered there for an ideological seminar on
Socialism. Their cars clearly negated their preaching and stood out in a
society where private cars were very rare, and almost everyone used either
public Egged buses or vans or pickup trucks belonging to KA, FOs, or
kibbutzim, while groups traveled by lorries in which provisional benches
were installed.
Supremacy Ignorance and the Confused Etiology of
Stratification Admors’ supremacy was known at the time not only to every kibbutz adult
but to most Israelis; only sociologists and anthropologists ignored it, even
after Beilin (1984), Shavit (1985), Kafkafi (1988, 1992) and Kynan (1989)
had described their autocratic rule. Students ignored both this autocracy
and other outside hierarchies of status, power, prestige and continuity in
jobs which enhanced status of pe’ilim and other members with outside
careers. This enhancement made many of them dominant in their kibbutz,
as, for instance, Hever Hakvutzot Movement leader Pinhas Lavon
dominated Kvutzat Hulda.5 Students could not agree on the etiology of
stratification, depicting it as a consequence of one of the following:
1. The power of chief kibbutz officers derived from their superior level
of information and knowledge (Landshut 2000[1944]).
2. Differential prestige due to both veteran pioneering and leadership
roles or other important roles in the kibbutz movement (Rosenfeld
1983[1951]).
3. Kibbutz economic officers were dominant because of control of
local economy (Schwartz 1955; Vallier 1962; Schwartz & Naor
2000).
4. Control of a kibbutz due to continuous management of its plants
(Kressel 1971, 1974, 1983).
5. Dominance derived from filling main kibbutz offices, serving as
emissaries abroad and as Movement functionaries, and acquiring
higher education (Fadida 1972).
6. Dominance through patronage of clients who held main local offices
5 Near 1992: 265; Kafkafi 1998. For other examples: Chap. 13-17.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 62
(Topel 1979).
7. Differential member longevity leading to veterans’ control (Bowes
1989).
8. Differential authority, prestige and influence of roles (Ben-Rafael &
Yaar 1992).
9. Power differentiation due to the rise of technocracy (Ben-Rafael
1996).
10. Local power oligarchies created due to officers’ circulation
(Rosolio 1999: 132).
Such a wide range of explanations for stratification is comprehensible
only through blindness to the reality of stratification, largely created by
thousands of pe’ilim employed in the steep hierarchies of hundreds of FOs
(see list in Chap. 5), which were headed by powerful, prestigious and
continuous figures whose supremacy was symbolized by privileges rarely
found in kibbutz local offices. Students sought stratification only in the
flat organizational structures of kibbutzim with short-term officers of
lesser power and prestige, few or no privileges, who were mostly
relatively young with limited authority. They ignored FOs, while the great
variety of FOs and the variety of other outside jobs held by members made
stratification very complex. Most of this complexity remained unexplored,
as a major factor was missed: Most kibbutz elite members’ careers were
made as pe’ilim or as outside employees in stratified FOs and/or in other
outside bureaucracies, with power, prestige and privileges, as well as the
security of status due to continuity which was rare in kibbutz local offices.
At the zenith of kibbutz success, in the mid-1980s, 4500-5000 members
were pe’ilim, who were mostly recruited by a quota system: 5% of
members were pe’ilim of the Movements and 2% of the Reg.Ents, totaling
some 3600 pe’ilim.6 Their kibbutzim either got no salaries or received
uniform ones for their work, while FOs paid expenses and furnished about
half of them with cars that symbolized their status.7 Due to the rotatzia
6 Malchi 1978; Shapira 1978; Yadlin 1989; Lifshitz 1990; Gilboa 1991. Ben-
Rafael 1997: 21. 7 Adar 1975; Ilana and Avner 1977; Shapira 1979b, 1987; Tzur 1980; Ginat
1981; Rayman 1981: 176; Atar 1982; Gelb 2001: 112. In the 1970s, I was a
pa’il without a car, while some of my fellow kibbutz members, knowing me as
a pa’il, supposed I had a car and asked me for lifts.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 63
norm, kibbutz chief officers served two-three years or even less,8 in
contrast to the Admors half century. Similar to the Admors were the heads
of Hever Hakvutzot Movement, Baratz, Luz, Eshkol and Lavon (In 1951
united with part of KM and became Ichud).9 These leaders and their
deputies, after decades in FO jobs prior to Israel’s statehood, became
Knesset Members and/or Cabinet Ministers for decades.10 Lavon was
Histadrut General Secretary in 1949-50 and 1956-61, and so was
Tabenkin’s deputy, Ben-Aharon in 1969-73 (Gvirtz 2003). Beneath them,
dozens of FO heads and hundreds senior pe’ilim held high offices for
decades, while thousands held consecutive authority jobs up to a
lifetime.11 Even junior pe’ilim were stratified by continuity: some
continued two-three terms, while others served a single 2-5 year term, and
as money is drawn to money, continuous pe’ilim gained more power and
better and more tangible and intangible privileges than one-term juniors.12
For instance, in 1951 Mapam was KA’s and KM’s political party, and
junior pa’il Yaakov Vilan (1993) of Kibbutz Negba was its campaigner in
Tel Aviv for Knesset elections. Although local campaign heads agreed,
Yaari did not permit him to have a month’s leave for a series of lectures in
the US on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal, a Jewish Agency
subsidiary, which had invited him personally. He then noticed inequality
among pe’ilim:
“Of course Yaari did not object to Barzilay and Bentov traveling [on
lecturing tours], as they were supposed to continue being Cabinet
Ministers. According to Me’ir [Yaari], they were not obliged to help with
8 Meged & Sobol 1970; Fadida 1972; Kressel 1974; Blasi 1980: 102; Einat 1991;
Leviatan 1993. 9 Near 1992: 265, 363; Near 1997: 180. Eshkol and Lavon left kibbutzim having
advanced to the summit of Israel’s leadership: Kafkafi 1998; Goldstein 2003. 10 In each of the first seven Knessets (1949-1973), there were between 14 and 26
kibbutz members (Yanai 1981: 104). For the 15 most continuous members see:
Kibbutz 1987. 11 Shepher, I. 1980; Harpazi 1982; Arieli 1986; Brum 1986; Lifshitz 1986a,
1986c; Raz 1986; Helman 1987; Ringel-Hofman 1988; Rosenhak 1988; Halevi
1990; Shapira 1990, 1992; Sack 1996; Vilan 1993; Tzimchi 1999; Gelb 2001;
Shure 2001. 12 On pe’ilim privileges see sources in footnote 7 above and Chap. 8.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 64
the election campaign, even by speeches. Who must not go? Me. I had to
continue working when their seats in the Knesset were assured” (p. 273).
Missing Classical Stratification Theorists in Kibbutz
Literature While Vilan was a short-term pa’il, Barzilay and Bentov, as Admors’
deputies, continued for dozens of years. Differential continuity and power,
prestige and privilege accumulation by pe’ilim created stratification which
was hardly mentioned and never studied, although these are main
explanatory variables in classical models. These models will suffice to
expose the blindness. Weber (1946) saw three societal hierarchies: the
political was ranked by power, the social - ranked by prestige, and the
economic - ranked by income and property. He pointed out that in a stable
society, advancing in one hierarchy helped promotion in others. Lenski
(1966) described the self-enhancing tendency of power, prestige and
privileges, material and non-material, to accumulate in the hands of few at
the expense of the majority. Michels’ (1959[1915]) Iron Law of Oligarchy
explained perpetuation of power by this accumulation, and by privileging
and promoting loyalists, while critics either became loyalists, were
rewarded and promoted, or were sidetracked, demoted and left
(Hirschman 1970). A veteran oligarchic leader identifies the organization
with himself, stops distinguishing between his own good and
organizational good, and, de-facto, shifts its aims to serve himself
personally. Hirschman (1970) found that successors of such a leader were
usually loyal deputies promoted in the wake of a lack of critical thinking,
and due to this lack, they anachronistically continued these policies for a
longer period.
A simple and clear test of blindness to reality is the absence of Michels,
Lenski, Hirschman and other major stratification theorists such as Collins
(1975) and Bourdieu (1977, 1984), in reference lists of kibbutz literature.13
FOs were ignored; power, prestige and privileges accumulated in their
higher ranks were ignored, as well as promotion and privileging of loyal
pe’ilim by oligarchic heads. Hence, these theorists seemed superfluous.
Historians studied only the Movements but no other types of FOs, and
13 Only Michels was mentioned by two studies: Cohen & Rosner 1988; Rosolio
1999.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 65
mostly missed the significance of oligarchic processes. A historian’s main
task is the elucidation of major historical changes, but without Michelian
and other sociological theories, historians missed the oligarchic change of
the late 1930s and 1940s (Chaps. 10-11).
A Sociologist and Anthropologists Lay the Ground for the
Miss However, sociologists and anthropologists came first, so let us detail their
primordial contributions to this blindness. The first was Landshut
(2000[1944]), an economist-sociologist who resided in a KM kibbutz in
1940-1. Specializing in macro-analysis, his study was, in the main, valid
and illuminating, but using a communal society paradigm and without any
micro-analysis, he designated local main officers as the supreme stratum
(p. 88). In 1949-51, three American ethnologists researched kibbutzim. In
accordance with Marx’s (1985) assertion that the hardest part of an
ethnographer’s job is discerning the context of phenomena, they missed
the impact on stratification of the contexts of FOs and societal
involvement, despite the fact that Buber (1958[1945]) had already noticed
FO importance. Only Eva Rosenfeld (1983[1951]: 160) saw that the
highest rank in a kibbutz was held by “an important personality… which,
on closer questioning, reveals one of the top leaders of the kibbutz
movement”, thus implying a crucial role for the Movement in the shaping
of local stratification, but without further studying it. When she noticed
the better clothes of pe’ilim (1957: 117), she did not recognize these as
status symbols and missed others, such as briefcases, cars or Movement
vans that commuted them to work in the cities. Bourdieu (1993: 23) said:
“The sociologist’s misfortune is that… the people who have the technical
means of appropriating what he says have no wish to appropriate it…
whereas those who would have an interest in appropriating it do not have
the instruments for appropriation”.
Rosenfeld’s colleagues could have made use of her findings and could
have revealed stratification by asking further questions about such
prominent members, but did not make use of her perceptions. Her better
known colleague, Spiro (1955), did not see this phenomenon in the
kibbutz he studied, Beit Alfa, although its most prominent members from
the early days were Benyamin Dror and Eliezer Hacohen who were high-
ranking pe’ilim for decades; top status was allegedly held by twelve-
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 66
fifteen members who kept rotating the main kibbutz offices among
themselves (p. 25). However, as there were only three-four such offices,
Spiro missed another major point: these rotators rarely returned to the
ranks, and kept managerial status by pe’ilut or other such jobs; thus
rotatzia, which was intended to ensure that managers would come back to
the ranks, mostly failed and became circulation without such coming back.
Another anthropologist who missed Rosenfeld’s perceptions was Schwartz
(1955: 427) who also missed Spiro’s continuous rotators, but, in addition
to the local officers, saw ten-fifteen ex-officers who held outside
“decision-making positions” (i.e., pe’ilut), though not their office
continuity or continuity by circulation among offices, and not their
superior status, power, privileges and office continuity.
The major privileges of pe’ilim and other outside employed members,
such as company cars, were common knowledge, but ethnographers
overlooked them until my 1978 work, Topel’s (1979) and I. Shepher’s
(1980). However, we were ignored by later authors, including kibbutz
members, may be since these members were privileged pe’ilim.14 Evens
(1995: 226-7), for instance, found eight status categories in Kibbutz
Merchavia, but not pe’ilim, though there were many, KA’s Admor Yaari,
Talmon (1990), Tzur (1996) and more. Even Israeli ethnographers were
blind: Schwartz and Naor (2000) saw the dominance of a veteran pa’il, but
not the advantages of pe’ilut by which he became kibbutz ruler (Chap. 15).
Surveys Missed Stratification but Were Scientifically
Legitimized From the mid-1950s, sociologists of the Hebrew University dominated
kibbutz studies for decades, headed by the renowned functionalist S. N.
Eisenstadt (Ram 1995). Their surveys enhanced blindness, being, as
Bourdieu said (1990: 294), “disengaged from any concrete situation,
...record responses induced by the abstract stimuli of the survey situation
as if they were authentic products of the habitus”. According to
Yankelovich (1991) and Soros (1998: 4-24), both respondents and
researchers are sensitive and reflexive to an unknown degree, to various
14 Blasi 1980; Ben-Rafael 1986; Shur 1987; Bowes 1989; Rosner 1991; Rosolio
1999. Rayman (1981) mentioned some privileges of pe’ilim, but did not
connect them to stratification.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 67
survey wordings, and hence, outcome biases are unknown. These defects
can be neutralized by non-reactive measures, but devising them requires
fieldwork, which is the job of junior staff; senior researchers perform only
the final analysis and writing, which lead to fame (Platt 1976). In accord
with Bourdieu (1988: 3), these seniors lacked “the profound intuitions
gained from personal familiarity with the field”. Bourdieu and Wacquant
(1992) pointed to other malignant sociological tendencies: One was
“technological wizardry” (p. 33), complex statistical analyses by which
findings gained the image of objectivity, while, this was often just what
Whyte called (1992: 9) “tape spinning”, data processing without real
comprehension. A second defect was the division of sociologists into
empiricists and theoreticists: kibbutz surveyors were the former who knew
about FOs, met pe’ilim and their privileges, and could have discerned their
superiority as Rosenfeld did, but they left the question of the paradigm
used to theoreticians, and did not question CKP although it negated what
they saw in the field.
Reviewers Missed Students’ Omissions and Sanctioned
CKP The sociologists gained academic recognition and their works were
sanctioned by the scientific community. One may ask: Did reviewers not
suspect designation of humble chief local officers who were replaced
every 2-3 years as the top stratum, while renowned senior pe’ilim were
Cabinet Ministers, Knesset Members and headed national parties, large
national monopolies and other major FOs for decades? Moreover, how did
reviewers approve analyses of local units of a highly organized social
movement with so many large FOs, without references to large
organization classics and literature of social movements, political parties
and power elites?
Though a full answer to this question must await further study, its
contours are clear: Reviewers approved mistaken ethnographies and
surveys that ignored FO heads and other pe’ilim and outside careerists due
to their remoteness from the field. Lacking “the profound intuitions gained
from personal familiarity with the field” (Bourdieu 1988: 3), reviewers did
not suspect that the kibbutz was different from all other communal
societies. They did not reconsider CKP and missed the effects of the
contexts in which elites were involved, both FOs and other outside
organizations. Later reviewers who consulted early publications, learned
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 68
nothing of the context of stratified pe’ilim and other outside employed
members.
Kibbutz Member Researchers’ Vested Interests in the
Omission Since the 1960s, however, some researchers and reviewers have been
kibbutz members who were familiar with the field. How did they maintain
blindness to reality? According to Kuhn (1962), the continuity of
paradigms is a ubiquitous scientific problem. Collins pointed out (1975:
493-6) that a paradigm provides a discipline with an organization that is
basically social, unifying members around the common enterprise of
dominating a field of study. Bourdieu pointed out that “intellectuals have a
much greater than average capacity to transform their spontaneous
sociology, that is, their self-interested vision of the social world, into the
appearance of a scientific sociology” (Wacquant 1989: 4). Kibbutz
member researchers had an interest in envisioning the kibbutz as
egalitarian and democratic in order to justify their life choices. Through
the enhanced capacity mentioned by Bourdieu, they used mistaken CKP,
turning their spontaneous egalitarian view of the kibbutz into an
appearance of scientific sociology, and the dominant scientific coalition
rewarded them by publishing works which led to their promotion to
respected professorships. They enhanced the hegemony of the dominant
scientific coalition by rejecting and then ignoring critical Israeli
ethnographers who had furthered Rosenfeld’s work, including Israel
Shepher, Kressel, Fadida, Topel and myself, causing continuing blindness
to stratification up to the present.
Critical Sociologists Found Stratification but Missed Pe’ilim Worse still, Ben-Rafael and Yaar (1992) who were critical of functionalist
sociologists’ denial of stratification, also depicted kibbutz without
stratification engendered by pe’ilim and other outside careerists. In the
kibbutz they described, non-existent in point of fact, the upper strata
consisted of “chief local officers, heads of main branches, and others with
similar status due to past chief offices” (p. 30). However, neither
Tabenkin, nor Yaari had held any such offices in their respective
kibbutzim from the early 1930s, i.e., soon after they had founded the
Movements, while no one would doubt that each of them had top status.
The same was true of Lavon and Eshkol in Hever Hakvutzot Movement,
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 69
until they left their kvutzot when becoming national leaders (Kafkafi
1998; Goldstein 2003). The only exception was Hazan who held some of
Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek offices (as will be detailed). However, in Ben-
Rafael’s and Yaar’s list of roles which defined kibbutz member statuses
(1992: 83), there were no Cabinet Ministers, Knesset Members, Histadrut
leaders, Labor Party officials, FOs heads or any other senior pe’ilim,
although Ben-Rafael himself mentioned them elsewhere (1997: 141).
Worse still, no outside job is on their list, although biographies of
professionals, authors, editors, artists, army officers and other outside
careerists, reveal these careers as enhancing local statuses,15 and one of
Kibbutz Rama’s two power elites consisted of such careerists (Chaps. 12-
13).
Ben-Rafael and Yaar (1992: 30) erred even more seriously: Their
kibbutz upper stratum included 20% of the members, but according to
Argaman (1997) and Tzachor (1997), nobody in Mishmar Ha’emek came
close to Admor Hazan’s status. Thus, its upper stratum consisted of only
0.2% of some 500 members. The second stratum consisted of only two
(0.4%): Baruch (Boria) Lin, who for decades represented KA in the
Histadrut Executive Committee and held the Health and Welfare portfolio,
responsible for the Health Fund (Kupat Cholim), pension funds and other
organizations with tens of thousands of employees and millions of clients;
and Mordechai Bentov, editor of the daily newspaper of KA, Knesset
Member and Cabinet Minister. The three had not held chief kibbutz
offices from time immemorial, but when they intervened in kibbutz
deliberations, their influence was usually decisive, signaling their top
status (Argaman 1997: 115-23). In addition, in important debates, Hazan
was usually the last speaker, summing up positions and suggesting how to
vote, thus holding extra power (Tzachor 1997: 180). Hazan’s superiority
over all pe’ilim was symbolized from the early 1950s by a KA chauffeured
fancy American car. Its appearance astonished members, as it did later to
my schoolmates and myself at Giv’at Haviva, and a heated debate erupted
which concluded that it was a KA car and not Hazan’s own, so it did not
15 Due to my own blindness, Emanuel Marx had to remind me of these. See:
Kressel 1974: 37-40; Shepher, I. 1980; Rosenhak 1988; Dagan & Yakir 1995;
Dvorkind 1996; Tzur 1996; Tzimchi 1999; Aharoni 2000; Cohen, M. 2000;
Gelb 2001; Gvirtz 2003; Chaps. 12-15.
4. The Missing of Kibbutz Stratification 70
violate egalitarianism. However, its “capitalist flavor” had to be
eliminated by repainting it to a “proletarian color” (ibid).
Additional explanations of the blindness to kibbutz stratification can be
found elsewhere (Shapira 2005). The stratification will be fully exposed
by kibbutz ethnographies which will appear only after the chapters dealing
with FOs, since the latter mainly shaped stratification, and no
understanding of this stratification is possible without exposing how
pe’ilim gained statuses, promoted careers and accumulated power and
intangible capitals which enhanced status continuity and promotion. In
accord with most stratification theories, these factors were dependent on
office continuity and on the power and prestige of one’s job, as well as on
FO’s rank in the kibbutz field depending on its scale, centrality and
importance (Frank 1985). A study of kibbutz stratification would have to
resemble the above cited works by Bourdieu and his team on French
society, but this is impossible here due to a lack of FO research and my
limitations as a lone researcher. However, by combining ethnographies of
both FOs and kibbutzim, the complex ways by which social and other
intangible capitals were accumulated in the kibbutz field will be revealed.
I am also cognizant of the fact that the concept of social capital is
somewhat problematic as “it now assumes a wide variety of meanings and
has been cited in a rapidly increasing number of social, political and
economic studies”.16 I hope to prevent misconceptions by further
description of major mistakes by CKP users due to ignoring FO, detailing
more of the excluded sector of the field where most of its power, capitals
and privileges were accumulated.
16 Woolcock 1998: 155. For recent works see: Putnam 2000; Kostova & Roth
2003; Huysman & Wulf 2004.
CHAPTER 5
Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion
Kibbutz Movement – A Part of Encompassing Social
Movements Mishmar Ha’emek members’ decision to paint Hazan’s car a “proletarian
color”, symbolized their Marxist approach. Kibbutzim were pioneering
settlements which conquered the most difficult and dangerous places in
Palestine for the Jewish people, and whose members were radical
socialists who aimed at shaping a better society. The Kibbutz movement
was part of a much larger socialist movement organized by the Histadrut,
as a sector of the Zionist movement.1 The Histadrut included kibbutzim,
moshavim (cooperative agricultural settlements), urban cooperatives, labor
unions and other organizations: the Solel-Boneh construction and
industrial concern, Hasne insurance, Bank Hapo’alim, Kupat Cholim
(Health Fund), which provided health care for most Jews in Palestine,
pension funds, and many others.2 In contrast to some communes which
formed informal networks (Hutterite, Shakers, Amana, Bruderhof),
kibbutzim were formally organized by FOs, the Histadrut and the World
Zionist Organization (WZO). In addition to kibbutz members Lavon and
Ben-Aharon who headed the Histadrut, Yaakov After of Degania founded
and headed the Mashbir Merkazi, the Histadrut wholesaler since 1916, and
kibbutzim and moshavim together owned Tnuva marketing since 1925,
headed first by a moshav member and then by a pa’il; both FOs had
thousands of employees in branches all over the country; they
monopolized some markets and were major players in others. The Mashbir
disappeared during the 1980s crisis, while Tnuva remained prosperous
with some 4000 employees and a sales volume approaching US$ 2
billion.3 In March 2007 half of it was sold to a private fund in exchange
for US$ 1,025 Billion.
1 Landshut 2000[1944]; Goldenberg 1965; Gorkin 1971; Rayman 1981. 2 Willner 1969; Grinberg 1993; Vilan 1993: 289-366; Russell 1995; Gvirtz 2003. 3 Tidhar 1947, Vol. 2: 891-2, 1950, Vol. 4: 1710-1; Rev’on Lekalkala 1983;
Halevi 1990; Near 1992: 178; Arad 1995; Rosolio 1998.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 72
The Histadrut was dominated by Mapay to which Hever Hakvutzot and
the KM were affiliated, but, in 1942, the KM split and joined the
opposition with the KA. Mapay, however, curbed KM and KA opposition
by furnishing them with resources and Histadrut jobs (Shapira 1993: 46-
8). For Rosner, a kibbutz is “...a commune belonging to a Movement
which is part of the Histadrut and the Israeli labor movement” (1991: 1),
and for Rosolio the kibbutz “is misunderstood outside this context” (1993:
10). However, among Rosner’s innumerable kibbutz studies, not even one
has been devoted to the Movements and their Histadrut involvement.
Every kibbutz offspring living in Los Angeles who was interviewed by
Sabar (1996) mentioned his/her Movement affiliation, but the thick book
(620 pp.) by Rosner et al. (1978) did not analyze differential Movement
affiliation effects on kibbutz offspring.
Ignoring Kibbutz Oligarchization Followed that of the
Histadrut Due to students’ ignoring FOs, they missed the fact that kibbutz
oligarchization largely followed that of the larger movements: Ben-Gurion
continued heading dominant parties Ahdut Ha’avoda and Mapay from
1919 to 1963, headed the Histadrut from 1920 to 1935, the Jewish Agency
to 1946, the WZO to 1948, and the Government of Israel until 1963.4
Likewise, Mashbir Merkazi’s After, and Tnuva’s head, Verlinski,
remained in their positions for dozens of years, as did other heads of
Histadrut organizations.5 Kibbutz social scientists have ignored the
oligarchic context and its impact on Movements’ oligarchization, although
historians uncovered clear oligarchic signs. Berger (1966: Chap. 2) points
out that formal facades mask social reality and that it is the task of the
social scientist to penetrate them. Behind the facade of being kibbutz
servants, Admors and many FO heads became self-server oligarchs, but
most historians missed the change.
Let us mention a few clear oligarchic signs. Centralizing decision-
making: At first Movement decisions were made by quasi-parliaments of
4 In 1930 Hapo’el Hatzair joined Ahdut Ha’avoda to found Mapay; his position
as Prime Minister was interrupted for a year and a half in 1954-5: Teveth 1980;
Shapira, Y. 1984, 1993. 5 Tidhar 1947, Vol. 2: 891-2, 1950, Vol. 4: 1710-1; Grinberg 1993.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 73
kibbutz elected representatives, but in 1933-5 these were replaced by
governing councils made up of Admors’ nominees and Movement staff; in
the KM it was called the Extended Secretariat and then the Council, while
in the KA it was called the Executive Committee (Vaad Po’el).6 In accord
with Iron Law, Admors identified themselves with the Movements and
directed them to power self-perpetuation, while radicals and critical
thinkers perceived as potential competitors were suppressed and mostly
left.7 In 1951, KA’s Yaari even publicly declared himself the
personification of the Movement and its affiliated party: “I, Me’ir, am
Mapam. I am Hashomer Hatza’ir. I am the expression of Hashomer
Hatza’ir’s historical way”.8 Yaari and Hazan enhanced power by
promoting loyalists while equalizing their power: for each KA post given
to a Yaari loyalist, one was given to a Hazan supporter. Rotatzia enhanced
their rule: A pa’il who dared to criticize them was soon sent back to
his/her kibbutz as if this was normal rotatzia, unless s/he had a unique,
much-needed competence.9
Kynan (1989) and Kafkafi (1992) demonstrated that Admors’
conservatism obstructed almost all new solutions proposed by kibbutz
officers and pe’ilim in order to cope with Israel’s main task since 1949, the
absorption of a million immigrants. Tzachor (1997) described one out of
many Admor privileges, Hazan’s fancy car, but did not mention the cars
which he and some other pe’ilim got in the 1940s, nor did he discern that
Hazan’s car emphasized the indifference of pe’ilim to member car needs
by not sharing their cars with them even on weekends, a good reason for
members to vent their local power by painting Hazan’s car a “proletarian”
6 KA: Secretariat minutes, KA archive file No. 5�20.2]1 [ ; KM: Tzur 1981: 10;
Kafkafi 1992: 35. 7 Beilin 1984; Dagan & Yakir 1995; Cohen, M. 2000: 201-2; Kanari 2003: 389-
91; Aharoni 2000. 8 Kynan 1989: 190. Mapam was KA’s and KM’s political party and Yaari was its
General Secretary. Hashomer Hatza’ir is the KA youth movement and second
name (Dror L. 1956-1964). 9 Beilin 1984; Shavit 1985; Dagan & Yakir 1995; Shem-Tov 1997; Tzachor
1997: 223-5. A Hazan critic who became pa’il due to his rare competence:
Aharoni 2000.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 74
color.10 Students did not mention many other privileges FO heads
appropriated and conferred on pe’ilim with oligarchization, in accord with
Iron Law (Chap. 8).
Mid-Levelers Became Main Actors with Oligarchization Due to over-attachment by students to perspectives of Movements’
leaders, the study of mid-level pe’ilim and kibbutz officers who became
main actors in the field was missed. Anyone who wants to know who
made kibbutzim successful in the 1960s-1970s will be disappointed when
seeking answers in historical works: no one was interested in the actions
and careers of radical, creative mid-levelers who became the main actors,
shaping kibbutz movement’s achievements when its leaders did not
function and abused their moral duty of promoting its cause. It is a
historical irony that solutions formulated by the radicals helped maintain
trust in Admors, who turned to barren leftism instead of solving major
problems, and suppressed radicals’ creativity and status elevation (Chaps.
10-11).
Neglect of FOs led to the failure to recognize vital contributions by
mid-level pe’ilim which partially offset the negative effects of
dysfunctioning Admors. Only careers of some political pe’ilim were
discussed by historians, as those had bearing on histories of Admors.11
However, the protagonist of an autobiography was depicted thus: “It was
Avraham Brum who formulated the policy which freed agricultural
settlements from the intolerable burden of loan interest...” (Brum 1986:
back cover). As a Deputy General Manager of the Ministry of Agriculture,
Brum set up and headed the Centralized Credit Department, conceived of
and successfully implemented a controversial new policy which, from
1963, relieved many kibbutzim of large debts they had accumulated,
mainly due to lack of proper financing for growth and rapid changes, as
Chapter 3 has explained.
Earlier, Brum had been a pa’il of the Agricultural Center (Merkaz
Hakla’ii), an FO which was in charge of planning and directing the
establishment of kibbutzim and moshavim, and representing them in
10 Pe’ilim cars in 1940s: Kochav and Gan Shmuel informants. On similar
reactions to signs of low morality of commune leaders: Knaani 1960: 79. 11 See: Beilin 1984; Kafkafi 1988, 1992; Kanari 1989, 2003; Tzachor 1997.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 75
negotiations with the Jewish Agency and the government. Then he
advanced to a deputy to the General Manager of The Ministry of
Agriculture (Brum 1986). In this position, he became cognizant of the lack
of proper credit as a main obstacle for growth and change of kibbutz
economy to industry and new, export crops, as high yields of old crops
had caused gluts and falling prices. He devised and implemented a radical
financing policy: Originally, a kibbutz treasurer had to search for many
sources of credit, and when reluctant banks did not meet his needs, he took
loans from expensive private sources which tended to cause a snowball of
debt growth.12 Brum’s solution attached each kibbutz to one bank from
which credit was granted according to a development plan agreed upon
each year by kibbutz officers, the bank, the Movement Fund and Ministry
of Agriculture experts. Brum gained power as he successfully coped with
a major problem, in accord with Hickson et al. (1971). Shalem’s study
found (2000: VII) a positive impact of his solution:
“…economic assistance, control and planning…, were supporting factors
of democratic collective organizations in view of their special consumption
and investment structure”.
Two things are obvious: 1) Brum had creatively solved a major
problem which had devastated most kibbutzim for a decade while Admors
and their deputies as Cabinet Ministers and Knesset Members had not. The
head of KM’s Fund, Sack (1996: 94), three levels beneath Tabenkin, was
Brum’s partner in devising this solution. 2) Brum solved the problem
without heading any of the large organizations that had dominated kibbutz
financing, an inexplicable success if one ignores the power and capitals he
accumulated as a pa’il, and his governmental office which was relatively
independent of Tabenkin’s conservative control. These issues were never
studied by CKP users.
Neglecting the Uniqueness of Pe’ilim and Its Symbolization Due to ignoring FOs, CKP users missed the fact that most kibbutz
movement leaders advanced to prominence either in FO jobs or on their
behalf, in national bodies. As careers of pe’ilim were ignored, students
missed the advantages they acquired and the power and capitals they
accumulated on the outside, which brought successes such as Brum’s. 12 Wording is masculine as all were males.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 76
These advantages symbolized pe’ilim’s high statuses and enhanced power
(Lenski 1966), not only better clothes they had received from communal
storerooms (Rosenfeld 1957: 127), but also FOs’ company cars and other
advantages:
1. Senior pe’ilim traveled abroad and, on returning, reported to their
kibbutz (Tzachor 1997: 164; Gvirtz 2003: 201).
2. Their names appeared frequently in the Movement dailies, weeklies
and quarterlies as major actors, speakers and writers.
3. They mostly represented their kibbutzim at Movement
conventions.13
4. They were main speakers in ideological and other major debates
(Argaman 1997).
5. They often remained members of major committees in their local
kibbutz while in pe’ilut. Sessions were held on weekends, when they
came home, as were general assemblies.
6. They were rarely asked by the work organizer to do urgent manual
tasks, as others were. Some of them were known as ‘weekend
kibbutzniks’.14
By ignoring pe’ilim as a unique type of elite not found in any other
communal society, users of CKP missed kibbutz uniqueness and could not
properly explain its elites. Not only status symbols but also tangible
rewards were acquired in FO jobs. In 1990, I heard from a veteran
member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa, David Kahana, that in 1930 he had been a
pa’il of the Agricultural Center and was able to put aside money for a
private radio from the weekly expense allowance given for five-day
accommodations in Tel Aviv, while all the other hundred members were
served by a large radio located in the dining hall.15 Veterans of Kibbutz
Kochav remembered that in the early 1930s, before the kibbutz bought a
16 millimeters movie projector, some pe’ilim reported to the general
assembly not only on political and other public affairs in which they were
involved, but also on movies they had seen when staying in Tel Aviv, paid
for with money saved from their expense allowances. Another example:
13 Dror 1956-1964; Tzur 1981; Kafkafi 1992; Near 1992-1997. 14 Near 1997: 180; Goldstein 2003: 105; Gvirtz 2003: 91, 201. 15 Such a radio served Gan Shmuel members up to the late 1940s; see also Br”t
1998: 33.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 77
Tzachor (1997: 171) depicted Hazan, while in the city, as sometimes
enjoying “good wine and a dainty meal, so rare at the kibbutz”.
Neglecting the Violation of Egalitarianism by Pe’ilim By ignoring FOs, CKP users missed how violations of egalitarianism
became integral to the roles of pe’ilim as brokers between kibbutzim and
non-egalitarian outside society. All FOs imitated, at least partially, outside
norms, while mostly advancing the kibbutz cause by coping with
contingencies which no kibbutz could cope with on its own. This,
however, created a problem: If and to what extent pe’ilim were entitled to
compensation for the extra efforts they made and inconveniences they
suffered as administrators of FOs? In simple egalitarian village societies,
extra hardships of a headman were considered duly compensated by the
extra prestige he gained (Harris 1990: 343-51). Was this true also of
kibbutz in the early days, while, after oligarchic change pe’ilim were
privileged beyond due compensation for extra hardships? Proof of a
positive answer will be given below, while it is obvious that ignoring FOs
hid pe’ilim privileges.
In fact, the unique requirements of FOs violated egalitarianism in ways
other than pe’ilim privileges. FOs competed with and/or struggled against
other organizations, and this prompted violation of egalitarianism. For
example, Kibbutz Ein Harod’s author Maletz (1983[1945]) depicted the
early days through the eyes of an ordinary member called Menachemke.
After a decade of hard work, Menachemke, his wife and their small child
received a small flat. However, after a while, a prominent member,
depicted as a Movement ‘ideologist’, convinced the housing committee
that it must evict them from this flat since it was a little larger than his
own and better fitted his intellectual work, i.e., writing his addresses and
articles (pp. 179-81). His job was not mentioned, but he was clearly at
least a part-time pa’il, and his writing was integral to the Movement’s
political struggle.16 Performing this task required a flat where a writing
niche could be arranged, which was not needed by Menachemke. The
committee decision became explicable only when Ein Harod was analyzed
as a unit of a social movement whose societal struggles impacted local
egalitarianism.
16 See memories of such a pa’il: Gelb 2001.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 78
Neglecting FO Differentiation from Kibbutzim The national struggles of the Movements also influenced the location of
headquarters which were, at first, in Admors’ kibbutzim, KM’s in Ein
Harod and KA’s in Merhavia, in Mishmar Ha’emek and then back to
Merhavia, in accordance with leadership rotation of the two Admors.17
National politics were resolved in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, so, with
growing political involvement in the 1930s, both Movements’
headquarters moved to Tel Aviv, although without some subsidiaries. For
instance, the KA publishing house, Sifriat Po’alim, and its printing press,
remained in Merhavia up to the 1960s. Pe’ilim of FOs situated in
kibbutzim were not distinguished from other members, as they had no
privileges. Moving to Tel Aviv enhanced differentiation, though only
gradually. For instance, KA’s pe’ilim at first humbly ate and lodged in a
small pension, but later, like David Kahana, they were given allowances
which enabled perks, received rented apartments and then also cars.18
The Reg.Ents developed in a similar fashion. For instance, in the 1940s,
Mishkay Hamerkaz was a small purchasing organization with an office in
Tel Aviv, which set up a cold storage house for potatoes in one of its
kibbutzim. Work and management were carried out by kibbutz members
of both the hosting kibbutz and adjacent kibbutzim as a part of the tasks of
the vegetable branches. Hence, no social differentiation emerged. In the
1960s, a much larger cold storage facility was built at the new Mishkay
Hamerkaz industrial park, as a part of a vegetable and fruit sorting and
packing compound. Pe’ilim administered it, all manual work was done by
hired workers, and stratification emerged among pe’ilim, as well: the
manager had a car, while other pe’ilim commuted collectively by pickups.
Even FOs which remained inside kibbutzim, were differentiated as
they developed and grew, and became more hierarchic and stratified. An
example is the regional high school founded in the late 1940s by few
kibbutzim alongside Kibbutz Rama. At first, it resembled a kibbutz: a staff
of members only, authority functions divided between an administrator
and a senior teacher, and no high status symbolization. The only weak sign
was a pickup which the administrator drove more than others, and which
17 Kanari 1989: 37; Tzachor 1997: 144. See the same in Hever Hakvutzot: Near
1992: 262-6. 18 See Chap. 8; Personal knowledge: My father was a KA pa’il in 1949-51.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 79
he used more than others on weekends for private ends. Finances were
managed by Rama’s treasurer, and building and upkeep of facilities by its
functionaries. As it grew and as Rama introduced capitalist practices
(Chap. 12), the school became stratified, hierarchic and bureaucratic, with
some hired staff and a privileged autocratic manager. Ignoring FOs has
prevented students from seeing cultural change that came with growth and
spatial separation from kibbutzim by new localities. Only the underground
army Palmach, a quasi-FO initiated by the KM in 1942, retained kibbutz
culture despite its size, some 2500 people, largely due to situating small
units in many kibbutzim, living and dressing much like kibbutz members,
while commanders had neither status symbols nor privileges (Chap. 10).
Evasion of Violation of Egalitarianism by Outside Sources In a detached commune of Hutterites in the 1970s, even owning a radio
was allowed only to a hired English teacher as a temporary resident (Baer-
Lambach 1992: 25), but in kibbutzim pe’ilim routinely violated
egalitarianism from the early days. In the 1950s, a Kibbutz Rama pa’il
even brought home a private piano upon returning from an emissary
position abroad. Only powerless joiners to established kibbutzim handed
over precious personal items to the kibbutz storeroom, including, for
instance, a handmade present, a nice dress which her grandmother had
knitted for Hana Wolf when finishing high school; this dress was used
every other day by another Mishmar Ha’emek woman when traveling to
Haifa, where Hana’s mother met them and identified their kibbutz origin
by this dress (Katzir 1999: 76). A refrigerator and a dishwasher, however,
were not useable this way. In Kibbutz Sa’ad, in the 1980s, when most flats
were furnished with only small refrigerators, a larger, American one and a
dishwasher belonging to a family joining the kibbutz were taken to a
storeroom for some months and then handed back to the family (Br”t
1998: 89).
Sa’ad’s secretary tried to maintain egalitarian culture in this amusing
way in an attempt to deal with an unsolved normative conflict caused by
societal involvement. If no other member of Sa’ad had possessed similar
goods, he could sell the large refrigerator, the money could be put into
Sa’ad’s cash fund, and joiners would have been given only a humble
refrigerator. This was morally impossible, however, since everyone knew
that pe’ilim and other members did not hand over such goods, or even
more expensive assets held privately on the outside, usually due to
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 80
inheritance: flats, cars, bank accounts, etc. Such secrets were partially
penetrated by only one student, Kressel (1974: 174-81), but even he
missed the fact that egalitarianism was violated to a greater extent by
pe’ilim and members employed outside, who used outside-owned assets
such as company cars free of charge, rather than by members’ use of
private assets, which was limited by kibbutzim. For instance, up to the late
1980s, members with private money could not buy a car or even a
motorbike and use them in their kibbutz. In the 1970s, Kibbutz Rama
officers even reprimanded a youngster for buying a used motorbike, but it
was not confiscated as it was masked as sports equipment. Kibbutz
students ignored how violations of egalitarianism by pe’ilim legitimized
violations by other members (Chap. 8, 12).
Blindness to FOs Control of Kibbutzim Development of kibbutzim required solutions which the FOs furnished
while gaining power over them (cf. Blau 1964). For instance, soon after
the Movements were founded by a few kibbutzim, all others joined. The
main reason was Movement control of a critical resource: youth who were
socialized for pioneering by Movement-affiliated ‘youth movements’ in
Europe, and later, in other countries. Another proof of this critical need:
Hever Hakvutzot lacked an affiliated youth movement at the time of its
foundation, so it adopted Gordonia, an independent youth movement.19
Youth filled the ranks emptied by members who left, and aged and
disabled members (a common problem of commune survival), and enabled
growth.20 On the eve of World War II, in Poland alone, 70,000 youngsters
were organized by kibbutz ‘youth movements’, and it seems that even
more were organized elsewhere (Near 1997: 33). Organizers were kibbutz
emissaries: KA had 33 emissaries in Europe, and KM had more than
double this number.21 An exceptional case, which supports this
explanation, was a kibbutz called Chen by Fadida (1972): Founded in
1954 by graduates of an independent Zionist youth movement abroad, it
did not join any Movement at first, as it had enough joiners. After six
19 Kanari 1989: 55. Kafakfi 1998: 44. Note that Spiro (1955) called the KA “The
federation”, and its youth movement “The Movement”. 20 Knaani 1960: 90; Oved 1988: Chap. 3; Kynan 1989; Kinkade 1994: 165-73. 21 Kanari 1989; Near 1992: 297-8; Tzur 1996: 57; Tzachor 1997: 161.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 81
years, it joined the Ichud, due to mounting economic problems which only
Ichud brokerage in the government and the Jewish Agency could solve.
Economic FOs became more important in a later era, when most
veteran kibbutzim no longer needed youth movement graduates, as
kibbutz offspring routinely joined them; only younger kibbutzim which
suffered very high exit rates remained dependent on these graduates
(Chaps. 14-15). Admors’ leftist politics and conservatism (Chaps. 10-11),
left room for only economic initiatives, such as the essential industrialized
processing of raw agricultural products. This service was soon provided
by Reg.Ents established by veteran Regional Purchasing FOs, or by firms
owned by Regional Councils headed by kibbutz members. Within two
decades, 155 regional plants and service facilities were set up.22
Reg.Ents heads became very powerful as kibbutzim were dependent on
their services: the only alternative a kibbutz could find for the services of a
Reg.Ents plant was usually a Reg.Ents plant of another region, but
Reg.Ents heads retained close contacts to prevent kibbutzim from breaking
dependency. Formally, Reg.Ents were democratically controlled by
kibbutzim and any wronged kibbutz could bring its grievances to the
board of directors of the plant in which, formally, the majority were
kibbutz representatives, while pe’ilim were only a minority. As the next
chapters will demonstrate, however, decision-making was firmly in the
hands of pe’ilim, and as Lenski (1966) found, this caused a self-enhancing
spiral of power and privilege enlargement which enraged kibbutz
members. However, they never managed to stop it, mainly because chief
kibbutz officers who were supposed to represent kibbutzim in FOs’
governing bodies, were mostly co-opted by pe’ilim as they had been
expecting a pe’ilut after a short local term.
Overlooking FOs It is clear that only a paradigm of kibbutz which includes FOs as an
integral part of analysis can enable this society to be comprehended.
Although a systematic study of FOs has yet to be done, it is helpful to
portray them with information which can be gathered without expensive
investigation. The inconclusiveness of the list below, should not disturb
the reader since our interest is in the effects of FOs on misunderstood
22 Cohen, A. 1978; Malchi 1978; Brum 1986; Niv & Bar-On 1992.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 82
kibbutz cultures and leadership processes which will be revealed through
an examination of both.
Rosolio (1998) mentioned four types of FOs, while I mentioned six
types:
1. The Mashbir Merkazi FO, Israel’s largest importer and wholesaler,
with many branches and some 1500 employees up to the mid-1980s
(Rev’on Lekalkala 1983). It then declined, was partitioned and sold.
2. Tnuva, an FO for processing and marketing agricultural products,
Israel’s largest industrial-commercial conglomerate with some 4000
employees, owned up until recently by all kibbutzim and moshavim.
3. Three, and later four Kibbutz Movements, which again became three
in 1980 by the unification of KM and Ichud into TKM, with some
2300 pe’ilim in 1985 (Recently, the TKM and KA have merged). As
they established many subsidiaries (Sack 1996 mentioned more than
fifty KM subsidiaries), only the more autonomous ones will be
mentioned below.
4. Movement-affiliated ‘youth movements’ which organized tens of
thousands of youngsters by hundreds of pe’ilim in Israel and abroad.
5. KM- and KA-affiliated Mapam party which split in 1954 into two
parties, each with 8-9 Knesset seats, usually two Cabinet Ministers,
dozens of branches, many pe’ilim and daily and weekly newspapers
up to 1968. Then, the KM party united with Mapay to found the
Labor Party, while KA’s party declined and two decades later
merged with another left-wing party.23
6. Eleven Reg.Ents concerns with some 110 plants and facilities, some
1200 pe’ilim, 7000-8000 permanent employees and 1000-2000
seasonal workers.
In addition to these six types of FOs, there were another thirty types,
each including between one and forty-six FOs, some with a few pe’ilim
and hundreds of hired workers, while others had dozens of pe’ilim and few
hired employees. However, all were hierarchic and bureaucratic with
pe’ilim managing them, which indicated a common feature: imitation of
low-trust, capitalist cultures with a counter-gravity to kibbutz communal
ethos and culture. Many sources have been used to construct the list; as it
23 Beilin 1984; Vilan 1993; Near 1997; Shem-Tov 1997; Tzachor 1997; Shure
2001.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 83
is a priori inconclusive and aimed at presenting a general picture, I will
refer to only some of these sources.
7. Histadrut-affiliated Union of Farm Workers and its Agricultural
Center were managed by pe’ilim from kibbutzim and moshavim. It
owned the Ruppin Agricultural College, headed and staffed by
dozens of pe’ilim and many hired employees, with hundreds of
kibbutz and moshav students.24 Recently, it went bankrupt and was
sold to private owners.
8. In Zionist organs such as the Jewish Agency, involvement of
kibbutzim was smaller, and dwindled earlier than in the Histadrut,
but Hazan, for instance, was a Director of the Jewish National Fund.
Up to now, however, dozens of pe’ilim and their families are still
Zionist emissaries to the Jewish Diaspora.25
9. Most of the eighteen national professional associations of farmers,
each related to an agricultural sector, were founded, headed and
administered by pe’ilim. In 1974, for example, these associations
employed 87 pe’ilim, each with a company car, and 140 hired
employees without cars.26
10. For each agricultural sector, a governmental Production and
Marketing Council, mostly initiated by kibbutz members, was
established to regulate markets. Many of their executives and
professional staff were pe’ilim.27
11. Tnuva Export marketed kibbutz and moshav citrus fruit using 29
packing plants, each managed by a pa’il or moshav member, and
operated by a few permanent employees and 120-150 seasonal hired
workers. It owned a box factory, and in 1978/9, for example, it
processed 660,000 tons and exported 22 million boxes.28 It went
bankrupt in 1989 and was sold.
24 Interview with David Kahana; Vilan 1993; I both studied and lectured at the
Ruppin College. 25 Tzachor 1997: 224. In 1991, there were 60 emissaries to the former USSR
alone (Bashan 1993). 26 Shteinberg 1974. As part of Chimavir study (see below), I interviewed some of
these pe’ilim. 27 Tzur 1996; Tzimchi 1999. 28 Rev’on Lekalkala 1979; Maroz 1991; my father was Tnuva Export’s director.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 84
12. Agrexco, a state-owned agricultural export company which
exported all other farm products, employed a few pe’ilim and was
sometimes headed by a pa’il and sometimes by a moshav member
(Tzimchi 1999: 235-49).
13. Until it collapsed in 1982 due to mismanagement, Chimavir
sprayed fields with pesticides and herbicides, as well as making
special flights by its fleet of 40 airplanes and 6 helicopters.
Dominating this sector in Israel, it was headed by a few pe’ilim and
employed up to 200 hired employees in high season, working in a
large central garage in Herzliya, 8 major runways, and 20 auxiliary
ones around the country.29
14. The seed producing FO, Hazera, was founded in 1940 and managed
by several pe’ilim. It almost monopolized this sector of agriculture,
with its five farms and hundreds of hired workers.30 Recently, it was
privatized and sold.
15. Dozens of kibbutzim with poultry branches specializing in the
production of chicks, founded the Association of Poultry Farms for
Breeding, which dominated this business in Israel until recently. It
also engaged in the export of eggs and chicks by air transport to
adjacent countries.31
16. Most of the incoming and outgoing heavy cargo of kibbutzim,
Reg.Ents, other FOs and rural clients, are transported by eight
regional kibbutz transport cooperatives, each with many dozens or
over hundred of heavy lorries, a garage which also serves many non-
kibbutz clients, and many pe’ilim and hired employees (Niv & Bar-
On 1992: 64-7).
17. Each Movement founded its own financial organ in the 1930s,
known as The Fund (Hakeren), which was initially aimed at mutual
help for kibbutzim, but expanded into a major financial power,
backing Movement initiatives. The KM Fund financed many FOs in
addition to those listed here, such as a shipping company, its
commercial agency, a petroleum firm, a school supply firm, a plant
29 Arnon 1982; my own unpublished study. 30 Interview with Tzeshek Rosental, Hazera co-founder and executive for
decades. 31 Interviews with Miki Yadlin and Hanan Tzur, past heads of the Association.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 85
nursery, an investment firm, etc. (Sack 1996).
18. The Movements founded their own Purchasing Organizations in the
1950s, catering to kibbutz needs not provided by other FOs. They
obtained cheaper prices and credit for various durable goods such as
furniture, industrial machinery, electrical appliances, cars, etc. (Niv
& Bar-On 1992: 65).
19. Until recently, both KA and TKM owned large planning and
architectural firms, each employing dozens of professionals, some
pe’ilim and others hired. One of them survived the crisis, while the
other did not.32
20. Until quite recently, both KA and KM owned construction firms.
They built most of kibbutz and Reg.Ents buildings, with hundreds of
hired workers managed by a few pe’ilim (Peleg 1991).
21. Both KM and KA founded their own publishing houses in the
1930s, Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Sifriat Poalim (respectively),
which became among the largest in Israel, employed both pe’ilim
and hired employees. The two merged recently.33
22. Both KA and KM founded large seminar centers, each with a
campus and accommodation facilities for hundreds of students,
auditoriums, libraries and archives, staffed and operated by both
pe’ilim and hired employees.34
23. Both KA and KM founded social research institutes. The KA
institute was joined by the Ichud, affiliated to Haifa University and
moved to its campus. The institutes employ some full pe’ilim and
many part-timers and free-lancers. Both have published
extensively.35
24. Both KA and KM established Holocaust memorial archives and
research institutes, quite similar to the above social research
institutes.
32 As a manager in my kibbutz plant, I was a client of KA’s planning firm. 33 Both declined to publish my 1987 ethnography of a Reg.Ents. conglomerate, as
well as the Hebrew translation of the present book. 34 I have lectured there many times and used their libraries and archives
extensively. 35 See reference list. I was a pa’il of the latter, and conducted a case study for the
former.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 86
25. Mapam intellectuals headed by the poet Avraham Shlonski,
founded the Tzavta Cultural Club in Tel Aviv in the early 1950s. It
became a prime center of left-wing cultural production and is still
flourishing.36
26. The Movements associated in 1963 to found Brit Hatnu’aa
Hakibbutzit (Alliance of Kibbutz Movements) for services such as
dental clinic guidance, archive guidance, etc., as well as artistic FOs:
the Kibbutz Dance Company, the Kibbutz Choir, the Kibbutz
Symphony Orchestra, the Kibbutz Theatre, the Kibbutz Gallery, etc.
These FOs were staffed by some pe’ilim and many part-time kibbutz
members (Brum 1986: 72-4).
27. The Movements established Kibbutz Child and Family Clinics, an
FO which employs dozens of psychologists and other professionals,
both pe’ilim and hired, who operate its eight branches all over the
country.37
28. The Movements founded the Kibbutz Industry Association which
has attended to common functions and interests of the some 360
kibbutz factories and hotels.38
29. The Movements founded Heshev economic consulting firm, which
also provided computerization service. Later on Reg.Ents took over
this service and Heshev remained a consulting firm (Rosolio 1975).
30. The Comptroller Alliance of Cooperatives is an FO which monitors
the bookkeeping of kibbutzim and moshavim. Recently, it went
bankrupt and was operated by an official receiver who fired half its
staff of 160, mostly hired accountants (Lifshitz 2000a).
31. Bitu’ach Chaklai Insurance FO insures most kibbutz and FO assets.
Recently, it was worth more than $US50 million (Lifshitz 2000b).
32. Some 12-15 rural municipal authorities called Regional Councils,39
in regions where kibbutzim represented a majority of the
settlements, were headed and administered by pe’ilim. Where
36 Shapira 1974; Rosental 1997; Lifshitz 1999. 37 Three of my relatives were professionals of these clinics, and I was a client of
one clinic. 38 The research for both Shapira 1979a and 1980 were financed by this
Association. 39 The number changed over the years for various reasons.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 87
Reg.Ents did not cater to kibbutz needs, these municipalities
established firms which catered for them and were administered by
pe’ilim.40
33. Some kibbutz- and moshav-dominated Regional Councils
established six regional colleges, while the three secular Movements
jointly founded two kibbutz teachers’ seminars. They all became
academic, in addition to offering non-academic courses. Each serves
thousands of students. Hundreds of kibbutz members manage and
teach in these colleges, a few as pe’ilim and others as salaried
employees.41
34. Kibbutzim in the past have had their own schools; elementary were
local, and some high schools were either local, or regional or
Movement ones. Later on all high schools amalgamated into larger
regional schools, some together with non-kibbutz settlements, and
then the same process occurred with elementary schools (Niv & Bar-
On 1992: 93-109). In the 46 regional schools, administrators and
teachers are mostly kibbutz members, while some teachers and all
service staff are hired.
35. Kibbutzim and moshavim of the north and the south owned two
FOs for artificial impregnation of cattle, with some 80 employees
and two ranches of some 200 bulls. Recently they were merged
(Bashan 2000b).
36. Harish organized kibbutzim which owned bulldozers and other
heavy earth-moving equipment, contracting public works all over
the country.42
FOs were known to kibbutz students, whether as employees, free-
lancers, contractors, clients or from myriad publications. Kibbutz member
researchers also knew some FOs through personal acquaintance with
pe’ilim of their respective kibbutzim. Up until the 1960s, pe’ilim usually
reported periodically to their kibbutz’s general assembly and local
40 Niv & Bar-On 1992: 66-7. Rosolio 1998: 154; Gelb 2001: Chap. 12. 41 Brum 1986: 107-8. I lectured and was executive of one college, and now I
lecture in another. 42 Gan Shmuel’s Shlomo Bronshtein was a pa’il of Harish in the 1940s. In the
1950s, Gan Shmuel participated with Caterpillar D7 and D8 bulldozers. Gelb
(2001: 105) drove Kfar Blum’s D8.
5. Additional Major Mistakes Due to FOs’ Evasion 88
bulletin, and their continuity was reviewed by the secretariat and approved
by the general assembly.43 These norms vanished with the rise of
economic FOs like the Reg.Ents which conscripted lesser status pe’ilim
for their bureaucracy, who had little to report and whose job continuity
seemed natural, though not their privileges. Many believed this was a
blessing: kibbutzim sent incompetent members to these jobs, but no one
has confirmed this as CKP users have ignored FOs, while my Reg.Ents
ethnographies tend to disprove it (Shapira 1978, 1987). I did not continue
investigating it, since as a part of the effort to ignore FOs the Kibbutz
Research Institute, in which I was a pa’il for four years, decided to deny
support for my Reg.Ents study, on the grounds that Reg.Ents were not
kibbutzim.
Ignoring FOs prevented CKP users from exploring and understanding
unique kibbutz managerial career ladders. Thus, they missed how rotatzia
was integral to these ladders, enhancing the supremacy of FO heads and
encouraging oligarchy rather than curbing it.
43 Shapira 1995a; Argaman 1997; Gvirtz 2003: 203.
CHAPTER 6
FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’
and Pe’ilim’s Fragile Status
There is little question now that power and capitals were mostly
accumulated in the field by advancing from local offices to FO jobs or
other outside jobs. Less common was power accumulation by continuous
heading a local factory and enlarging it with hired Labor to become a main
provider of kibbutz sustenance (Kressel 1971). E. Cohen (1983: 101)
found a shortage of “managerial resources” in kibbutzim, but he ignored
prime reason for this shortage, rotatzia which unduly replaced successful
officers and caused ‘internal leaving’, brain-drain and unique career
ladders in which kibbutz offices with negative balances of rewards led to
well-rewarded FO jobs. Moreover, outside jobs gave better chances for
promotion to higher echelons, giving pe’ilim authority over larger
organizations, furnishing them with more power, prestige and privileges
for longer periods, controlling the vital resources of kibbutzim and
brokering their interests on the outside. In addition, in hierarchic FOs
pe’ilim ruled over hired workers, while a self-work kibbutz usually
consisted of only three authority levels:
1. Responsibility for a function or sector of a branch, heading a minor
committee.
2. Heading a branch or a mid-level committee, a main committee
membership.
3. Chief office, including heading the plant which was usually the
largest branch, heading a main committee and membership in others.
From a kibbutz chief office, usually the next career step was pe’ilut;
almost all pe’ilim came from among local kibbutz elites.1 However,
advancement to chief offices and pe’ilut varied greatly: leaders of
founding groups of kibbutzim were chief officers from inception; a few
others of the group might have succeeded them shortly if the leaders
1 Shepher, Y. 1964: 46; Shapira 1978; Rayman 1981: 230; Helman 1987; Vilan
1993; Gelb 2001.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 90
became pe’ilim rather early, at the age of 24-27 or even less, as was
common in some younger kibbutzim due to the fast growth of FOs in the
1960s-1970s (Chaps. 14-15). However, leaders of joiner groups (called
Hashlama, meaning: completion) might have waited for decades for such
a promotion or completely missed one, since due to rotatzia, after some
years, founding leaders who were pe’ilim often returned to chief offices,
while their successors became pe’ilim, so that a close group circulated
between chief offices and pe’ilut, and it was rare for anyone new to enter
it (Spiro 1955). This occurred when members left the group by continuing
a pe’ilut, or by going from one pe’ilut to another, or by demotion and
kibbutz exit. For instance, a Kochav veteran was a kibbutz secretary seven
times and seven times a pa’il up to Knesset (parliament) Membership.
Hashlama leaders often abandoned hope for advance and turned to other
careers, so that, when at last a veteran circulator found continuous pe’ilut,
a younger, second generation member entered the circulators group. This
group usually numbered more than twice the number of chief offices, due
to both pe’ilut terms being longer than local ones (see below), and to the
fact that some members took charge of longer tasks, such as the founding
of a new plant or a new FO.2
Continuous FO Heads Controlled Circulative Managerial
Careers Circulation of pe’ilim was controlled by FO heads who decided on their
nomination and continuity, and whose power, capitals and continuity far
exceeded that of newly appointed local kibbutz officers. Take, for
example, the case of Kibbutz Hachof (fictitious name, as are names
below), a large and successful kibbutz founded in the 1930s, which in the
mid-1970s numbered some 500 members and 900 inhabitants, and had a
profitable economy with a turnover of more than $US20 million.
However, its four chief officers, aged 32-45, were juniors compared with
one of the kibbutz founders, Zelikovich, aged 57. For eight years he
headed Mishkay Hamerkaz, a Reg.Ents conglomerate of Hachof and more
than thirty other kibbutzim, with six plants, some 650 hired employees,
230 pe’ilim, almost 200 company cars, and an annual turnover of some
2 Spiro 1955; Meged & Sobol 1970; Fadida 1972: Chap. 2; Argaman 1997; Gelb
2001: Chap. 11.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 91
$US350 million. Zelikovich not only had power and intangible capitals on
a different scale than that of Hachof chief officers, but he had already
attained their status three decades before, and ever since, had advanced
through FO jobs of growing power and prestige to head this large FO and
to be a senior partner in the powerful group of Reg.Ents heads (see
below). Moreover, a pe’ilut at Mishkay Hamerkaz, which he controlled,
was a major career advance alternative of the chief officers of dozens of
kibbutzim. Heading 230 pe’ilim, he held a key position in the kibbutz
field, controlling the promotion and continuation in management of a large
portion of the region’s circulative officers.
However, the rotatzia norm was strong in Mishkay Hamerkaz, and
heads were replaced every seven-nine years: Formally their terms were
five years, but without a formal timetable and no open, competitive
elections, negotiating replacements took some years.3 In accord with the
Iron Law, Zelikovich’s power and status was beneath that of Ushi
Fridman, a veteran leader of Kibbutz Gaaton (a kibbutz of middle age and
size), who from 1959 to 1988 headed Milu’ot (all real names, as are other
names below), a Reg.Ents concern of 26 Western Galilee kibbutzim and
three moshavim. At Milu’ot’s peak, in the mid-1980s, Fridman headed 14
plants, some 200 pe’ilim and some 1500 hired employees. This was true in
spite of the smaller number of Milu’ot settlements which were mostly
younger and smaller than Mishkay Hamerkaz’s large veteran kibbutzim.
Due to smallness, the Western Galilee kibbutzim gave fewer pe’ilim to the
Movements and, hence, pe’ilut in Milu’ot was more important as a
promotion outlet for an ex-kibbutz chief officer. As kibbutz chief officers’
terms lasted only 2-3 years, the careers of ten to twelve generations of ex-
chief officers in these kibbutzim were impacted by Fridman’s nomination
decisions. This enhanced his power, and together with other power
sources, he gained the status of a prominent national economic leader,
quite similar to Itzhak Landesman of Ayelet Hashachar who headed Tnuva
from 1970 to 1995 and likewise enlarged it quite successfully.4
In order to pinpoint Fridman’s status on the kibbutz managerial career
ladder, one must consider the fact that, already in 1969, he had proven to
3 See, for example, Arieli 1986 on such negotiations in another Reg.Ents concern. 4 Ginat 1979a, 1979b; Barkai 1982; Chizik 1982, 1983; Harpazi 1982, 1983;
Lifshitz 1983, 1985, 1986c; Ben-Hilel 1988a; Arad 1995; Halevi 1990, 1995.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 92
be more powerful than three General Secretaries of the Movements:
Despite their efforts, Milu’ot’s subsidiary took over computerization
service of its kibbutzim from national FO Heshev (Rosolio 1975). Later
on, in 1979, his supremacy was proven once again: A product of Milu’ot’s
fodder mill contaminated by botulinum microbes, caused the deaths of
some 1600 milking cows, ruining some of the best milking herds in Israel
at Merhavia, Beit Alfa, Yas’ur and other kibbutzim, causing damage
worth millions of $US, as the yearly milk production of each of these
cows amounted to some 10,000 liters. After years of negotiation which
was kept secret in order to prevent a public outcry against the fodder
mill’s managers, Fridman forced a settlement on the General Secretaries
of the Movements who acted on behalf of the injured kibbutzim, in which
Milu’ot paid only a very small part of the damage.5
Additional cases also proved Fridman’s supremacy.6 This, and his
seniority among the eleven heads of Reg.Ents concerns, made him their
informal leader, which was another reason for the capitulation of the
General Secretaries. A clear sign of this status was his election, after his
1988 demotion due to the bankruptcy of Milu’ot, to head the Reg.Ents
national desk which represented all Reg.Ents in national arenas. He held
this post until his death a decade later. As the office of Movement
secretary was the main step that led to Knesset membership, Fridman’s
supremacy over them meant that his power somewhat equaled that of a
Knesset Member.7 This meant that, while Admors and Ichud heads were at
the top of kibbutz career ladders, and their deputies as cabinet ministers
stood on its second step, Fridman and Landesman of Tnuva were on its
third step, while Zelikovich only occupied its fourth rung, since due to his
shorter incumbency he had less power; his deputies were situated on its
fifth and chief officers of kibbutzim on its sixth or seventh. Thus, it is
clearer how great a mistake was the depiction of chief kibbutz officers as
highest stratum (Chap. 4).
5 Both the Movements and Milu’ot tried to conceal it. See: Ginat 1979a, 1979b. 6 Chizik 1982, 1983; Lifshitz 1983, 1986c. 7 In a caricature of TKM’s weekly of 3.8.1988, when Ben-Shachar’s report
exposed Milu’ot’s failure, Fridman is heading a board meeting with pacifiers in
all the other directors’ mouths.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 93
FO Heads’ Iron Law Continuity versus Lower Echelons’
Rotatzia In order to fully understand the consequences of Iron Law continuity in
the kibbutz field, one must grasp the effects of the rotatzia norm which
supposedly enhanced egalitarianism. The decisive impact was the
opposite, i.e., larger power and longer continuity gaps than in usual
organizations whose middle managerial and expert echelons accumulated
considerable power due to continuity.8 Large corporations restricted
leaders’ continuity by the use of ‘golden parachutes’ which caused 87% of
them to retire within 12 years (Vancil 1987: 89). In contrast, when
delegates at the KA convention called in the late 1960s for rotatzia to
apply to Yaari and Hazan after forty years of leadership, Hazan excused
continuity thus: “Leadership is not done rotationally”, meaning that only
officers could be rotated, but not leaders whose tasks required continuity.
Continuity at the top and frequent succession in low- and mid-echelons
created continuity gaps larger than in customary organizations and
furthered oligarchization rather than curbing it.
Continuity difference was considerable even at the top: While Admors
continued for 48-53 years, the Mashbir Merkazi’s head, After, continued
for 44 years, Tnuva’s Verlinski for 35 years, Milu’ot’s Fridman for 29
years, KM Fund’s Sack for 28 years, and Tnuva’s Landesman for 26
years. The differences can be explained by the extra power of the Admors,
their commencing offices earlier, and Machiavellian use of leftism for
keeping power by Tabenkin and Yaari (Chaps. 10-11). In 1920, the two
were among Histadrut founders who were chosen as executives and
committee members, and, from 1925, they traveled bi-annually on its
behalf to WZO Congresses, the pre-state parliament of Zionism, in
Europe.9 As early as 1935, Tabenkin led the rejection by a Histadrut
referendum of Ben-Gurion’s pact with right-wing leader Jabotinski, KM
and KA took part in Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine before
statehood) elections; Admors were members of its executive, as were
heads of Hever Hakvutzot, while the Mashbir Merkazi’s After was a
8 Gouldner 1954; Crozier 1964; Mechanic 1964; Burawoy 1979. 9 Minutes of WZO Congresses, no. 14-17, 1925-1931. Hazan traveled for the first
time in 1931.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 94
powerful Histadrut figure.10
Admors’ continuity legitimized continuity of other senior pe’ilim, such
as other Knesset Members, twelve of whom continued for more than two
decades after 10-20 previous years of pe’ilut up to 1948,11 and the similar
continuity of Fridman, Landesman and other FO heads: 21 years for
Mishkay Emek Izrael’s Bar-Haim, 19 years for Mishkay Emek
Hayarden’s Laish (who has been reinstated again in the nineties), and 27
years for Cotton Marketing Council’s Noymark.12 This Council was small,
a few dozen employees, but controlled marketing worth hundreds of
millions of $US and the lion’s share of kibbutz agricultural profits in the
1970s, conferring great power on Noymark. Similarly, for three decades,
Yaakov Sack (1996) headed KM’s Fund with a dozen employees, but, as
head of the main financial organ of a large Movement, he held the power
to decide organizational life-or-death matters for many kibbutzim and
FOs.
However, even when FO heads abided by rotatzia, as in the case of
Mishkay Hamerkaz where seven heads reigned during its 67 year-history,
their average term in office of 9.5 years was still three to five times longer
than the average terms of kibbutz chief officers: Meged and Sobol (1970)
found that in Ichud kibbutzim, these averages were 1.5-2 years in younger
kibbutzim and 2-3.5 years in older ones, while others found that the
longest continuing type of kibbutz chief officers, plant managers,
continued to serve on the average of 3.5-3.8 years.13 Mishkay Hamerkaz
heads continued 2.7-5 times longer than kibbutz chief officers, but fifteen
of their deputies, plant managers and top experts continued even longer,
up to 20 years or more, that is 6-10 times longer, and in Milu’ot, under the
continuous rule of Fridman, 38 pe’ilim continued likewise.14
Pe’ilim Supremacy Due to Continuity Vs. Kibbutz Rotatzia These continuity gaps enhanced the supremacy of FO heads in the kibbutz
10 Ben-Avram 1976; Kanari 1989: 187; Near 1992; Grinberg 1993; Kafkafi 1998. 11 Kibbutz 1987; Gvirtz 2003: 186. 12 Arieli 1986; Lifshitz 1986a; Yahel 1991; Halevi 1995; Bashan 2000a. 13 Leviatan 1978; Blasi 1980: 102; Einat 1991. Gelb (2001: 98) was a treasurer
for only one year. 14 Annual Report of Mishkey Hamerkaz Manpower Dept. 1976; Raz 1986.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 95
field beyond that obtained in usual organizations also because longer
continuity of pe’ilim in comparison to kibbutz officers turned the formal
control of FOs by kibbutzim into a reality of FOs hegemony. A case in
point was Mishkay Hamerkaz in which leaders were rotated to a greater
extent than in most other FOs; hence it was assumed to be relatively
democratic. Until the 1980s, every three-four years a convention was held
allegedly to decide its main policies. Each kibbutz was represented by its
economic manager, treasurer and secretary. Due to rotatzia, at each
convention, almost all these delegates were new at their jobs, in contrast to
only 30-40% of Mishkay Hamerkaz pe’ilim. While most kibbutz
representatives did not know each other, pe’ilim were enmeshed in close-
knit networks which met daily in committees, management sessions and
the concern’s dining hall; thus, they were much more united.15 Moreover,
as all senior pe’ilim were ex-kibbutz chief officers, they were acquainted
with the kibbutz side of the questions discussed to the same or even to a
greater extent than representatives, who were mostly younger and less
experienced. The latter knew very little of Mishkay Hamerkaz reality
beyond what was reported by pe’ilim. For instance, they were largely
ignorant of the plants’ major failures.16 No wonder pe’ilim easily defeated
motions initiated by kibbutz delegates.
Oligarchic continuity of FO heads created a self-enhancing supremacy
cycle which enabled the growth of Reg.Ents concerns far beyond the
requirements of kibbutzim, making their growth quite independent of
kibbutz agricultural growth, even though they were supposed to be its
servants (See Chap. 8). It was no coincidence that Milu’ot grew to more
than double the size of Mishkay Hamerkaz in terms of plants and
employees, although the latter served some 50% more kibbutzim which
were mostly larger than Milu’ot’s kibbutzim. Extra growth was a clear
outcome of the extra power of Milu’ot’s long serving Fridman.
Self-Aggrandizement and Bureaucratic Growth Fridman’s supremacy promoted aims which served himself and other
15 This resembled Western corporate elites: Galbraith 1971; Maccoby 1976;
Kanter 1977; Davis 1994. 16 Shapira 1987. The same in Milu’ot: Ginat 1979a, 1979b; Lifshitz 1986c;
Abramovitz 1988.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 96
pe’ilim, mainly self-aggrandizement by growth and technological
virtuosity, as depicted by Galbraith (1971). My ethnography (1978/9,
1987) of Mishkay Hamerkaz’s major enlargements concluded that
superfluous growth was explicable using this theory: Personal interests of
pe’ilim in the accumulation of power and capitals were best served by
using plant profits for growth and for the introduction of new technologies
(sometimes not better ones, due to pe’ilim’s ignorance; see below), which
necessitated frequent travel to experts in the cities, as well as travel abroad
to study and to buy equipment. In accord with Parkinson (1957), this
legitimized the addition of staff under their control, offices and amenities,
such as company cars, which enhanced prestige and, in accord with Lenski
(1966), led to self-enhancing power, prestige and privilege spirals.
Lenski (1966) and Galbraith (1971) were ignored by kibbutz students,
as were classics of bureaucracy critics mentioned above. Thus, they
missed how bureaucratic growth served the unique interests of officers in
a culture formally sanctioning rotatzia, namely, self-aggrandizement in
order to prevent rotatzia in their jobs. Growth enhanced power and
capitals of Reg.Ents’ pe’ilim, and their use enhanced office continuity.
The same etiology explains similar continuity of managers of kibbutz
plants with mass hired labor, as Kressel (1974) depicted, and I (1980) and
Rayman (1981: 138) corroborated.
This situation might have been prevented had FO norms allowed
continuity for only effective, public-servant pe’ilim who were trusted by
role-partners, while replacing those who were mediocre and ineffective,
and those who had reached dysfunction oligarchic phases. Why should
effective public servants have been under the threat of rotatzia? Did they
not do all they were asked to? If they had been allowed to continue, and
only self-serving, ineffective ones had been succeeded, they would have
needed no self-aggrandizement to defend status, fewer mediocre self-
servers would have advanced to high offices and kibbutz aims would have
been much better served. The kibbutz movement could have used
democracy way to differentiate the two types of officers, the re-election
ballot with a necessary improvement: Since Michels (1959[1915]) showed
that the ballot became an ineffective succession tool after incumbency of
10-12 years, just as most leaders become ineffective (Hambrick &
Fukutomi 1991), continuity beyond this period might have been allowed
for only those who gained a higher majority (See Chap. 18). Alas, instead
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 97
of improving on a democratic solution, ‘automatic’ rotatzia was adopted,
seemingly to enhance egalitarianism, while enhancing self-serving
continuity of FO heads and their loyalists. Fortunately, up to the 1950s,
rotatzia was rarely institutionalized, so many effective local leaders
continued and brought successes.
Institutionalized Rotatzia Served FO Heads’ Control of
Pe’ilim This raises the question: Why was rotatzia institutionalized? Topel (1990)
has explained it by promotion pressures from below, by members of
hashlama groups and kibbutz offspring who, after years of branch
management, demanded rotatzia in chief offices in order to advance. He
has dated it to the 1950s, and this provides a clue to the answer: This was
the oligarchic era, in which dysfunctioning Movement leaders used
privileges to control pe’ilim who were given either no salaries or uniform
ones (Chap. 8). Nor was there any exhilarating socialist vision to motivate
them after the USSR vision had proved to be a bluff (Chap. 10). Thus,
additional controls seemed required and rotatzia fitted in, made the status
of pe’ilim more dependent on FO heads’ whims, and legitimized their
frequent replacement. In some problematic kibbutz offices such as work
organizer (sadran avoda) rotatzia had already been institutionalized.
Hence, the demand to emulate it in chief offices and pe’ilut, as well,
seemed legitimate. However, in accord with Hazan’s statement that
“leadership is not done rotationally”, the outcome was that, instead of
chief officers being kibbutz leaders, these offices became mere
springboards to the privileged stratum of pe’ilim, while a pe’ilut became
mainly a service to a patron, an FO head who mandated it, instead of a
public service.
Members supported the demand for rotatzia which seemed egalitarian,
as some chief officers who vacated jobs after a term, returned to humbler
jobs. These returnees helped to maintain the norm, much like US
Presidents Washington and Jefferson who refused a third term in office in
1797 and 1809 respectively (Sobel 1975). The rotatzia norm made
continuous pe’ilut in a non-leadership FO job a violation of egalitarianism
which lowered members esteem for the violators. For that reason, as the
ethnographies will show, smart leaders of younger kibbutzim who came
late to the FO managerial market and found only such jobs, kept local
supremacy by circulating between pe’ilut and local chief offices, as well
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 98
as by nurturing ties with senior pe’ilim and patronage of cliques of clients
who were promoted to local chief offices.17 Both officers who believed in
egalitarianism, and circulators who used rotatzia to keep local supremacy,
vacated offices in accord with rotatzia and helped its institutionalization.
However, as they did not control the field, institutionalization was an
outcome of the interests of major power-holders, Admors, FO heads and
other senior pe’ilim who became senior patrons. This is clear from the
facts that:
1. Rotatzia enhanced patrons’ power in contrast to short-term clients,
making clients dependent on patrons for managerial status continuity
and advance.
2. Rotatzia eased replacement of non-loyal pe’ilim by patrons who then
installed loyal clients instead, while patrons’ accumulated power
prevented their own rotatzia.
3. Rotatzia enhanced the kibbutz egalitarian image, while masking its
control by oligarchic leaders who evaded the requirements of
genuine democratic leadership.
The latter point is of prime importance. In accord with Hawthorn
(1991), the historic choice of a social solution must be explained against a
background of plausible known alternatives. If, up until recently, kibbutz
students believed in rotatzia’s positive effect,18 certainly in the 1950s no
kibbutz member knew that it had already failed many times before, as
Chapter 1 has depicted. Thus, it seemed a plausible egalitarian solution at
a time when members were negativistic concerning pe’ilim privileges, as
in the case of Hazan’s car painting. With rotatzia, these privileges were
presented as provisional, except for the cases of a few leaders, and
violation of egalitarianism seemed minimal. Up to 1978, no one, including
researchers, had pointed to hundreds of continuous pe’ilim and thousands
of circulators continuing among privileged jobs for decades, thus the bluff
of provisionality was not exposed (Next chapters).
Variability of Rotatzia and Power Accumulation by Senior
Pe’ilim The differential adherence to rotatzia as revealed by the differential job
17 On such ties: Vilan 1993: 264. On patronage see Chap. 8. 18 For instance: Stryjan 1989; Leviatan 1993, 1999.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 99
continuity of FO heads and pe’ilim of Mishkay Hamerkaz and Milu’ot,
was another proof that rotatzia was a late solution, not integral to kibbutz
culture, while continuity differences engendered differential power and
capitals accumulation. However, the use of accumulated power and
capitals for job continuation varied: Some left jobs as they failed in them
due to being ‘pure parachutists’ (see below), and/or lost power and/or
patron’s protection, while others left due to a belief in rotatzia’s positive
impact, and still others sought promotion: A pa’il with a powerful patron
might be less influential in his short-term jobs, but by rapid advancing to
higher offices s/he could gain more extensive formal authority, higher
status and more power. On the other hand, such authority might be more
volatile due to political changes and his patron demotion (Shapira 1995a).
However, due to accumulated power and capitals patrons maintained high
status even after failure and demotion: Milu’ot’s Fridman became head of
the Reg.Ents’ national desk, and Tnuva’s Landesman remained head of the
board of directors of some Tnuva subsidiaries.19
Case studies of industrialized kibbutzim also proved rotatzia in one’s
job could be averted by accumulation of power and capitals. Kressel
(1974, 1983) detailed how the managers of Netzer Sereni’s two plants
became irreplaceable by using hired labor and outside financial aid for
rapid growth that turned the plants into main income providers of the
kibbutz, and how they enhanced prestige by privileges and became
powerful patrons by nominating loyalists from among ex-kibbutz officers
to plant administrative jobs. In a metal engineering plant of a veteran
kibbutz, I found (1980: 35-6) a manager who had continued in his post for
over three decades. Employing some 35 hired employees and 30 members,
he behaved like Yaari’s “I, Me’ir, am Mapam, I am Hashomer Hatzair…”.
I contacted him to arrange interviews with academic educated employees,
but instead of naming them, when I asked about the chief engineer, he
answered: “I am the chief engineer”. I asked who the chief accountant was
and was told: “I am the chief accountant”, and so on. His power was
obtained, at first, by nurturing a few loyal hired engineers and mechanics
who, besides him, held all critical know-how and expertise. When his
continuity engendered autocracy, they left, and new ones were hired, and
even though some kibbutz offspring also had become engineers, the
19 Abramovitz 1988; Ringle-Hofman 1988; Halevi 1995
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 100
factory in 1977 was still a one-man-show. Such ‘shows’ tended to fail, but
this one succeeded due to know-how bought from abroad and heavy
customs duties on imported competing products. When these were
lowered in the 1980s, the plant became unprofitable and soon it was
closed. A similar autocracy due to continuity I saw in other hired-labor
plants which were barely controlled by short-term kibbutz chief officers.
However, the dominant coalition of kibbutz researchers ignored this
phenomenon, as proved by the vehement denunciation of Kressel’s
excellent ethnography by Ben-David (1975) and Y. Shepher (1975).
Few Ex-Chief Officers Returned to Lower Offices with FOs
Growth CKP users missed the fact that rotatzia failed in its mission of preventing
oligarchy since it enhanced continuity gaps between short-term officers
and circulators on the one hand, and FO heads and other managers who
avoided rotatzia in their jobs by various means. Every sociologist should
know that status loss is problematic and arouses strong opposition. Few
people in any known society, even most egalitarian hunters and gatherers,
accept status loss willingly unless it is provisional or/and during a
revolutionary period (Goldschmidt 1990). CKP users ignored this and did
not probe how kibbutz chief officers, mostly under forty, solved status
problems due to rotatzia by using circulation to the thousands of FO jobs
which granted power, prestige, privileges and continuity. This was the
principal cause of their readiness to conclude service after a few years, and
to view rotatzia positively (Lanir 1990: 272). Though kibbutz members
mostly externalized FOs, as did Kochav’s member cited in Chapter 1,
everyone knew of the many ex-chief officers who became pe’ilim and
circulated between managerial jobs until retirement age. Most researchers
ignored this and the few who did not, remained unpublished or published
only in Hebrew, as this phenomenon negated the kibbutz egalitarian image
held by the dominant scientific coalition which controlled publication
outlets.20 This was clear from the abovementioned vehement assault by
two of its members on Kressel’s (1974) ethnography.
Rotatzia served FO heads power by making other pe’ilim and kibbutz
20 On such coalitions: Collins 1975: Chap. 9. On that of Israeli sociology: Ram
1995.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 101
chief officers dependent on them for keeping managerial status, while the
latter did not oppose this as they almost always kept managerial status (see
below). Although sometimes the new job was of a lesser status, for
instance a senior ex-pa’il becoming a chief officer again, this was grasped
as provisional, until another, perhaps better pe’ilut had been found.
Researchers did not address the negative effect of provisional incumbency
on officers’ coping with major local problems, missing a main reason for
mismanaged kibbutzim (Chaps. 12-15), while returnees helped creating an
egalitarian image which marred members’ critique of pe’ilim continuity
and privileges, as well as masking stratification from researchers. As a
part of missing stratification, no sociologist investigated whether kibbutz
officers and pe’ilim who abided by rotatzia really lost status by coming
back to the ranks or to lower offices. Economist Helman (1987) found
that, during the decade of 1970-1980, 80% of ex-kibbutz economic
managers and 77% of ex-kibbutz treasurers circulated to other managerial
jobs, while only 54% of ex-kibbutz secretaries did so. In contrast to many
ex-secretaries who returned to minor offices, in accord with the
dominance of economic FOs in this era (Cohen, R. 1978), almost none of
the economic managers and treasurers did so; the 20-23% who did not
circulate either furthered their education, turned to outside, non-kibbutz
jobs, or became powers-behind-the-scenes as comptroller-accountants,
dominating economic decisions due to weakness of rotational chief
officers.21
Even before Helman, Fadida (1972) had shown that circulation to
pe’ilut was an integral part of the careers of kibbutz prime elite members
who, from kibbutz inception returned to the ranks only for brief periods, if
at all, and exchanged pe’ilut in Israel and emissary service abroad for
chief kibbutz offices, while acquiring higher education during pe’ilut,
furthering outside mobility prospects.22 I found (1978) that Reg.Ents
pe’ilim mostly obtained their jobs through ties created in previous jobs,
either as chief kibbutz officers or as pe’ilim, and they wasted much time
seeking ties and job opportunities at the expense of official duties, as was
21 On dominance of economic FOs: Cohen, R. 1978; On comptroller-accountants’
power: Kressel 1974: 148; Chap. 17. A typical circulative economist’s career:
Tzimchi 1999. 22 See a similar case in Kibbutz Hamadia in Tzimchi 1999: 132.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 102
common among US managers with precarious jobs.23 They did not lose
jobs despite inevitable failures, due to a notorious “cost plus” pricing
system which assured that client kibbutzim would pay for their
negligence. In one such case which I witnessed, the tort amounted to
US$150,000-200,000 without any formal negative sanction against
responsible pe’ilim; only a year later they were replaced, seemingly as a
normal rotatzia (Shapira 1987).
‘Parachutings’ of Complete Outsiders and Their Fragile
Status However, kibbutz officers’ efforts to maintain status by circulation
enhanced the practice called ‘parachuting’: an officer who had finished a
short term without failing, was considered a legitimate candidate for a
wide range of managerial jobs for which s/he was a complete outsider, that
is, lacking almost all intangible assets required to function in it. This lack
enhanced the fragility of managerial status and encouraged its defense by
auspices of a patron. This practice was facilitated by the growth,
especially in the 1960s, of the kibbutz managerial job market with the
establishment of Reg.Ents, other economic FOs and kibbutz plants.
Reg.Ents and Regional Council subsidiaries grew from a few small plants
into some 150 larger plants and service facilities, with some 1300 pe’ilim
and almost 10,000 hired employees, while kibbutz industry expanded from
a hundred plants with some 4,800 employees, to 300 employing some
11,500.24 This large managerial market was open to kibbutz members
only, and thousands of ex-kibbutz chief officers were ‘parachuted’ to these
new managerial jobs. ‘Parachuting’ in English refers only to bringing in an
outsider as an executive, while in Israel the range of the term is wider.
Since the armed forces use rotatzia, officers’ promotion is rapid (one
might be a colonel before the age of thirty); they retire early and are
‘parachuted’ into all types of authority positions.25 Hence, many managers
in Israel were complete outsider ‘parachutists’ who like paratroopers tried
to control an alien place, an unknown organization, with little relevant
23 Downs 1966; Maccoby 1976; Granovetter 1983; Luthans 1988. 24 Shtanger 1971; Malchi 1978; Banay 1979; Bar-On & Shelhav 1984; Brum
1986. 25 Vald 1987; Maman 1989; Shapira 1992, 2001.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 103
experience and knowledge for its decision-making, no acquaintance with
its employees, suppliers and clients, no knowledge of its markets,
specialized know-how, technologies and other intangible assets which a
manager advancing from within the plant or the industry brings with
him/her (Gabarro 1987). In the organizational literature there is no answer
as to how complete outsiders gain these assets, while in the Reg.Ents I
found (1987, 1995a, 1995b) that only a few pe’ilim who had some relevant
intangible assets for the job had gained full knowledge from local experts
by exposing their own ignorance which made them vulnerable and gained
their trust (Zand 1972), while most other pe’ilim were ‘pure parachutists’
with little relevant knowledge, who preferred not to take such a risk to
their authority, remained ‘half-baked managers’ (Dore 1973: 54) without
knowledge for sound decision-making, impaired plants functioning, but
survived in jobs by coercive and even corrupt means, like those depicted
by classic organizational ethnography.26
Circulation and ‘parachutings’ proliferated in the field with FOs growth
and the institutionalization of rotatzia in the 1950s. FOs adopted these
practices as they served the power of their heads, making the status of
pe’ilim more vulnerable as their continuity almost totally depended on the
will of FO heads. Kibbutz literature ignored ‘parachutings’ and their
effects on officers’ functioning, as part of ignoring real rotatzia practices.
It only properly explained the rotatzia of kibbutz branch managers who,
like foremen, were promoted from among ordinary workers, and much of
the time did manual labor. Lacking any status symbols and formal
remuneration, with a heavy workload and responsibility that required extra
working hours, with work planning and guidance mostly performed after
working hours, a negative balance of high costs but few rewards propelled
their rotatzia (Rosner 1964). As Gelb (2001: 97-101) has noted, such a
balance caused the early succession of the treasurer of a financially
struggling kibbutz, but this could not explain Reg.Ents pe’ilim such as
plant managers voluntarily resigning at the end of their terms in higher
status jobs with a positive balance of rewards. Though formally
responsibility was heavy, ‘cost plus’ pricing system eased responsibility
considerably since losses due to mismanagement were passed on to
26 Gouldner 1954, 1955; Banfield 1958, 1961; Hughes 1958; Dalton 1959;
Levenson 1961; Jay 1969.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 104
kibbutzim, while power, prestige and privileges abounded, as well as
social ties for finding future managerial jobs. In addition, workloads were
lighter and working hours were shorter and more flexible than those of
kibbutz officers; a major reason was that Reg.Ents plants usually did not
compete in markets, as this was done by marketing FOs. So why resign at
the end of a term when so many pe’ilim in parallel jobs violated rotatzia,
and why resign before finding new managerial job?
Voluntary Resignation of Pe’ilim and Their Fragile Status The prime reason for voluntary resignation of pe’ilim was failures in their
jobs by ‘pure parachutists’. Although the kibbutzim usually paid the price,
managers lost prestige and left before more failures, hoping for future
success by ‘parachuting’ elsewhere, while gaining a bonus, the image of
rotatzia abiders. This was appreciated by kibbutz members who had to
approve their next pe’ilut.27 But there were additional reasons to leave
(Shapira 1995a): First, members expected pe’ilim who did not lead an FO
to abide by rotatzia, and violators were tagged with a negative image of
‘careerists’. However, kibbutzim rarely cancelled the pe’ilut of rotatzia
violators, and only sometimes refused direct exchange of one pe’ilut for
another due to such violations. Secondly, a violator who quit was rarely
demoted to the ranks for long, and was usually asked to fill a local office
and then allowed another pe’ilut. Thus, rotatzia lost much of its egalitarian
meaning, did not symbolize status equalization, but rather conformity,
barely a tool for enhancing egalitarianism. For this reason when FO heads
asked a kibbutz to allow their client pe’ilim to continue, their requests
seemed legitimate in view of their high status, and were usually approved,
while pe’ilim without patrons asking for their continuation, were pressed
to leave pe’ilut on time and tended to conform in order to keep their
kibbutz good-will for the next pe’ilut. Another major reason was that
pe’ilim were pushed to leave by a new FO head, seemingly as a normal
rotatzia, though, in fact, to install his own clients in their place in order to
assure loyalty beneath him (masculine language as all known patrons were
males). This is supported by the fact that where an FO head continued,
like Milu’ot’s Fridman, many subordinate pe’ilim did likewise, pointing to
the major reason for the voluntary resignation of most pe’ilim: their fragile
27 Shapira 1987; Vilan 1993: 271-2.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 105
status and extra dependence on FO head patronage due to rotatzia and
‘parachutings’.
These two features enhanced FO heads’ power as against lower
echelons. In a usual bureaucracy, managerial continuity is normative and
even a ‘pure parachuted’ officer has good reason to risk authority by direct
involvement in coping with major problems: although s/he exposes his
ignorance to subordinates and makes her/his authority vulnerable, s/he
obtains local knowledge and learns to solve problems, gains workers’ trust
and becomes an effective leader (Shapira 1995b). Thus, after a while, the
chance of arbitrary firing is unlikely. A superior’s power to arbitrarily fire
or demote competent, effective highly esteemed veteran officers, is
limited. Without clear proof of violating major orders and directions, s/he
may not dismiss them, as this disrupts working relations with their many
friends and loyalists, and may cause a critical loss of precious expertise if
the latter left after their leaders; hence, superiors usually seek other ways
to handle such problems.28
Questions of this type rarely bothered FO heads whose pe’ilim were
constantly under the Damocles sword of rotatzia, and could be sent back
to their home kibbutz within a year or two, ostensibly as a normative
event. No matter how a pa’il excelled in her/his job, it was legitimate for
an FO head to replace her/him after a few years. Thus, the status of pe’ilim
was very fragile, FO heads could replace them by their own clients.
Moreover, most FOs gave pe’ilim either no salary or a uniform one;
therefore, FO heads used fringe benefits as major controls in addition to
the threat of rotatzia. Unlike a salary cut or lack of promotion which could
be hidden outside the workplace, the loss of pa’il status and FO car could
not be concealed from fellow kibbutz members. It was a painful event, and
pe’ilim avoided it by rarely criticizing mistaken decisions of superiors, a
major reason for inefficiency and ineffectiveness (Shapira 1987).
Frustrating and Purging Effective, Trusted and Creative
Pe’ilim From the point of view of FO heads, the drawback of fringe benefits as
major controls was that some pe’ilim were not sensitive to possible cuts,
28 Dalton 1959: Chap. 3; Martin & Strauss 1959; Levenson 1961; Mechanic
1964.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 106
as they were ‘jumpers’ in Downs (1966) terms: one’s FO job served to
further a kibbutz career in a specialization. Such an ‘impure parachutist’
tended to be greatly involved in coping with challenges, exposing his/her
ignorance and gaining others trust, learning from them, succeeding and
gaining power and prestige; thus, his/her status was less dependent on
fringe benefit symbolization. An example was the technical manager of
the high-capacity, automated Hamerkaz cotton gin plant, a practical
engineer whom I called Thomas. He was not disturbed much about the old
station wagon he was given as a company car in contrast to the new,
family cars of other pe’ilim. “Most decisive for me” he said, “is that I can
load everything I must repair in an outside shop, so that I can shorten the
gin’s downtime”. Downtime was the plant’s total stoppage in high season
when it was operated around the clock seven days a week; an hour
downtime meant the costly storing of 25 tons of raw cotton in the fields.
Educated for two and a half years at the Ruppin College, his prior
experience had been twenty years as a mechanic of agricultural
machinery, starting at the age of fourteen (kibbutz youth worked 3-4 hours
daily in kibbutz branches as life education for work; see Pearlman 1938:
151), and as a tank mechanic in the army. He was an exception among
pe’ilim, gaining the full trust of hired technicians and foremen since he
never masked ignorance, always asking, trying to help to cope with
technical problems and learning from direct experience. In the three month
high season, he worked 15-18 hours a day. His dedication to work left no
subordinate indifferent, and positive reactions to his efforts by almost all
of them created ascending trust spirals (Fox 1974), which opened all of the
secrets of the trade for him; within a short period, he became a well-
known expert among Israel’s cotton gin plants, as effectiveness soared,
much like in Guest’s (1962) classic.29
This was exactly what frightened his superior, whom I called Shavit, a
younger ‘pure parachutist’ whose prior knowledge and experience had
been largely irrelevant for coping with major problems. He and his like
mostly minimized involvement in such problems, defending authority by
keeping what Edgerton (1967) called “The Cloak of Competence”, that is,
29 On trust, openness, and effectiveness see: Deutsch 1962; Zand 1972; Fox 1974;
Geneen 1984; Shapira 1987; Harvey-Jones 1988; Sieff 1988; Semler 1993;
O’Toole 1999; Cloke & Goldsmith 2002.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 107
he retained an image of competence by detachment that prevented
exposure of incompetence and ignorance. Unfortunately, the detachment
which defended his authority, caused distrust of both pe’ilim and hired
employees, who kept him ignorant of the plant’s secrets. In his fourth year
of office, he still did not know some of these secrets which I learned as an
operator within my first week of work there. He kept his cards close to his
chest, but subordinates did the same, so he could barely differentiate
experts who successfully solved problems, from fools and/or impostors
who failed.30 He abandoned efforts to understand the plant and chose
conservatism, as did most ‘pure parachuted’ pe’ilim who used coercive
means for subordinate control. With only filtered information, they made
gross mistakes, evaded essential tasks, but often advanced managerial
careers more successfully than ‘impure parachutists’ like Thomas who
promoted effectiveness but rarely advanced careers, as the power they
gained from successes menaced that of ignorant superiors who marred
their promotion. The negative correlation between managerial
effectiveness and career success resembled that of US managers whose
tenures were also quite shaky.31 Jobs of uninvolved, ‘pure parachuted’
pe’ilim were precarious and they were prone to failure because of
inevitable mistakes, with all that this implied for their images and further
careers; hence, they sought intensive ties in other FOs for their next jobs.
If they bothered to innovate, it was usually for image building only,
preferring well-worn alternatives that could be presented as innovative.
This minimized both the danger of failure and power-diminishing
dependency on local experts.32
Detached Pe’ilim Reigned, FO Heads Prevented Internal
Promotion Many detached pe’ilim were successful careerists due to uncritical loyalty
to FO heads, who, in turn, backed their shaky authority and helped their
promotion. However, they clashed with dedicated pe’ilim: Thomas was
30 See the same in Gouldner (1954). See also: Dalton 1959; Jay 1969; Kets de
Vries 1993. 31 Dalton 1959; Maccoby 1976; Luthans 1988; Kramer & Tyler 1996: 226, 266,
339-48. 32 See: Crozier 1964; Shapira 1987; Thomas 1994.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 108
both indifferent to fringe benefit cuts, and very interested in an innovation
he had proposed, which Shavit feared, as a possible failure would damage
his image, while a possible success would enhance Thomas’ power and
status. But rejecting it outright might cause him to lose his best expert. For
three years, Shavit and his patron, Mishkay Hamerkaz head Zelikovich,
used a variety of subterfuges in order to obstruct Thomas’ proposal.
Eventually it was successfully introduced, but heartbroken Thomas had
resigned and returned to his kibbutz garage, and Shavit suffered a major
setback: Thomas’s successor, a ‘pure parachutist’ who preferred
detachment, did not cope with a major operational problem and caused
heavy losses, amounting to US$150,000-200,000 within a single season,
so that he and Shavit had to resign. Thanks to Zelikovich’s backing, the
resignation was postponed for almost a year, and then it was presented as
normal rotatzia. Without public exposure of the fiasco, the two soon found
other managerial jobs and advanced in managerial careers (Shapira 1987).
The fragile status of circulative ‘pure parachuted’ pe’ilim enhanced
dependency on patrons, as ‘parachutists’ often faced employees’
objections to their amateurish solutions for complex problems which they
did not comprehend. As they seemingly represented the kibbutzim which
owned FOs, they tended to coerce hired employees and caused destructive
conflicts which led to failures, in accord with Deutsch’s (1969)
explanation. Similar to the defense of managerial authority as described by
Hughes (1958) and Dalton (1959), Reg.Ents pe’ilim camouflaged or
concealed failures, or blamed them on others. They defended jobs by
clique building and patronage, and were self-aggrandized by plant
enlargement and technological virtuosity (Galbraith 1971).
This negated both the ethos and interests of kibbutzim, but served FO
heads’ power. Though an effective deputy was often the best choice to
succeed a plant manager who left, usually a ‘pure’ client of the FO head
was ‘parachuted’ in, as it better served the boss’s interests. For example,
prior to Shavit’s nomination, there had been a deputy plant manager whom
I called Yaakov, who was talented, experienced, committed to the job and
highly trusted by both employees and cotton growers since he behaved
like Thomas and was very effective. Zelikovich, himself, defined him as
“the natural candidate for managing the plant”. So why was ignorant
Shavit nominated? The logical explanation was that Shavit was
Zelkovich’s client and dependent on him, while Yaakov was quite
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 109
independent thanks to his intangible assets. Zelikovich has been depicted
above as a big boss, but as a ‘pure parachutist’ himself, he lacked
knowledge and loyalists among Mishkay Hamerkaz executives. In order to
maintain control without much involvement, he built a clique of clients by
‘parachuting’ loyalists to head plants or staff departments and including
them on his Board of Directors. Yaakov did not suit this clique due to the
independence he had gained by involvement, trust of subordinates and
competent problem-solving.33 Shavit had helped Zelikovich previously,
when he had represented his kibbutz in the Regional Council headed by
Zelikovich. This help brought success and Zelikovich had been promoted
to head Mishkay Hamerkaz;34 thus, he owed Shavit a debt for his help. In
order to nominate him for the job, Zelikovich used a dirty trick against
Yaakov, causing him to lose status, to come into conflict with cotton
growers, and eventually, to resign (Shapira 1987: 132-6).
Shavit, however, rightly understood that further promotion was
dependent more on a positive image and close ties with Zelikovich than on
genuine success. Like most US managers, he adopted an upward-looking
posture, and cared about his superior’s approval rather than coping with
tasks at hand.35 His looking upward and seeking personal aims were not a
result of prior kibbutz managerial socialization, nor of circulation and
‘parachuting’ per se, but rather due to operating in a field dominated by
autocratic, self-serving Admors and FO heads who did not promote
critical thinkers like Brum, Thomas and Yaakov, and suppressed radicals
(cf. Hirschman 1970; Chap. 11). Forsaking public aims in favor of
personal ones is common in fields with rotatzia and ‘parachutings’, as
seen in Imperial China with its oligarchic emperors and ‘parachuted’,
short-term District Magistrates.36
Sidetracking of Creative Radicals: The Catch 22 of Rotatzia Circulation and ‘parachuting’ made the status and power of pe’ilim fragile;
the forced succession of dysfunctioning Admors and FO heads by critical
33 See quite similar cases in Gouldner 1954; Dalton 1959. 34 It was a promotion since the Regional Council was a much smaller
organization. 35 Prethus 1964; Maccoby 1976; Kanter 1977; Luthans 1988. 36 Chang 1955; Chow 1966; Folsom 1968; Watt 1972.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 110
thinkers and radicals seeking democracy and egalitarianism was next to
impossible. In addition, to do this, there would have had to be a change in
the belief that rotatzia was egalitarian and democratic. That was not easy,
as this belief was common outside kibbutzim, as well, especially in the
army, in which all young kibbutz members served and some of them
advanced by circulation, and in the academy, including all kibbutz
students. It took me twenty years of kibbutz life as an adult and seven
years of ethnographies of both Reg.Ents and kibbutz plants to overcome
this belief, which is still prevalent among Israeli social scientists. Unless
young radicals, themselves, concluded and persuaded kibbutz members
that rotatzia negated democracy and egalitarianism, and that a new, true
measure for oligarchy prevention was required, they could not remain in
office long enough to both introduce the new measure and assure its
success. They were in a ‘Catch 22’ situation: without violating rotatzia
they could not eliminate it as they could not accumulate enough power and
capitals, while its violation made them suspect of seeking self-serving
continuity.
A second major belief they had to overcome in order to replace rotatzia
by a democratic succession system, was that of the indispensability of
Admors. Exposing their dysfunctioning as an inevitable and irreversible
result of their extra continuity and pe’ilim circulation, could have
persuaded elites that only a new system of succession could solve this
problem and could save democracy and egalitarianism. However, this, too,
was next to impossible to achieve, since Admors seemingly had overcome
the crises of the 1950s, and they became charismatic saviors (cf. Tucker
1970), so that many of the minority of members who had not left
kibbutzim in this era, tended to believe that their exceptional gifts had
rescued the movement. Kibbutz studies enhanced belief in Admors’
charisma by ignoring oligarchization, stratification and the decaying
processes of kibbutz cultures which their dysfunction engendered. Kibbutz
students deserve two considerations for their mistakes:
1. No leadership student defined in which situations and for how long
gifted leaders like Admors might continue functioning beyond the
eleven years which Hambrick and Fukutomi (1991: 723) viewed as
the usual limit of effectiveness of large organization heads.
2. As Barbuto (1997) has pointed out, literature of charismatic
leadership is quite confusing and barely helped in coping with the
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 111
belief in the exceptional gifts of Admors (Also: Beyer 1999).
Thus, it was not easy to eliminate a third important belief, that is, in the
public-service motivation of Admors and their deputies, their
unselfishness and their devotion to the kibbutz cause. Exposing Admors’
failures was not enough; their very aims had to be placed in doubt and the
1948-54 crises had to be grasped largely as their fault, and as resulting
from the self-serving, self-perpetuating leftist admiration of the USSR and
evasion of major problems (Chaps. 10-11). Even critical historians, not to
mention other students, have not suspected that leftism was a power
perpetuation strategy, nor have students exposed this evasion. Without
doubting their motivation, young radicals could not use all political means
at their disposal against Admors’ rule. Admors managed to retain their
facades of asceticism and public commitment almost intact, except for
their cars (Chap. 8), and few, if any, members suspected their self-
perpetuation strategies. It would have been very difficult to convince
members that there was no chance to rescue kibbutz culture without
replacing Admors. Moreover, challengers would have had to identify their
own Achilles heel: their fragile status as kibbutz officers or pe’ilim under
rotatzia. Criticizing rotatzia was not enough; they would have had to
propose an alternative that would stabilize their own status by allowing
job continuity subject to periodic democratic decisions, in a way that
would prevent oligarchic continuity and any suspicion of a self-
perpetuation motivation on their own parts, as was the refusal by US
Presidents Washington and Jefferson of third terms.
How Was a Belief in Egalitarianism Maintained Despite
Circulation? Pe’ilim circulation raises a fundamental question: What happened to the
egalitarian ethos and kibbutz members who believed in it? They could
ignore the extraordinary continuity of Admors, deputies and major FO
heads as an inevitable leadership necessity, but privileged continuous
pe’ilim and circulators numbered thousands, including too many to be
ignored by believers in egalitarianism, some 7-8% of members. In the
large Kibbutz Givat Brenner, with some 800 members, Levy (1991) found
some fifty circulators. In Fadida’s (1972) small Kibbutz Chen, repeated
discussions of freeing circulators for pe’ilut were considered a nuisance
for assembly participants, and Argaman (1997) pointed to similar findings
in five veteran kibbutzim. It was impossible for most members to miss the
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 112
contradiction between a privileged circulating stratum and an egalitarian
ethos. Until hegemony of FO heads is fully explained in the following
chapters, I have only partial answers as to how belief in this ethos was
maintained.
One answer was the belief in the need to preserve rare managerial talent
without allowing for oligarchic continuity. Bourdieu (1990) pointed to
cultures’ gravity to practical solutions. Circulation seemed a practical and
easy-to-use solution for manning thousands of managerial jobs without
creating oligarchic rule. At the same time, it appeared that circulation
solved the problem of dependence on a continuous ruler; thus, injustice
caused by one officer, might be redressed by a successor. Secondly,
members might have ignored inequality which circulation engendered,
since pe’ilut often reimbursed an ex-chief kibbutz officer for the negative
balance of rewards of his/her previous job, especially in offices which up
to the 1970s were part-time and were combined with manual work, such
as kibbutz secretaries.37 A third answer was that many ex-chief officers,
especially of unsuccessful kibbutzim like Bowes’s (1989) Goshen, or early
days Carmelit (Chap. 15), rarely circulated and often left kibbutzim, since
they lacked auspices of a patron, as most patrons belonged to veteran
and/or successful kibbutzim and had their own loyal clients from these
kibbutzim.
The crucial answer, however, was the evasion, masking and/or
concealment of the true nature of rotatzia by power monger FO heads,
pe’ilim whose careers advanced by circulation and the dominant scientific
coalition whose members advanced academic careers by ignoring it
(Shapira 2005). Due to the use of CKP this concealment never ceased as
circulation’s negative effects, revealed by some kibbutz ethnographies,
were never connected to FO growth and their heads’ self-enhancing cycle
of power and privilege accumulation. While the continued growth of
Reg.Ents beyond the needs of kibbutzim was questioned by the kibbutz
media from 1977, critics missed seeing how it served the job continuity
needs of pe’ilim by self-aggrandizement.38 Thus, members have rarely if
ever encountered a critical exposure of rotatzia’s true nature and the fact
that its very existence was largely due to kibbutz officers’ circulation that
37 I met them on factory lines when studying kibbutz industry; Bowes 1989: 51. 38 Pe’eri 1977; Atar 1982; Harpazi 1982; Lifshitz 1983, 1986c.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 113
prevented status loss.
The lack of criticism of circulation is explained, as well, by the fact that
those capable of voicing effective criticism were mostly either pe’ilim who
benefited from it, or kibbutz managers who expected to benefit in the near
future, as well as the dominant scientific coalition which accumulated
academic capital by ignoring stratification and circulation (Shapira 2005).
A critic of circulation faced a powerful stratum, backed by FO heads and
loyal academics. S/he was usually in too low a position to be publicly
heard, and remained so until s/he gave up and exited without harming the
latter’s power. This resembles Hirschman’s (1995) analysis of the collapse
of the German Democratic Republic: Up to 1988, its leaders could ignore
disenchantment since it did not cause an exodus massive enough to
endanger survival; a public uproar toppled them in 1989 when mass exit
endangered survival. In most younger kibbutzim, mass exits did not
endanger survival, as the Movements helped them by loans and hashlamot
(groups of joiners), while ignoring inequality and autocratic, conservative
rule by patrons who repeatedly caused waves of exits of innovative talents
and critical thinkers, in accord with Hirschman’s (1970) theory, as
Chapters 14-15 will disclose.
Disenchantment with Violation of Egalitarianism Enhanced
Exits A sixth answer, however, was that the disenchantment of the violation of
egalitarianism by circulation joined other failures of kibbutz ethos
implementation that caused exits, but no one studied circulation’s impact
apart from the impact of these failures. As mentioned, for each member
who stayed in kibbutzim, there were four-five others who departed, i.e.,
240,000-300,000 adults (Leviatan et al. 1998: 163), but CKP users were
blind to stratification and ignored oligarchy and Hirschmanian exit
process. Hence, no one studied exit caused by suppression of voices raised
against oligarchic circulation of pe’ilim. Kressel’s (1974, 1983)
ethnography which exposed oligarchization causing mass exit by kibbutz
youth whose voices failed to curb it, was rejected by the dominant
scientific coalition as unrepresentative, while its academics ignored the
question.
A corroboration of Kressel’s findings can be found by a careful reading
of Ben-Horin’s (1984) study of the disintegration of kibbutzim. It exposes
at least eight cases in which mass exit followed non-egalitarian practices
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 114
by local leaders and suppression of members’ criticism.39 Sabar’s (1996)
study of kibbutz offspring living in Los Angeles has also indicated exit
due to disenchantment caused by violation of egalitarianism. In most of
the interviews, exit followed a feeling of inequality. I heard similar
sentiments in interviews with 57 former members of three kibbutzim.
However, in the two younger ones, exit rates were very high, reaching 75-
80%, and criticism of inequality was harsher among their ex-members
than among Kibbutz Kochav’s ex-members. Kochav was much more
egalitarian, democratic, high-trust, creative and stable than these
kibbutzim; unlike these kibbutzim, its pe’ilim shared cars with other
members since 1962, and their privileges were largely viewed by members
as balanced by their greater sacrifices, something which was rare in
interviews with ex-members of younger kibbutzim. The case of younger
Kibbutz Carmelit corroborated this (Chap. 15): At first inequality caused
so high exit rate that the kibbutz collapsed; in the renewed kibbutz
egalitarianism was promoted and exit rates sharply dropped.
Compliance Due to a Change from Moral Choice to
Expediency Compliance with circulation can also be explained as Fox (1985: 33-43)
explained compliance of British workers with managers’ rules and orders
as a part of their acceptance of the extant societal structure, principles and
conventions due to socialization, awareness of power superiority of the
elite and mass media support for the current order, which made any
thought of changing it futile. Such an explanation for kibbutz members
can be objected to by asserting that, unlike British workers’ expediency
considerations, members joined for ideological reasons, and moral
considerations prevailed. However, Kressel (1974) shows that when
Netzer Sireni became oligarchic and prosperous, with hired labor and
lavishly privileged managers, May Day celebrations and raising red flags
were abolished, symbolizing an end to socialist ideology. Expediency
became the recognized motive for members staying and complying with
leaders’ deeds, similar to the case of the British workers. In the oligarchic
39 The cases: Kfar Hachoresh, Revivim, Avuka, Gezer, Gvulot, Kedma, Alumot,
Har’el. Most kibbutzim were renewed by new groups of settlers, only Avuka
and Kedma vanished.
6. FO Heads’ Power: Circulation, ‘Parachutings’, Pe’ilim Fragile Status 115
and prosperous kibbutz field of the 1960s-1970s, as well, while most
seekers of egalitarianism and democracy either left or became mute, only a
few managed to promote these values. Morality was largely replaced with
expediency as a major motive, and Fox’s (1985) explanation was valid for
reconciling with circulation (Chap. 17).
Responses I received to my critique of pe’ilim circulation and
‘parachuting’ in both the kibbutz press and in management courses at
Ruppin College supported this explanation: My critics ignored moral
considerations, using only expediency arguments, such as the need to
preserve rare managerial talent and preventing stagnation, while
questioning the validity of findings which pointed to the opposite. It was a
reasonable reaction for students who were junior managers aimed at
advancing their own careers mainly through circulation. Fox (1985)
pointed to media support for the current order, and this was also true of the
kibbutz field: Up until the mid-1970s, members faced complete media
support for rotatzia and ‘parachuting’, as most kibbutz media were
controlled by Admors and both social scientists and the national media
supported this system which reigned in the armed forces, and ex-army
officer ‘parachutists’ held most top authority offices in Israel. Only Vald
(1987) dared to criticize rotatzia in the armed forces after the failures of
the 1982 Lebanon war, and sometimes a journalist exposed the failure of a
‘parachutist’, and explained it by his ‘parachuting’ to an alien job.40
Kibbutz journalists’ critique commenced only after Tabenkin’s death and
Yaari’s neutralization by illnesses.41 Even then, kibbutz students did not
question rotatzia and ‘parachuting’. For instance, Sheaffer and Helman
(1994) exposed brain-drain in kibbutzim, but did not refer to my works’
explanations as to how rotatzia and ‘parachutings’ encouraged it.
Success of circulators’ careers could not be explained without
considering their loyalty to powerful FO heads and executives who were
the patrons who provided them with managerial jobs each time one was
required, due to rotatzia or apparent rotatzia. CKP users missed how
circulation enhanced yet another troubling phenomenon for democracy
and egalitarianism, that is, patronage and cliques.
40 For instance: Shavit 1980; Avneri 1983. 41 For instance: Adar 1975; Bakibbutz 1977; Pe’eri 1977; Ilana and Avner 1977.
CHAPTER 7
FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage and
Cliques
Cliques of male officers who compete for the control of large
organizations have been known in sociology since Burns (1955) and
Dalton (1959). Decision-making is largely dominated by power struggles
between cliques composed of officers aiming at decisions that promote
policies beneficial to their interests and views. Clique members provide
mutual aid in managerial promotion competition, and compete with other
cliques for power, rewards and self-aggrandizement. Most important are
vertical cliques, each headed by a senior patron who helps clients’
promotion. Usually one of them succeeds him when he is promoted, while
others are nominated deputies. They help his struggles against and/or
competition with rival patrons and cliques by supplying information and
other intangible resources, support his decisions and policies, cover up
mistakes and failures of clique members, and blame officers of rival
cliques when cover-ups fail. Dalton (1959) found that, without a clique, an
officer is largely powerless, has few chances of promotion to the top, and,
if, by rare circumstances, he has gotten there, he has little chance of
causing major changes, which are promoted almost only by patrons and
their cliques.1
Ever since Mosca, Michels and Pareto developed the elitist approach in
political sociology a century ago, power elites organized by patron/clients
relationships are well-known factor which limit public control of
democracies. Power elites in kibbutzim have been exposed by many
ethnographers, as I have in my study of the Reg.Ents, but the kibbutz
dominant scientific coalition has ignored them,2 as it ignored Freeman’s
1 Wording is masculine as all were males. See also: Banfield 1961; Chow 1966;
Jay 1969, 1972; Davis 1994. For an example of a failed lone executive: Gvirtz
2003: 192-204. 2 Fadida 1972; Kressel 1974; Topel 1979; Rayman 1981; Shapira 1987, 1990,
1992; Bowes 1989; Levy 1991; Dangoor 1994; Rosolio 1999; Schwartz &
Naor 2000.
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 117
(1974: 203) pointing to the inevitability of undemocratic power elite rule
in egalitarian groupings which do not institutionalize election of leaders,
because
“…there is no such a thing as a structureless group. Any group of people
of whatever nature, …will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The
structure… will be formed regardless of the… intentions of the people
involved. …the idea [of no leader] becomes a smoke screen for the strong
or the lucky to established unquestioned hegemony over others” (Also:
Sasson-Levy 1995).
Kibbutz rotatzia masked the hegemony of continuous power elites. For
instance, Schwartz and Naor (2000) sought to study a democratic change
of a kibbutz in crisis, but careful reading of their ethnography reveals that
what they acclaimed was only seeming democracy that masked autocratic
rule that pushed out opposing informal leaders by a patron and his clique
of loyalists who used their control of the kibbutz economy, helped by FOs
and other outside powers, to introduce capitalist elements that elevated the
status and power of the patron and his clique (Chap. 15. Likewise: Kressel
1974). The use of CKP masked the role of FOs, which dominated the
field, in the formation of local power structures of kibbutzim. This role
can be exposed by ethnographies which make clear that, due to continuity,
or continuous circulation, FO heads and senior pe’ilim have largely shaped
kibbutz local power structures. However, the federative structure which
gave autonomy to kibbutzim, enhanced the variability of local power
structures which helped mask patronage and cliques’ role in their creation.
Rotazia Encouraged Patronage and Rule of Cliques Political scientist Lanir (1990) analyzed the kibbutz system as a mini-
state, but due to CKP, he missed both kibbutz power elites and how they
were shaped by patronage and cliques, even though the three concepts
loom large in his science. However, they loom even larger in the kibbutz
field due to rotatzia. The explanation is simple: The rotatzia norm pushed
for circulation to defend managers’ status, and circulators needed a patron,
an FO head or executive, or someone who had held such jobs until
recently and who could obtain a managerial job every few years by direct
or indirect control or influence on filling such jobs, in the manner of the
political bosses in Chicago studied by Banfield (1961). The main social
capital an FO head or another senior pa’il accumulated were ties with his
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 118
compeers who controlled FO jobs and could obtain jobs for loyal clients
whenever their terms had expired. Ties were decisive for another reason:
FOs did not use any tender system; jobs were filled largely through old-
boy networks of senior pe’ilim, and a patron enmeshed in such a network
was crucial for obtaining a new pe’ilut whenever a current office had
expired (Shapira 1978, 1987).
Patronage and cliques among pe’ilim often continued from the time
clients had been chief kibbutz officers. For instance, Shavit, the cotton gin
plant manager, was originally kibbutz chief economic officer who helped
Zelikovich, then head of the Regional Council, to succeed. When
Zelikovich was promoted to head Mishkay Hamerkaz largely due to this
success, he wanted to nominate Shavit as manager of the small alfalfa
drying plant, since alfalfa was Shavit’s kibbutz branch before having
become chief kibbutz officer. Shavit, however, wanted the office of cotton
gin plant manager, since it was much more powerful as it controlled the
lion share of profits which kibbutzim made from agriculture, while its
veteran manager was beyond retirement age and had served twice the
official tenure. As Shavit was quite talented and Zelikovich owed him a
lot, Shavit waited for a year at a junior job in his kibbutz until
Zelikovich’s pressure caused the resignation of the veteran manager and
pushed his deputy out, as well. Shavit was then nominated. In other cases,
patronage was formed either on the job or in earlier FO jobs, whether
within an FO or between FOs, and ties continued while the actors changed
jobs and exchanged other favors among themselves, as in the cases Dalton
(1959) studied.3
Research Ignored FOs, Patronage Remained
Incomprehensible Without integrating FOs into analyses, kibbutz patronage was
incomprehensible. Topel (1992) found that patronage was integral for
kibbutz organization, but ignoring FO jobs which were decisive for
circulation and defending managerial status, he missed the fact that
circulation made essential auspices of a patron who obtained a client new
authority job every few years; hence a patron’s ties with other pe’ilim
were his prime capital by which he controlled clients (masculine language,
3 For a quite similar case in the KA: Levanon-Morduch 2000.
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 119
as all known patrons were males). Topel mentions lifts to the city a patron
gave to clients in his FO car, and services he provided for them in the city
where he worked, such as buying goods unavailable in the kibbutz,
mentioning that both resources were dependent on his urban job (p. 52).
This analysis misses patrons’ prime power leverage: involvement in the
manning of FO jobs and ties with nominators which assured clients’
dependency, since, without their auspices, few succeeded in finding
managerial pe’ilut or circulating to another managerial pe’ilut when one
had expired. Using CKP, Topel did not perceive that patronage was
largely shaped by circulation. Missing the field’s real stratification, he also
missed the fact that his younger kibbutz’s circulative patrons were clients
of supreme veteran patrons, continuous heads of the Movement and other
FOs who promoted them to pe’ilut and helped in their circulation.
Supreme patrons were Admors whose succession was unimaginable
(Shure 2001: 66), and likewise continuous heads of Hever Hakvutzot and
then the Ichud, Baratz, Luz, Eshkol and Lavon, who gained high Mapay
posts and then Knesset (Parliament) and cabinet offices.4 Quite similar
were Admors’ deputies who held top jobs in the Jewish Agency, the
Histadrut and the Israeli government, and the heads of large FOs: Mashbir
Merkazi’s After, Tnuva’s Verlinski and then Landesman, and Milu’ot’s
Fridman. Zelikovich was not supreme, as he circulated, though only every
eight-ten years, in contrast to lesser patrons who did so more frequently.
The latter were usually from younger kibbutzim as they joined the
managerial job market only in the 1950s-1960s as clients of supreme
patrons, for instance, Mati of Kibbutz Olim (Chap. 14). However, when
they became pe’ilim at quite a young age, their patrons had already been
very conservative. In accord with Hirschman (1970), they were a select
group of uncritical thinkers who further lost criticality during decades of
what Presthus (1964) called ‘the upward looking posture’, trying to
determine patrons’ intentions and proving loyalty. This helps to explain
their complacency and their failures as FO heads in the 1980s, as, for
instance, in the Balas affair and similar failures (Chaps. 3, 14). Talented
critical thinkers and competing leaders who proposed creative solutions to
basic problems, did not succeed in circulation, were sidetracked and
mostly left. Without uncovering this sad history, which included his own
4 Ben-Avram 1976: 72; Near 1992: 197; Kafkafi 1998: 29, 35, 43.
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 120
kibbutz, and missing the impact of FOs and circulation, Topel discovered
patronage but not its conservative nature and its ruinous cultural effects.
Continuous Versus Circulative Patrons Let us look more closely at the various types of patrons. Main
differentiations were continuous versus circulative pe’ilim, and circulative
pe’ilim versus kibbutz continuous managers who became patrons.
Continuous patrons in both FOs and kibbutzim accumulated power,
privileges and intangible capitals by heading organizational growth,
success and technological virtuosity (Galbraith 1971), while circulative
patrons mainly accumulated these assets by creating networks of social
ties with powerful FO heads while serving in various local and FO jobs,
and building strong local cliques of loyal clients in their own kibbutzim.
Israel, Moshe and Bilski (fictive names), were veteran continuous
pe’ilim who, as patrons, dominated successful Kibbutz Kochav (founded
in the 1920s) for decades. Israel established a major FO which he headed
for many decades. Moshe was, at first, an intermittent pa’il who
periodically filled local chief offices until advancing in the early 1940s to
head an FO from which he advanced to the Knesset and later to the
Cabinet. Bilski accumulated paramount power by being kibbutz chief
economic officer for twenty years, and then became an executive of the
Jewish Agency for decades. The three promoted loyalists, helped in their
circulation, and dominated most of Kochav’s decision-making until the
1970s. From 1953, however, young radicals who excelled as branch
managers advanced to chief offices without patrons’ support and
innovatively solved acute problems against patrons’ will. Decisive reasons
for their success were differences of opinion among patrons concerning
some of these innovations, and patrons’ high morality, maintaining
democratic rules without the Machiavellian maneuvers used by patrons in
other kibbutzim (Chaps. 14-15). However, none of these radicals advanced
to pe’ilut for more than one term, while patrons’ clients successfully
circulated, advancing to head FOs, and one even became Knesset
Member. He was a pa’il seven times, after each term returned to a chief
kibbutz office, until permanently promoted to the Knesset.
Kochav’s circulation emerged at a relatively late stage, during its third
decade, with the growth of the FO managerial job market. As noted,
rotatzia had yet to be institutionalized; hence successful, creative and
critically minded officers continued for a decade or more before advancing
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 121
to pe’ilut; thus, their outlook was innovative and they supported
innovations even when in pe’ilut. For instance, although Israel helped
Moshe’s promotion in FO jobs, Moshe supported industrialization despite
Israel’s opposition, and similar phenomena emerged even later. In
contrast, in Topel’s (1979) Olim (founded in 1949), and Fadida’s (1972)
Chen (founded in 1954), all would-be patrons became circulative pe’ilim a
few years after foundation, in their mid-twenties. Ethnographies of
younger kibbutzim indicate that early pe’ilut made patronage regime
stronger, lower-moral and more conservative (Chap. 14-15), explaining
why Topel (1979) was the first to discern it. However, clients of supreme
patrons advanced to higher level jobs and continued in them longer than
clients of circulative patrons. Hence, more of the latter faced the menace
of status descent, and many exited kibbutzim.
For a patron in a younger kibbutz, rotatzia was an institutionalized
norm; he learned from inception that promotion to pe’ilut and success in
circulation required loyalty to an FO head, and building a clique of clients
by promoting loyalists to kibbutz chief offices when he was promoted to
pe’ilut, and later, by caring for their circulation. If, at the end of a term, a
supreme patron did not offer the client patron a new pe’ilut, a client of the
latter patron vacated a chief office for him, while the circulative patron
found a pe’ilut for the client, usually of a lesser status. Another outcome
of circulative patrons returning to chief kibbutz offices, something never
done by supreme patrons, was to enhance local dominance by shaping
major decisions and promoting loyalists to major offices, something barely
important for supreme patrons whose statuses were decided by FO jobs.
Spiro (1955) saw such return in Beit Alfa, but did not differentiate patrons
from clients. Fadida (1972: 83), on the other hand, pointed to ties patrons
created in FOs for finding their next job, but did not see the use of these
ties for patronage. A major reason was that patronage in Chen emerged a
bit late as it had joined FOs only six years after inception. Fadida had
observed Chen when it was fifteen years old, and patronage was then just
emerging. I found clear patronage there by fieldwork twenty years later
(Chap. 14).
Another difference was that patronage by veterans emerged in the
1940s, when kibbutz prestige was at its peak and growth was rapid; thus
many new FO jobs emerged, while patronage by circulators emerged in
the 1950s, when growth was slower. In the new kibbutzim that were
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 122
established in this period, coming back to manage one’s kibbutz was a
main alternative for preserving managerial status. In that era, some
officers who had finished a term turned to careers outside the kibbutz field
rather than seeking a pe’ilut. As will be seen, this was especially true of
talented radicals, since circulation under the auspices of a conservative
patron did not suit them, severely limited creativity and prevented career
success.
Patronage Due to Continuous Key Local Jobs Patronage without FO jobs was found by Kressel (1971, 1974) in Netzer
Sireni. Its two plants almost quadrupled within a few years, hiring
hundreds of workers, and almost becoming sole income providers. Their
three managers became patrons who continued for dozens of years, while,
in other main offices, rotatzia continued, except for the treasurer who was
the patrons’ neighbor and confidant. Cliques of clients were built from
among ex-kibbutz officers who were nominated to plant managerial jobs.
Domination was also achieved by patrons and clients being members and
main speakers in the economic committee and in the general assembly, as
in Carmelit (Chap. 15). Continuity of patrons while kibbutz officers
rotated, widened power gaps and assured patrons rule. One may ask why
able members assumed powerless, short-term kibbutz offices with a
negative balance of rewards, and did not demand equality of continuity,
but such a demand was futile and bound to failure as rotatzia throughout
the field was differential, did not prevent continuity of higher-ups, and
accordingly continuous Ichud heads backed Netzer Sireni’s patrons.
Sometimes rotational offices remained unmanned, as in conservative
kibbutzim (Am’ad & Palgi 1986) and Carmelit during its crisis period in
the early 1990s (Chap. 15), but mostly candidates were found to fill them,
since this usually led to convenient managerial jobs due to patronage.
I witnessed another variant in a metal engineering plant: For many
years the autocratic manager used a clique of hired engineers as his main
power base, but as autocracy deters loyalty of engineers whose expert
views are frequently ignored, patronage was weak and his clique dissolved
(Chap. 6). Moreover, continuous autocratic plant managers were a
minority: Leviatan (1978) found only some 10%, and I found (1979a,
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 123
1980) about 20%.5 But, to this type of plant managers, one must add
another type of locally based patronage: an ex-pa’il or an ex-plant
manager who had permanently settled in a key office in which rotatzia
was not considered applicable due to required specialization. Such a
position enabled supremacy as the power behind-the-throne, orchestrating
the chief officers’ deeds and succession. Leshem (1969:144-58) saw such
highly locally influential ex-pe’ilim, but did not see patronage, while in
two kibbutzim, both Dangoor (1994) and I witnessed local patronage by
plant export managers who had earlier managed these plants, which grew
up due to export preference. In both cases, rotatzia in plant management
enhanced the patron’s power; he held a pivotal position in plant decision-
making due to its export orientation, and plant size enabled the patron to
build a clique that dominated the economic committee, the kibbutz
economy and decision-making, similar to Netzer Sireni and Carmelit
(Chap. 15). In Dangoor’s case, patronage was especially strong: almost
only clients became plant managers and chief kibbutz officers, while the
patron helped their later circulation to outside managerial jobs which he
obtained by outside ties in FOs and other firms. In my case, patronage was
weaker, as some non-clients became chief kibbutz officers and opposing
clique was formed.
Patronage was Integral to Oligarchic Processes Common to all patronage types, however, was rule by barely accountable
continuous leaders. As they were self-chosen, democracy did not limit
their continuity, nor did it limit support by cliques of circulative clients
who gained status and power in return. CKP users’ efforts to explain
kibbutz leadership by formal studies went astray, as they missed the real
foci of power, as patrons’ power and capitals became largely independent
of any specific job (Topel 1979), having been accumulated in continuous
managerial careers in which control of a clique of loyal clients was only
one of their power sources. The others were old-boys networks of FO
heads and senior and junior pe’ilim, knowledge of and relations with many
FO heads and other outside organization officials which made them
successful brokers of their kibbutz interests on the outside, and prestige
and other intangible capitals they had accumulated which helped their
5 The difference was explicable by different ways of sampling plants.
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 124
dominance. Locally-based patronage often resembled FO-based patronage,
with patrons’ rule over quite similar imitative, capitalist-like cultures with
vast hired Labor and use of market forces instead of democracy and high-
trust. Kressel (1974: 42) found that the two types collaborated: Ichud
pe’ilim declared that they hoped Netzer Sireni would stick to self-work
principle, but supported massive enlargement of plants which had violated
the principle for many years. Thus, they deliberately furthered hired Labor
and patrons’ dominance, supporting self-aggrandizement by plant growth.
A decade and half later, as the prime patron anticipated rainy days for his
plant, he left to become TKM’s high-ranking pa’il; some years later the
plant became unprofitable and collapsed (Kressel 1991; The Kibbutz
1997).
Oligarchic FOs and rotatzia were prime reasons for patronage and the
rule of undemocratic cliques, deterring leaders and then other pe’ilim from
participation in manual work, unlike leaders of Huterrites, Shakers and
Amana. Had genuine democracy reigned in the field without rotatzia and
with periodical re-election of trusted, effective, public servant officers
who would have become local leaders, as well as true measures that would
have prevented oligarchic continuity of self-servers, executives who had
entered dysfunction phases would have been replaced and returned to
minor jobs. This would have depressed conservative patronage, while the
nurturing of creative radicals by veteran high-moral leaders committed to
the kibbutz cause would have been enhanced, as will be shown in
Chapters 15-16. This would have been especially likely if leaders had
continued partial manual work, shoulder to shoulder with ordinary
members, personally experiencing unsolved problems. As they would
have been aiming primarily at keeping members’ trust in order to be re-
elected, especially if the measure against the emergence of autocracy had
been a higher majority required for each additional term in office as I will
propose in Chapter 18, enough of them would have supported some of the
new solutions and the promotion of creative radicals to chief offices and
then to pe’ilut. This would have led to FOs with transformational leaders
who would have replaced conservative heads, and would have transformed
FOs in accord with kibbutz ethos and Buber’s (1945[1958]) assertion, as
had existed in the Palmach (Chap. 10).
In fact, such promotions were quite common in early days, in
kibbutzim such as Kochav and Gan Shmuel whose creativity largely
7. FO Heads’ Supremacy: Circulation, Patronage, Cliques 125
shaped kibbutz cultures. Some of their innovators advanced to FOs or
established new FOs, and solved major problems of kibbutz agriculture.
Unfortunately, kibbutzim failed to control FOs democratically, barely
limited fringe benefits of pe’ilim and rarely tried to equalize their working
conditions to other members, enhancing the ascendance of self-server
conformists, and the suppression and exit of high-moral creative radicals.
This flawed democracy and hegemony of self-servers, enhanced incessant
growth by FOs and defeated kibbutz cultures.
CHAPTER 8
Flawed Democratic Control of FOs and Fringe
Benefits of Pe’ilim
Formally, FOs were aimed at serving kibbutzim which owned and
allegedly controlled them. Pe’ilim of Mishkay Hamerkaz used to say:
“The Reg.Ents are the extended arm of the kibbutz”. This arm, however,
was stronger than the body it purported to serve, as the weakness of
kibbutz local formal leaderships caused the “body” to turn into the servant.
The major reasons for this have already been presented, but not the flawed
democracy by which kibbutzim failed to control FOs and limit privileges
of pe’ilim, which enhanced their power.
The fringe benefits received by pe’ilim were allegedly rewards for extra
efforts, longer working hours and heavy responsibility. This was true in
many cases, especially in the early era up to the 1950s, but a deeper look
further explains FO heads’ dominance. Veblen (1931) called privileges
which symbolized high status “conspicuous consumption”, and Harris
(1990: 369-80) found that rulers’ conspicuous consumption promoted
submissiveness among the masses who produced the surplus collected as
taxes for its financing. Lenski (1966) found that it was decisive in the self-
enhancing process of stratification: Rulers used power to add privileges,
privileges enhanced prestige and power which they used to extract more
privileges, and so on, until diminishing returns for extracting efforts
stopped them. Bourdieu (1984, 1996a), Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) and
Harris (1990) show that a variety of expensive and rare goods enhanced
upper strata prestige, while their accumulation as cultural capital ranked
these strata above others lacking these goods, and helped to reproduce
superiority by their offspring.
The study of hunter and gatherer bands proved, however, that, in
genuinely egalitarian cultures, prestige is gained by the opposite behavior,
by giving away objects in one’s possession and maximal modesty (Bird-
David 1990, 1992). When a hunter returns with a big kill, he minimizes
his success and the band echoes this by deprecating its value (Harris 1990:
345-6). Those who lead collective band activities have to work harder than
others, have no authority beyond the specific activity in which they are
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
127
considered experts, and are not privileged in any way for doing this job.1
The criticism by Mishmar Ha’emek members of Hazan’s fancy American
car which led them to paint it, was a similar effort to deprecate its value
and prevent it from symbolizing status superiority. However, it also
indicated that this car symbolized capitalist culture, contrary to kibbutz
culture. So how could the Admors’ decision to use these fancy cars be
explained?
Changing Reg.Ents’ Company Car Norms In my interviews with Reg.Ents pe’ilim, they always raised the topic of
cars; they believed that cars were prime rewards which motivated kibbutz
members to take Reg.Ents’ jobs, more than any other job characteristic,
while a pa’il leaving a job was usually explained by his failure to obtain
the reward of a car. At first, this explanation seemed reasonable: a car was
a major reward, enabling mobility which other kibbutz members lacked;
most kibbutzim during that period owned a few cars which, except for
Saturdays, were almost always in use by officers or others for public
purposes, while kibbutzim were visited by Egged public busses only a few
times a day, sometimes only twice. Closer scrutiny, however, revealed that
there were pe’ilim like Thomas and Yaakov, for whom a car was mainly a
working tool, not so much a reward; they and their like used it for private
purposes infrequently; thus the main reason for leaving among these
pe’ilim who did not get a car was not because a loss of hope for a reward,
but rather because it interfered with job functioning and signaled a lack of
power and status. Those interviewees who cited pe’ilim exit due to not
getting a car, did not see that the main reason for exit was a lost hope for a
status and power symbol and a working tool. Such signaling was less
common concerning kibbutz owned cars, as a car’s users changed
frequently and it rarely signaled anyone status. Only some cars with sole
users signaled status: a jeep parked outside a member’s flat at night
usually signaled his field branch manager status (Schwartz & Naor 2000:
55), and a private new car parked likewise, signaled a powerful, autocratic
factory manager in a kibbutz with mass hired Labor (Kressel 1983: 127).
Historically, cars were first given in the Reg.Ents only to executives, as
in capitalist firms, but they proliferated like Parkinson’s (1957)
1 Goldschmidt 1990; Harris 1990: 344-51.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
128
bureaucratic growth: just as a clerk elevates status by asking for and
getting an aide beneath him when work is mounting, a pa’il without a car
just beneath the rank of pe’ilim with cars, who became essential, hinted
that he would quit his job unless provided with a car. After he got it,
another one on the same level asked for a car in the name of equality, and
so cars were provided to lower and lower pe’ilim until every pa’il with a
driving license got a car, including young, unskilled, seasonal female
office aides. This occurred in Mishkay Hamerkaz only in the early 1980s,
while, in some economic FOs, it had occurred at least a decade earlier
(Shteinberg 1974), while in the Movements, even in 1990 only a minority
of pe’ilim had cars (Yadlin 1989; Lifshitz 1990). A clear sign of cars
functioning mainly as status symbols was their fine grading, in accord
with rank in FO hierarchies and power. The higher a pa’il’s rank and the
more powerful he was, the better, larger and newer his car was. Power
stemmed inter alia from a powerful patron. Thomas had to make do with
his old station wagon due to a lack of patronage. Likewise, only a few
hired employees got cars, and then, only if they were considered
absolutely essential in jobs for which workers in similar positions on the
outside received cars.
Stratified FO Cars Symbolized Status, Unlike Most Kibbutz
Cars Why were cars the main status symbol of pe’ilim? Why did many consider
the head of the tiny transportation department of Mishkay Hamerkaz
second in power only to Zelikovich? The simple answer was that, except
for cars pe’ilim were usually not publicly differentiated according to rank
and, in some respects, even resembled lower-status hired employees. For
example, they ate fine breakfasts and lunches free of charge at the nice air-
conditioned dining hall just as hired workers did, and many of them wore
dirty working clothes like hired workers. Pe’ilim were differentiated from
hired workers by not clocking in when arriving at work and when leaving,
and by the pocket money they were given on the pretext that it was needed
for refreshments on their way to work or back, even though the drive was
usually only 10-30 minutes, but these were inconspicuous signs, while the
salaries paid to kibbutzim for pe’ilim’s work were uniform. High-level
pe’ilim had two exclusive privileges: telephones at home, which were rare
in kibbutzim in the 1970s, and study tours abroad which actually were
only marginally so (Topel 1979: 70; Blasi 1980: 77). However, both
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
129
privileges were outside the areas of the Reg.Ents, so their value as status
symbols was limited, as opposed to cars which showed the status of
pe’ilim wherever they went, testifying to the rank of their job and to the
status of their FO relative to other FOs, kibbutzim and outside firms.
No different in respect to cars were some industrialized kibbutzim with
mass hired labor, as was found by Kressel (1983): Netzer Sireni’s best
cars were allotted for the sole use of plant managers and symbolized their
supremacy. A disenchanted member of Bror Ha’il, another kibbutz with
mass hired labor, wrote: “Kibbutz members are zoologically differentiated
into wheel-owners and feet-owners”.2 Many such sarcastic phrases could
be found in Movement weeklies and kibbutz internal bulletins in the
1970s, when Admors censorship relaxed and the number of FO cars grew
rapidly in contrast to the few kibbutz cars which were rarely available for
ordinary members’ private uses.3
In contrast to these views, which proved that members were cognizant
of and frequently discussed advantages FO cars gave pe’ilim, in only a
few of the twenty kibbutz plants which I studied in 1977-8 did I meet with
intense interest in cars, although some plants, in addition to the few cars
for managers, owned a fleet of distribution and service cars. The few
kibbutzim in which there was such interest, resembled Netzer Sireny: the
cars allotted to plant managers were not shared by members after working
hours and weekends, and were barely controlled by a car organizer
(sadran rechev; Kressel 1983: 98-138). Unlike other kibbutz cars which
members shared, these were “attached cars” (mechoniot tzamudot, i.e.
company cars), each one assigned to a specific user for his sole use,
similar to the outside organizations’ norm; hence, car size, age and model
symbolized his status; this was significant, and interested members.
Egalitarian sharing of cars emerged in a few kibbutzim in 1962, when
some groups of young radicals in a few veteran kibbutzim such as Kochav
and Ein Hamifratz (real name), forced pe’ilim and plant managers to share
their cars with other members on weekends (later on, this norm was
expanded to weekdays, after working hours). Soon radical leader Ephraim
2 Unnamed writer cited in Igeret No. 1181, September 5, 1978, from Kibbutz
Bror Chail weekly. 3 Adar 1975; Bakibbutz 1977; Ilana & Avner 1977; Shapira 1978, 1979b; Topel
1979: 67-70; Tzur 1980; Ginat 1981; Atar 1982.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
130
Reiner created an innovative norm for allocating use of cars in Gan
Shmuel which accorded this innovation: In addition to car uses authorized
by managers and committee heads, members used idle cars as they
pleased, receiving keys from a car organizer according to prior written
requests, having to pay only for fuel and a few other expenses incurred by
their use. However, while both innovations enhanced egalitarian car
sharing and spread to most kibbutzim within a few years, many, and later
on most pe’ilim did not abide by the car sharing norm, as most FOs
opposed it, while initiators of sharing were suppressed, sidetracked and/or
exited, as did Reiner (Chap. 11, 16).
FOs’ Sticking to Company Cars System Served Pe’ilim
Interests While kibbutz cars lost much of their status symbolization role with the
introduction of car sharing, FOs made efforts to curb car sharing. At first,
each car was limited to few “registered” drivers, and after this
arrangement was abandoned as cumbersome, other limitations were used:
inexperienced drivers were excluded, the price kibbutzim paid for using
FO cars was raised, and sharing was limited to weekends only. Thus,
status symbolization was conserved: a car was almost always driven by
the pa’il to whom it was ‘attached’.4 One may ask: Why did kibbutzim not
assume the task of furnishing pe’ilim with cars for work and then having
kibbutz members share them after work? Instead of FOs buying and
maintaining fleets of cars, why did FOs not help kibbutzim add cars to
their fleets for pe’ilim by giving kibbutzim loans for this aim and saving
expenses on transportation departments and fleet maintenance?
One reason was historical: Since early days FOs had set up
transportation services which used pickups and later vans, while senior
pe’ilim shared private cars. Thus, pe’ilim mobility was institutionalized as
an FO function, rather than as a kibbutz responsibility. Likewise, the KA
attended to pe’ilim accommodations in Tel Aviv by partial rental of the
Cherniawski hostel; later on, this was replaced by apartment rental, each
apartment used by three-four ordinary pe’ilim, while seniors were given
4 See the same in a kibbutz where plant cultures resembled FOs: Kressel 1983:
103-38.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
131
smaller but private ones.5
Economic FOs, especially those owned together with moshavim, did
not use collective solutions. As mentioned, Kahana, as a pa’il of the
Merkaz Chaklai in 1930, was given a board and lodging allowance for his
five-day weekly stay in Tel Aviv, and saved money for a private radio.
Zionist emissaries to the Diaspora saved much more: In 1951, Yaakov
Vilan (1993: 247-58) of Kibbutz Negba was such an emissary and saved
money for a three week tour of Europe with his wife afterward. This was
the weak spot of collective solutions: no money could be saved for private
use; thus, they gradually vanished and pe’ilim saved money from
allowances and bought electric kettles, heating stoves and other items
which most members could not afford. FO cars further raised living
standards of pe’ilim and their families in contrast to the rank and file. Until
the 1950s, this rise was mostly balanced by the extra hardships most
pe’ilim incurred: long travel, long working days, separation from family
for up to five days a week, etc.6 Ordinary members rarely saw them as a
privileged stratum for another reason: in this era circulation was less
common as there were relatively few FO jobs, and, after a term, many
pe’ilim returned to the ranks and had to take on unwanted kibbutz jobs,
such as serving in the dining hall.7
When most difficulties vanished, while privileges were enlarged and
diffused to lower echelons, criticism of pe’ilim not sharing their cars
increased, leading to a revolt of younger members of Kochav and Ein
Hamifratz in the early 1960s, and to the sharing of their cars.
Unfortunately, no kibbutz tried to go further and press for the above
proposal of furnishing pe’ilim with cars owned by the kibbutz. This radical
change would have required creative leadership committed to
egalitarianism, viewing FOs as integral to kibbutz, and this might have led
to seeing the bluffs of rotatzia and FO democracy, and to concluding that
FOs should adopt kibbutz principles, as Buber (1958[1945]: 141) asserted
and as had been the Palmach.
5 Tzachor 1997: 171. My father as a pa’il shared such an apartment in 1949-1951.
Some senior pe’ilim of my kibbutz have continued enjoying apartments until
recently. 6 Vilan 1993: 86-87. 7 Fadida 1972: 69; Shapira 1987: 44; Vilan 1993: 269.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
132
New Solutions Would Have Required Admitting
Stratification A radical new view of fringe benefits was required: no more
inconsequential phenomena that could be ignored using various
rationalizations, such as privileges balanced by extra hardships pe’ilim
suffered, but rather a major problem of egalitarianism, a superfluous price
of FOs which had to be eradicated in order to bolster the hegemony of
kibbutz ethos in the kibbutz field. Veteran KA ex-pa’il Avishay Grosman
confessed this only in 1991, while Barak (1992) calculated that fringe
benefits of a Movement pa’il serving for thirty years amounted to $US
216,000. This would not have been a prohibitive expense had it
encouraged innovative pe’ilim like Thomas and Yaakov whose
contributions were far greater would they continued, but it enhanced the
dominance of their opposites, self-servers who suppressed such servant
leaders and served the rule of autocratic FO heads. Eradication of FO
privileges would have required viewing them as imitations of capitalist
culture which engendered stratification, an anathema to kibbutz culture. A
pa’il who felt this way was Baruch (Boria) Lin of Mishmar Ha’emek, a
Histadrut executive who used a taxicab that took him to Tel Aviv and back
two times a week rather than an ‘attached car’ which symbolized status
continuously.
No doubt that what Lin grasped was grasped by Yaari and Hazan as
well, that their fancy cars contradicted the kibbutz image of hardworking
socialists committed to egalitarianism. One explanation was that they were
already in their conservative phase and reconciled with the ruinous effect
on this image (Chaps. 10-11), while another could be shifting
involvement: as they could not promote public aims, they promoted
private ones instead (Hirschman 1982). Lord Acton would say that they
were corrupted by absolute power, but these answers are, at best partial
truths, since beside better cars and a few minor material privileges, they
resembled other pe’ilim without any excesses. Thus, a major explanation
was the lack of a plausible known solution (Hawthorn 1991): Lin’s taxicab
solution was clearly unsuitable; their tasks required a car at their disposal
to travel to Movement headquarters and other major organizations in Tel
Aviv, to the Knesset and to Zionist headquarters in Jerusalem, 160-170
kilometers away from their kibbutzim, to visit kibbutzim from Dan on the
northern border to Gvulot in the southern desert (some 130 and 200
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
133
kilometers away respectively), and to dozens of party branches all over the
country. For these purposes, an FO car was well suited. Another advantage
of Admor large cars was more mobility and freedom from driving
enabling them to visit more places, gain more information, be involved in
more deliberations and read and have discussions with deputies while
traveling. In addition, as heads of national parties, they resembled their
peers who were cabinet ministers and rode similar cars.
However, a much more important part of the answer was Admors’ need
to cope with the predicament of losing power due to abandoning efforts to
solve major problems which caused loss of trust, as against talented
radicals and critical thinkers who solved problems creatively in some
kibbutzim by car sharing, by getting rid of factories’ hired Labor, by
egalitarian higher education, and more (Chap. 15, 16). The latter were
motivated by kibbutz ethos and were not moved by privileges, like
Thomas, preferring solving major problems, while privileges pulled self-
serving careerists to pe’ilut, enhanced their control and buttressed
Admors’ dwindling power.8 But in order to add privileges to lower
echelons and keep differential rewards in accord with hierarchy, they had
to elevate the standard of their own cars, as indeed they done in the early
1950s. In Mishkay Hamerkaz in the 1960s a similar situation emerged and
senior pe’ilim used it for their own advantage: they convinced its head
that, due to his advanced age, over sixty, he deserved a more convenient
car, i.e., larger and better; soon after this car was bought, they elevated the
standards of their own cars. The elevation of the standard of Admor cars
served the aim of adding cars for lesser pe’ilim of the growing KA
bureaucracy, but it can safely be presumed that it also served deputy
interests in better cars.
Creativity Might Have Elevate Radicals into Potential
Successors However, all of the above explanations were less decisive than the
prevention of elevating potential successors to Admors from among young
radical leaders (Chaps. 10-11). Had Admors remained high-moral servant
leaders as in early days, they would have created a new solution instead of
8 It seemed that my father’s preference for leading Gan Shmuel’s plant to self-
work over the pe’ilut he was offered in 1954, was explicable by this reasoning.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
134
the company car system of capitalist society, despite it being practical and
helping to enlist and control pe’ilim. This was not a simple matter; such a
change might have cost them the support of loyalists who were used to the
car privilege. But even this was a secondary reason, since they could have
used convincing reasons: both promoting egalitarianism and the need for
asceticism in ascetic Israel of that era. Thus, the main reason for not
creating and not encouraging others to create a new solution, was retaining
supremacy. Creative young radicals such as Ephraim Reiner, could have
certainly devised a new, egalitarian solution as he did with kibbutz owned
cars, but its success would have elevated a new contender for power, and
this seemed to be the prime reason for rejecting such a possibility. This
resembled Shavit’s suppression of Thomas’s efforts to invent radical
solutions, and the same etiology will be exposed within conservative
kibbutzim (Chaps. 12, 14, 15).
Without a new solution, Admors continued the existing one. Still
another reason for continuing was the privileges given to pe’ilim in
oligarchic Histadrut, the Mashbir Merkazi, Tnuva, Agricultural Center and
other organizations which Admors did not control. Admors could ignore
their extra privileges up to 1948, as the Movements enlisted enough
talented pe’ilim who were drawn by Zionist enthusiasm and the challenges
their jobs offered. After 1948, these motivations diminished. Not allowing
innovators to cope with new challenges such as dealing with immigrant
absorption by creating new solutions that accorded kibbutz uniqueness
(Chap. 11), the Movements had to compete with fast-growing economic
FOs for the enlistment of managerial talent by enlarging privileges which
required elevation of Admor car standards.
Without egalitarian solutions, Admors and other FO heads were
trapped into using a solution that added cars independent of growth; much
as Parkinsonian bureaucracy grew, cars were provided to lower and lower
pe’ilim. As mentioned, this process was completed in some economic FOs
in the 1970s, in Mishkay Hamerkaz in the early 1980s, while in the
Movements there were many pe’ilim who remained without cars even in
1989: TKM’s 1,477 pe’ilim had 484 cars, and KA’s 850 pe’ilim had 402
cars.9
9 Yadlin 1989; Lifshitz 1990.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
135
Admors’ Choice, Self-Serving Officers and Flawed
Democracy Due to Admors’ choice to continue with ‘attached’ cars, FO cars stratified
most pe’ilim above ordinary kibbutz members and enhanced market and
hierarchy controls in a field supposedly controlled by trust and democracy.
These controls required clearly differentiated ranks. Yaari’s and Hazan’s
change to fancy American cars in the early 1950s, signaled not only
oligarchy, but also a steeper hierarchy, more gradations of cars in accord
with additional ranks in the growing KA. This was also true at the other
end of the hierarchy: When cars proliferated in Mishkay Hamerkaz to
lesser pe’ilim, a humbler model was added, a two-door mini Autobianchi
A112 with 900 cc engines. This was possible since these pe’ilim enjoyed
other privileges: a nice air-conditioned dining hall, high-standard meals
and pocket money for refreshments on their short way to work or back.
This generosity led to many complaints by kibbutz representatives at
Mishkay Hamerkaz three-yearly conventions. They proposed lowering the
standard of meals and a cut in pocket money. However, these
representatives, kibbutz treasurers and chief economic officers, never
complained about, nor did they propose cuts in cars which cost many
times more and far exceeded outside firm norms, or any other of the
already mentioned managerial privileges, such as the spacious, air-
conditioned offices, ample telephones, “study tours” abroad which
actually were only marginally such, etc.10 Representatives explained their
proposals by the ethos of equality, i.e. that members in kibbutzim lacked
these perks. However, judging from the many grievances in kibbutz
weeklies, kibbutz members needed much more car sharing which pe’ilim
mostly refused, but no representative complained about these refusals, nor
proposed any car system change toward egalitarianism.
The differential complaints exposed the true interests of representatives
as would-be pe’ilim: they stuck to the ‘attached cars’ system and objected
to my proposal of kibbutzim providing cars to pe’ilim, not because of the
reasons they gave, but since they were short-term chief officers who hoped
to benefit from FO cars within a few years. They tried to project an image
10 See Minutes of Mishkay Hamerkaz conventions. On “study tours”: Topel
1979: 70.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
136
of caring for kibbutz member interests by criticizing privileges
inconsequential for their own future as prospective pe’ilim, avoiding those
which would affect their lives for a much longer period (at least so they
hoped). Thus they acted in their own interests rather than in public ones.
Their hypocrisy concealed self-serving, ignoring public they supposedly
represented, a well-known problem of democracies, as Bobbio (2002) has
pointed out. However, Admors and FO heads were to blame; they shaped
the system. When one representative explained to me in private that
privileges were essential for Reg.Ents functioning, he exposed their
corruptive nature as well:
“The norms of Reg.Ents are not kibbutz ones; members here behave like
capitalist owners, not caring for workers or for the job, but only for their
own privileges. They have come here either because they failed at their
kibbutz jobs, or due to privileges; without cars and other privileges no
member would want to be a pa’il here, but since we need Reg.Ents
services, we have no choice but to provide them with privileges”.
In 1977, a chief kibbutz officer like the speaker, born in the late 1930s
or 1940s, could not imagine egalitarian and democratic FOs like the
Palmach. Nor it seemed did he imagine that those who came for
privileges, power, status and career, defeated others who cared for kibbutz
interests like Thomas and Yaakov, causing their exits and marring
Reg.Ents’ effectiveness and efficiency.
Secured Supremacy of Pe’ilim Over Kibbutz
Representatives However, there was another major explanation for the fact that no
representative proposed car cuts: a belief, due to flawed democracy, in the
supremacy of Reg.Ents pe’ilim. The main reason for this was the
dependency of kibbutz officers’ careers on FO heads, due to the structure
of the field’s managerial career ladders with rotatzia’s pushing officers to
circulate in order to retain managerial status. This could be seen in the
composition of conventions: As pointed out earlier, kibbutz
representatives were mostly younger, inexperienced, newer in jobs and
participating in conventions for the first time, while most pe’ilim were
older, experienced executives, almost all of them ex-chief kibbutz officers
(often more than once) who circulated in managerial jobs and continued in
each one of them much longer than in kibbutz offices. Representatives
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
137
lacked prestige and other intangible capitals held by pe’ilim, and headed
kibbutzim which were dependent on Reg.Ents services: if a kibbutz was
not satisfied with the ginning of its cotton by Mishkay Hamerkaz’s plant,
seeking another plant to do it meant another Reg. Ents plant; there was no
alternative. As Reg.Ents heads met regularly, they were coordinated and
no kibbutz could benefit from competition among them; each kibbutz had
to use the services of its region’s Reg.Ents, though sometimes this was
evaded by various excuses, or a plant agreed to allow ‘defection’ due to
insufficient production capacity.
Even a chief kibbutz officer who did not care about future promotion to
Reg.Ent jobs rarely dared to publicly criticize their managers; usually he
sought good relations as a way to prevent harm to his kibbutz interests.
Democracy was a formality; pe’ilim controlled decisions, as proved by
frequent enlargements of Mishkay Hamerkaz plants which were barely
related to kibbutz farming needs. Most of the added capacity was aimed at
non-kibbutz clients, while kibbutzim had to provide more pe’ilim, and to
finance excessive investments. Kibbutz officers often learned about this
after pe’ilim had made irreversible moves. No wonder distrust prevailed
between pe’ilim and kibbutz officers. Privately, most of the latter with
whom I spoke opposed expansions, and the few who did speak in favor of
expansions publicly, generally had only modest ones in mind. Pe’ilim used
their alleged expertise to deny the feasibility of modest enlargements,
exaggerated arguments in support of excesses, and asserted that kibbutzim
would benefit from economies of scale, although such benefits rarely
materialized.
Superfluous Growth, Image Creation, Justified Distrust of
Pe’ilim A good example is the Mishkay Hamerkaz fodder mix mill which began
production in 1961, was expanded in 1966-7, and in 1969 it was decided
to add a second, computerized larger mill whose planned capacity was
50% more than the older mill. However, its cost turned out to be 250% of
the planned cost, some US$20 million instead of US$8 million, while even
the planned cost left only a small profit margin, since full use of its
capacity was projected in 1980, five years after the projected start of
production. Pe’ilim asserted that the government would finance most of
the project, but when the real cost of the project was revealed, the owner
kibbutzim were asked to finance almost all the extra investment, meaning
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
138
that they had to finance 80% of the project rather than the original plan of
their financing only 40%. In short, although kibbutz representatives on the
plant’s board of directors rebelled and forced a project stoppage and
reassessment, they later ratified a solution which meant surrender to
pe’ilim (Shapira 1987: 114-7). Why did they do so?
The main reason was their dependency on the Reg.Ents for future jobs;
it was clear that representatives who would have prevented the project,
would not be promoted to Reg.Ents jobs. An auxiliary reason was that the
solution spared them the need to ask the kibbutzim for ratification of extra
financing for the project by using a price rise in fodder mixes instead, a
usual occurrence in Israel’s inflationary economy. This prevented opening
a Pandora box of objections in kibbutz assemblies which would have
required that they lie in order to retain chances of adoption, or confess the
truth and lose the vote.
After the project was completed, its extra large size proved wrong,
causing many problems; an unusable part of it was discarded, and for
almost a decade the mill was under-utilized. Quite similar were other
expansions; their new technologies were presented as state-of-the-art,
although mostly the more conventional and less effective alternatives were
chosen, like in Thomas’s (1994) cases. Kibbutz officers rightfully
distrusted pe’ilim as self-servers or servers of particularistic Reg.Ents
interests, mostly at the expense of kibbutzim. No wonder that when crises
of the new economic policy of 1985 ensued (Chap. 3), kibbutzim cared
little about FOs and many collapsed: the Mashbir Merkazi, Tnuva Export,
Milu’ot, Hazera, KA’s Al Hamishmar daily, KM’s and KA’s planning and
architectural firms, their construction firms, Alliance of Comptrollers, and
more.11
A Lack of Genuine Representation Enhanced Flawed
Democracy Rotatzia meant that most chief kibbutz offices were filled by novices or
ex-pe’ilim for whom the office was an interlude in their circulation. They
had to represent kibbutzim in FO governing bodies, but even when they
tried, they rarely succeeded due to the above reasons and others depicted
11 Abramovitz 1988; Kedem 1988a, 1988b; Yadlin 1988; Maroz 1991; Petersburg
1994; Lazar 2001.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
139
hereafter. Let us look at the records of fifteen years of board of directors
sessions of Mishkay Hamerkaz’s cotton gin plant: Formally the board
included a majority of ‘kibbutz representatives’, but, in actuality, these
were almost always a minority. The simple reason was that they soon
learned they were a ‘rubber stamp’ for pe’ilim actions and stopped
attending; this made pe’ilim a majority at most sessions. I asked Moav, the
veteran plant manager if this was genuine democracy, and he retorted:
“It really mattered very little whether these representatives came and drank
some cups of tea or not”.
His deputy gave a more vivid picture of board of directors’ functioning:
“In any case, they [kibbutz representatives] did not understand much about
most subjects on the agenda, and Moav and a pa’il of another plant who
represented the management of Mishkay Hamerkaz on the plant’s board
were quite similar. The only two who really knew what was going on and
coped with almost all major problems, thus also shaping most decisions,
were Moav’s other deputy and myself”.
The same was true in Shavit’s days when he, Zelikovich and a few
loyalist ‘kibbutz representatives’ dominated, while his deputy and Thomas
were the only ones who knew and understood what was really going on,
and objected to many decisions but were overruled. ‘Kibbutz
representatives’ were formally elected at the yearly assembly of some
forty owner kibbutzim consisting of chief economic officers and cotton
branch managers, but kibbutz delegates did not elect these
‘representatives’; as Tabenkin chose KM’s Council members and Yaari
and Hazan chose KA’s Acting Committee members, while conventions
ratified their choices (Chap. 5), owner assemblies ratified en-block
proposals for a board chosen by plant managers that included 7-10 kibbutz
‘representatives’ and 4-5 pe’ilim. ‘Representatives’ were allegedly
successful branch managers, but many were, in fact, managers’ loyalists or
prospective ones aiming at future promotion to pe’ilut, and few, if any,
were critical thinkers who learned the plant’s problems and their solutions
in order to make wise decisions. Mostly this learning proved futile; at
most, their criticism and suggestions prolonged sessions and the few
attending loyalists together with pe’ilim almost always defeated them.
Only when critical ‘representatives’ were joined by knowledgeable pe’ilim
and some loyalists they sometimes win over ignorant pe’ilim and other
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
140
loyalists.
The so-called ‘kibbutz representatives’ neither represented kibbutzim,
nor contributed much to plant management. They were not chosen by a
relevant constituency of cotton growers, but were nominated by the
managers whom they were purported to control. None of them was
rewarded by continuity for doing a good job; the opposite was true: critics
kept seats only for a year, while loyalists continued. Those who stopped
attending were replaced only at the next annual assembly, while, up to that
date, their names as board members projected an image of democracy.
Flawed Democracy Ruined Trust But Could Be Repaired Flawed democracy enabled Reg.Ents heads almost total control of
decision-making, caring little for kibbutz interests, caring mainly for the
image of caring. No wonder mistrust prevailed between pe’ilim and
kibbutz officers, and the fact that many kibbutz officers were ex-pe’ilim
who knew how easily truth could be masked, enhanced mistrust. The only
case of kibbutzim coercing FOs to prefer members’ interests over those of
pe’ilim, as far as I know, was the car sharing norm which was adopted late
and implemented only partially at a high price for kibbutzim. Kibbutzim
lacked genuine democratic representation in the governing of FOs; they
did not elect, nor did they replace managers and board members in accord
with their functioning, following the Movements’ undemocratic tradition
which commenced in the 1930s (Chap. 5).
FOs imitated capitalist culture, but not its democratic solutions, such as
regional choice of delegates. Consider the case of Mishkay Hamerkaz: If
each kibbutz had had a delegate on the Board of Directors, it would have
had over forty members (including some pe’ilim). Such a large body could
not be effective; an effective board may include 11-15 members. If 4-6 of
them had been pe’ilim, 7-9 kibbutz representatives could have been
chosen by dividing the kibbutzim into 7-9 ballot districts of 4-5 adjacent
kibbutzim, each choosing a representative. In addition, effective
representation required a reasonable term, not one year but three-four
years with the possibility of consecutive terms, preferably under the
provision of the proposed exponential growing trust test (Chap. 18). The
proper constituency, for instance, in the case of the cotton gin plant, would
have included each kibbutz’s cotton branch workers, the chief economic
officer and the treasurer, while, in the case of the board of Mishkay
Hamerkaz, the constituency should have included each kibbutz’s
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
141
economic committee members and managers of agricultural branches. In
this way, a genuine democracy could have been created. Similarly genuine
representation could have been obtained in all FO boards of directors.
Genuine representatives with prospects of continuity by possibly
consecutive terms, would have had good reasons to be more than just ‘tea
drinkers’, to seek knowledge, to be actively involved in deliberations and
to defend kibbutz interests, thus assuring trust between FO owners and
pe’ilim.
A Lack of Independent Mass Media An additional reason for lack of kibbutzim control of FOs was the lack of
independent mass media. Genuine democracy of some 60,000 members in
270 kibbutzim, or even 10,000 Mishkay Hamerkaz kibbutz members,
required independent journalism. But editors and writers of the
Movements’ publications were chosen up to the 1970s on the basis of
loyalty to Admors and Ichud heads. When Admors allowed the critique of
the Reiner group in the 1950s (Chap. 11), this gave leeway to KA’s
journal for young members, Bachativa, edited by Betzalel Lev, a member
of this group. However, the attempt at independent journalism was futile
since Lev and his aides were pe’ilim, constantly under Yaari’s scrutiny.
He could have rotated them if their critique had endangered his power.12
There were no independent media until the mid-1970s, years after
Tabenkin had passed away and an ailing Yaari had lost KA control. Even
then, and up to the late 1980s, kibbutz quarterly journals and publishing
houses banned radical criticism.13 Only then, after Hazan had retired, after
Tabenkin’s loyalist successors had also passed away or retired, and crisis
had prompted criticism, did the media become largely independent of the
control by Movement heads.
In conclusion, Admors presided over expanding conservative
bureaucracy with differential fringe benefits that rewarded and symbolized
status of stratified pe’ilim, fewer of whom were conscripted due to
exciting challenges. To defend power, Admors suppressed critical thinkers
12 Beilin 1984: 171. Lev was a Gan Shmuel member and I published articles in
Bachativa. 13 Thus, journals banned my articles, and publishing houses banned my 1987
book.
8. FOs’ Flawed Control, Pe’ilim’s Fringe Benefits
142
and radicals who tried to create new egalitarian solutions which would
have advanced the kibbutz cause and members’ trust, as they could have
become potential successors. Yaari’s and Hazan’s American cars were
integral to FOs’ growing oligarchic conformism which encouraged self-
serving motivation, autocracy, self-aggrandizement, secrecy and
hypocrisy, disrupting democracy and effectiveness of both kibbutzim and
FOs, and making relationships of FO heads, senior pe’ilim and patrons
with other members low-trust and coercive, as ethnographies will show.
However, before further analysis of oligarchization, I will clarify the
problematic concept of leadership, its interrelationships with trust, and
how highly trusted transformational leaders bring successes, such as
kibbutz movement’s.
CHAPTER 9
Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
Charismatic or Transformational Leaders? Most kibbutz students ignore the leadership factor, while the rest view
kibbutz leaders as charismatic,1 but this is a cardinal mistake which stems
from confusion between charismatic and transformational leaders, a
distinction pointed out by Barbuto (1997) and Beyer (1999). Weber’s
(1947) charismatic leader emerges in a crisis situation as a savior with
assumed exceptional skills and talents, a ‘magical gift’, by which he offers
a radical solution to the seemingly insoluble plight of followers. He asks
followers to identify with him, to believe in his solution and obey his
orders without questioning their logic, which only he fully understands.2
In contrast, Burns’ (1978) transformational leader is viewed by followers
as being very talented, but not magically gifted. He motivates them
rationally to achieve higher moral aims, enhancing awareness of the
importance of the outcomes of radical solutions he proposes, which will
better serve common aims, needs and wishes. Followers are inspired to
make extra efforts by envisioning noble common goals which will bring
lofty achievements, by a leader who explicates new ways for their
fulfillment and models high commitment to required tasks. The leader also
encourages followers to follow suit and use their own faculties for
innovative problem solving that will promote these aims.3
In addition to confusing leadership literature, another reason for
kibbutz students’ mistake was the ubiquitous change of transformational
leaders into conservative rulers with organizational success and growth.
However, when self-serving conservatism causes failures and crises,
leaders may become charismatic saviors, inter alia since their most
talented and successful competitors has already left or turned to other
1 Argaman 1997: 216; Ben-Rafael 1997: 45; Rosolio 1999: 23; Izhar 2005. 2 Tucker 1970; Barbuto 1997. 3 Guest 1962; Bennis & Nanus 1985; Sieff 1988; DePree 1990; Graham 1991;
Sergiovanni 1992; Barbuto 1997; Bass & Steidlmeier 1999; O’Toole 1999;
Giuliani 2002; Goleman et al. 2002.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
144
careers. This was true on both the national level with Admors’ turn to
leftist admiration of Stalin’s USSR in late 1930s (next chapter), and on
local level. For instance, Yehuda Levitov was a leader in the establishment
of Kvutzat Kiryat Anavim in 1920 near Jerusalem. He was soon elevated
in status by pe’ilut in the Hapo’el Hatzair party, representing it in Zionist
organizations and congresses, while the kvutza was suffering a crisis. He
was overthrown as he did not solve problems as anticipated, seemingly
due to pe’ilut, only to be quickly called back to the rescue when others did
even worse. He became an autocratic and charismatic leader, but since
autocracy conflicted with members’ democratic ideals and wishes and
brought only minor success, major conflicts erupted. As a result he
resigned, but was called again to the rescue, continuing until he left the
kvutza in 1937 to a Histadrut job.4
A third reason was the disregard of the shift toward autocracy in
Admors leadership. As the next chapter will show, up to mid-1930s,
Admors were transformational leaders, using radical solutions and
encouraging followers to do likewise, educating them rather than coercing
by political means. Being very critical of party politics, they did not erect
national parties and modeled ascetic, hard-working, public-servant
leadership so that in decision-making, Movement missions pre-empted
personal ones. Hever Hakvutzot leaders, on the other hand, became early
officials of the dominant Mapay party, rarely modeled such high-moral
leadership. Their kvutzot became conservative, trailed behind creative KM
and KA kibbutzim, and, despite affiliation to dominant Mapay, the Hever
remained small.5 Admors’ behavior embodied authenticity, credibility and
trustworthiness that encouraged high-trust in them and support of their
policies, but since the late 1930s they gradually entered dysfunction phase
(Hambrick & Fukutomi 1991). Their radical coping with problems
vanished as a result of success, growth and societal changes, and a new
power perpetuation strategy was adopted, which was a sterile leftist
admiration of the USSR, first by Tabenkin, and then Yaari. It took a
decade until all deputy leaders except one surrendered, a clear sign that the
two leaders were not as yet charismatic. This leftism subsequently led to
4 Based on Bar-El & Ben-Yehuda 1989; Ofaz 2001. 5 Ben-Avram 1976; Near 1997: 180; Kafkafi 1998: 29, 33-5, 44, 49; Goldstein
2003.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
145
crises, and then Admors became charismatic saviors, as Iron Law means
(centralization, censoring publications, suppression of innovators and
democracy, promoting and privileging loyalists, shifting Movement goals
to serve their rule) prevented succession. Historians missed this decisive
change which sidetracked and pushed radical creative officers to exit or to
non-political careers, while Admors’ loyalists and barren leftists who
lacked critical thinking and creativity were promoted to dominance.
Members’ belief in their own powers and faculties was discouraged, and
the combining of the three strategies, pointed out in Chapter One, was
fatally harmed. However, a full explanation of this major change, its far
reaching effects, and its disregard by kibbutz students, requires explicating
the concept of leadership and its relation to trust and performance.
Trust and Organizational Performance Barbuto (1997: 691) points out that transformational leaders create
feelings of trust, loyalty and respect in followers. However, what was the
causal connection between leaders’ ascetic, high-moral dedication to
public goals and the success of trust- and democracy-based, egalitarian
kibbutzim? Can a servant leader’s high morality, through mutual high-
trust created with followers, explain the creation, continuity, renewal and
success of unique kibbutz cultures? Did high-trust relations explain the
exceptional output performance of early era kibbutzim which led to their
flourishing in a backward, desolate, harsh land ruled by a colonial power
whose policies were mostly unhelpful?
Trust has recently become a major concern of social scientists, but its
causal connection to organizational performance has remained unclear.
Hosmer (1995: 400) has concluded:
“If researchers can show empirically that there is a connection - through
trust - between the moral duty of officers and the output performance of
organizations, there would be an obvious impact upon philosophical ethics
and - I would like to think - upon organizational theory as well”.
Unfortunately, the above quote, like most of the literature, ignores low-
moral autocratic leaders who diminish both trust and performance with
growth and success: A large organization head becomes conservative,
promotes loyalists rather than critical thinkers and innovators who propose
solutions to problems, and diverts the organization’s real aims to those
which serve him personally rather than performance (Hirschman 1970,
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
146
1982). This tends to occur after a period of 6-11 years in office in large
firms (Hambrick & Fukutomi 1991), but the power of the leader prevents
replacement and this situation may continue for decades and even worsen,
as heirs are usually loyalists who lack critical thinking and therefore
continue his policies, but implement them poorly (Hirschman 1970).
Moreover, distrust emerges when power accumulation leads to leaders’
corruption. According to Scharfstein (1995), amorality is integral to
authority wielded in large entities, but even researchers who alluded to the
negative effects of oligarchic process, usually missed the amorality of
leaders, the distrust it caused and deteriorating performance, despite ample
literature revealing positive effects of high-trust relations on performance,
adaptability and innovation.6 High-trust relations have usually emerged
within distinctive organizational forms: Anglo-Saxon firms tend to be
low-trust and coercive, as opposed to higher trust, less coercive European
and Japanese firms, among others,7 but the theory of leading by high-trust
relations has remained obscure since the concept of leadership is unclear.
Leadership and Morality
For some authors, such as Grint (2000: 4), leadership is a collection of arts
not accessible to scientific approaches: “There are so many potentially
significant variables in establishing what counts as successful leadership
that it is practically impossible to construct an effective experiment that
might generate conclusive evidence…”. McGill and Slocum (1998) assert
that all those who add answers to today’s ‘leadership crisis’ help little in
resolving it, as they are not asking the right questions. For Sergiovanni
(1992: 2) “the topic of leadership represents one of social science’s
greatest disappointments”, while Barker (1997) asked: “How Can We
Train Leaders if We Do Not Know What Leadership Is?” Gini (1997)
cited authorities in the field who found that most leadership studies lack
clarity and consensus regarding the very meaning of the term, since
6 See Footnote No. 3 and: Deutsch 1962; Zand 1972; Rohlen 1974; Ouchi 1981;
Geneen 1984; Shapira 1987, 1995b; Harvey-Jones 1988; Ring & Van de Ven
1992; Sako 1992; Saxenian 1994; Wagner 1995; Lane & Bachmann 1996;
Lewicki & Bunker 1996; Kramer 1996; Mishra 1996. 7 Jay 1972; Dore 1973; Sieff 1988; Powell 1990; Rosner 1993; Semler 1993;
Saxenian 1994; Fukuyama 1995; Shapira 2001.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
147
“Leadership is never tidy. Any attempt to describe a social process as
complex as leadership inevitably makes it seen more orderly than it is” (p.
323).
Summing up his moral leadership overview, Gini concluded:
“...leadership is a delicate combination of the process, the techniques of
leadership, the person, the specific talents and traits of a/the leader, and
the general requirement of the job itself” (italics original; p. 329). For
Barker (1997: 352) leadership is mainly “a process of change where the
ethics of individuals are integrated into the mores of a community”. Both
authors agree, however, that a future view of leadership is one in which
leaders’ ethics and morality are crucial components of a value-laden
process. This view follows Banfield (1958), Greenleaf (1977) and others
who see trust as the connecting link between organizational theory and
leaders’ ethics.8 For Hosmer (1995) trust is based on one’s expectation of
ethically justifiable behavior on the part of the other person(s); such
behavior consists of morally correct decisions and actions, in which the
interests of society take the degree of precedence that is right, just, and fair
over the interests of individuals (p. 399).
Hosmer hypothesized that trust-based leadership results in greater
cooperation and improved performance, but he did not explicate the exact
etiology. One reason is that defining organizational and societal interests
as well as what is right, just and fair depends on subjective views, which
mainly depend upon one’s position in these orders. Those at the top
usually hold very different views of their fair share in the wealth of the
firm than those at the bottom. Adam Smith saw the danger of capitalists
taking too much for themselves. Muller (1993: 7-8) found that in The
Theory of Moral Sentiments (1790), Smith sought to develop “the
propensity to orient one’s actions to the needs of others”. This propensity
is rarer when a capitalist owner coerces ignorant workers doing simple,
routine jobs that require little know-how and information processing,
while many unemployed are waiting ready to take their places. This
contrasts a situation in which markets cannot obtain true substitutes for
highly specialized operators, technicians and engineers who hold unique
8 Shapira 1987; Sieff 1988; Badaracco & Ellesworth 1989; DePree 1990; Graham
1991; Sergiovanni 1992; Kouzes & Posner 1993; Solomon 1993; Terry 1993;
Hosmer 1995; O’Toole 1999; Kane 2001; Jackson 2004.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
148
specific knowledge and expertise, and require discretion to perform
successfully. In this case coercion is largely ineffective, managers tend to
control by consent and trust, or, at least, their image, and subordinates’
share of revenues is accordingly much larger.9
Barker (1997) proposed that modern leadership integrate the ethics of
individuals with the mores of an organization or community, but this
raises the question of whose interests these mores best serve. Is this
integration coercive or trustful due to much consensus on values, beliefs
and aims which enables a constructive, problem-solving attitude (Deutsch
1969), for overcoming different views concerning allocation of ends,
means and rewards? High trust level is hard to create when followers
come from a very different culture than leaders and hold different values,
beliefs, concepts and mores, so that even small differences concerning
aims, rights and duties may provoke destructive conflicts in which each
side tries to coerce the other.10 Karl Marx revealed the coercive nature of
lower strata cooperation in stratified societies: mores and norms favor the
interests of elites who shaped them. High-trust culture requires high-moral
leaders who overcome the tendency to prefer their own interests, who
shape mores and norms that are viewed as serving the interests of all justly
and fairly, due to authentic care for follower interests.11 The moral factor
has been best explicated recently by ex-New York Mayor Giuliani (2002),
but it was missed by Golemen et al. (2002), even though the details of
their analysis support the above views.
Leading by Consent and High-Trust Relations is
Problematic Fox (1974, 1985) pointed out that one can lead by either coercion, or by
consent and high-trust relations. The latter require wide consensus
concerning the legitimate interests of all involved, while legitimacy is
largely dependent on conformity to societal mores and values (Westphal et
al. 1997); thus, such relations are culturally-dependent. On the other hand,
9 Fox 1974, 1985; Burawoy 1985; Shapira 1987; Drucker 1992; Webb & Cleary
1994. 10 Deutsch 1969; DiMaggio & Powell 1983; Granovetter 1985; Jones et al. 1988;
Linstead et al. 1996; Kramer & Tyler 1996. 11 Sergiovanni 1992; Terry 1993; Brockner et al. 1997.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
149
such relations are created between specific actors, like friendship. So they
are also personal and local, depending on specific behaviors of partners
which prove each other’s care for both common aims and partner’s
interests.12 Scientists who seek social order explanations in ‘post-
industrial’ societies use a very different concept of trust.13
Leading by consent and trust depends on both leaders’ and followers’
actions being grasped by the other side as indicating trust, since trust tends
to mutuality. For instance, secrecy of information signals distrust, as it
may be used by Ego to control Other, who then usually retaliates by
‘purifying’ information disclosed to Ego; without trust and consent,
suspicions and coercion govern, says Fox (1974). Managers who minimize
discretion of subordinates cause descending trust spirals: each side aims at
defending interests grasped as threatened by the other; Ego tries to curtail
Other’s discretion, this signals distrust, Other retaliates, ad infinitum. Most
decisive for trust is exposure of sensitive knowledge and information held
by leaders, which proves their trust of subordinates as it makes them
vulnerable to criticism. Such exposure may elicit reciprocation, provided
that the leader is grasped as competent, credible and authentic. In addition,
his/her use of managerial authority is not arbitrary and/or self-serving, but
rational and aimed at the common good; reciprocity inaugurates an
ascending trust spiral.14
Large hierarchic organizations, however, tend to elicit conflicting
views concerning ends, means, legitimate interests and share of rewards.
Social psychologist Kipnis (1976) found that a new superior tends to
negatively interpret behavior by unacquainted subordinates and to find
hints that they will not follow orders. He tends to use coercive means,
which elicit resistance that proves his suspicions; he further coerces and a
descending trust spiral emerges. Even sheer turnover affects trust
negatively by causing a lack of time for judging newcomers’
trustworthiness.15 I have discerned this in relations between short-term
12 Suttles 1970; Fox 1974; Gabarro 1987: 103-23; Shapira 1995b; Kramer et al.
1996. 13 Gambetta 1988; Misztal 1996; Govier 1997; Seligman 1997; Putnam 2000. 14 Deutsch 1958, 1962; Zand 1972; Fox 1974; Gabarro 1987: Chap. 5; Shapira
1987; Kouzes & Posner 1993; Terry 1993; Kramer & Tyler 1996: 170-5. 15 Axelrod 1984; Gabarro 1987; Whyte 1992; Lewicki & Bunker 1996.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
150
pe’ilim and hired employees. As has been explained, most pe’ilim were
‘parachutists’ without local knowledge, information and expertise held by
workers and foremen. The latter waited to see the intentions of new
pe’ilim before supplying knowledge, while suspicions arose of pe’ilim
who preferred detachment from problematic tasks, prevented exposure of
their own ignorance in order to maintain authority by keeping “the cloak
of competence” (Edgerton 1967). But by detachment, these pe’ilim
preserved ignorance since their behavior raised the suspicions of
subordinates. Hence, they supplied only ‘refined’ information and
knowledge, while detachment prevented learning from self-experience, as
well. Inevitable wrong decisions caused failures that furthered distrust and
led to blaming others for one’s own mistakes.16 Moreover, superiors
postponed the firing of failing client pe’ilim until it could be presented as
normative rotatzia, defending common interest in masking failures and
advancing careers.17
Some ethnographers have untangled other self-serving behaviors by
managers, which ruined trust, such as complex transactions promoting
personal interests disguised as aiming at organizational interests, while
others have depicted managers who created trust by promoting common
aims.18 Ethnography is a problematic method when it comes to building a
theory; it tends to be limited by the perspective chosen and the specifics of
the organization studied.19 Ethnographers’ explanations also usually fail to
account for the effect of contexts on choices (Marx 1985: 145). For
instance, the managerial career advance strategy called ‘jumping’ by
Downs (1966), i.e. advance by changing firms, tends to elicit camouflages,
the masking of mistakes and failures, as well as blaming others for any
failures exposed, since maintaining a positive image is decisive for
successful ‘jumping’ rather than trust of role-partners.20 However, an
16 See Gouldner (1954: 85-7), Gabarro (1987: 109-11), and Shapira (1987,
1995b) for distrust due to incompetence, and Hughes (1958) for superiors
blaming subordinates for their own mistakes. 17 See quite similar cases in Kramer & Tyler 1996: 210-26, 339-50. 18 The former: Dalton 1959; Shapira 1987; Jackall 1988; Sitkin & Stickel 1996.
For the latter see sources cited in Footnotes 3 and 8. 19 Hammersley 1992; Martin 1992; Van Maanen 1995. 20 Hughes 1958; Dalton 1959; Lynn & Jay 1986; Shapira 1987; Jackall 1988.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
151
ethnographer who finds such low-morality in a low-trust culture which
encourages ‘jumping’ by insecure employment, may explain it by citing
the specific personalities and circumstances involved. The cultural
etiology may be uncovered by comparing this context with one of secured
employment, high-trust relations and no ‘parachutings’, where such
behaviors are very rare, as Dore illustrated (1973) by comparing British
and Japanese firms.
The Cultural Context Perspective
‘Jumping’ is common in US low-trust firms.21 Prime bases for trust, such
as loyalty to others, openness, friendliness, honesty and sincerity are
usually discouraged in these settings, and success in career terms is mostly
achieved by the less effective managers, the better ‘jumpers’ and maskers
of mistakes and failures.22 Low-trust cultures have profound effects on
leadership, but sociologists have missed them due to ignoring
organizational anthropology and by the use of an institutional approach
which was too static and did not explain the creation, reproduction and
change of cultures.23 This explains how they have missed the decisiveness
of trust, although in Gouldner’s (1954, 1955) classic, coercive efforts of a
‘parachutist’ ruined trust and led to bitter conflicts and a long ‘wildcat’
strike, while Guest’s (1962) classic explained an outsider’s successful
turnaround of a ailing plant by the creation of high-trust climate.
Ethnographers Dore (1973), Rohlen (1974) and Ouchi (1981),
subsequently described how high-trust cultures explained Japan’s
industrial success, and many authors described Western firm successes
due to high-trust organizational cultures (footnotes 6 & 8).
The cultural perspective is crucial for the explanation of trust-based
leadership due to the impact of cultural context, while ethnographies are
essential due to the personal and local nature of trust, its dependency on
consensus about ends, means and allocation of duties and rewards. In
order to be trusted, a leader must be grasped as caring not only for the
legitimate interests of each individual follower and his category, but he
21 See also Martin & Strauss 1959; Levenson 1961; Gabarro 1987; Campbell et
al. 1995. 22 Hughes 1958; Dalton 1959; Maccoby 1976; Luthans 1988; Fukuyama 1995. 23 Stern & Barley 1996; Barley & Tolbert 1997; Bate 1997.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
152
also has to be viewed as generally highly moral, as one in whose
“decisions and actions… interests of society take the degree of precedence
that is right, just and fair” over his own interests, as Hosmer (1995: 339)
has put it. On the one hand, it is the specific situation that determines what
is right, just and fair to anticipate from a leader and whether he fulfills
those moral duties, but, on the other, it depends upon the context, and
within this context, on what Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) call the
gravity of the field of which an organization is a part.
The gravity of low-trust capitalist fields limits leaders’ moral duties and
subordinates’ moral involvement. FOs were embedded in both low-trust
Israeli culture, and the high-trust culture of kibbutzim; thus, many pe’ilim
legitimately limited their moral involvement and care for subordinates’
interests, causing distrust which was enhanced by both detachment of
‘pure parachutists’, and oligarchization due to continuity in jobs. Using
what Presthus (1964) called “an upward looking posture”, many
dysfunctioning pe’ilim changed loyalties in time and managed to stay
despite rotatzia of superiors, while Admors and many FO heads also
continued despite dysfunctioning, a good reason for mistrust. Their
negative extra continuity was rarely criticized publicly, only a few
questioned its morality: In the 1960s young KA radicals called for
Admors’ rotatzia, and in the 1980s continuity of Milu’ot’s Fridman was
criticized.24
Rotatzia’s Contrast with Highly Trusted Leadership
High-trust cultures require consensus on both moral principles and their
translation into norms, sanctions, and rewards that care for the legitimate
interests, aims and wishes of both leaders and followers. Inevitable
conflicts of interests may be overcome by such consensus, but trusted
leader efforts are required to maintain consensus due to a culture’s
‘fussiness’, irregularities and incoherences, as cultures “are the product of
practices that can fulfill their practical functions only in so far as they
implement... principles that are not only coherent... and compatible with
the objective conditions - but also practical,... easy to master and use”.25 In
24 In the 1960s, I heard these calls at KA conferences; In the 1980s: Chisik 1982,
1983; Harpazi 1982; Lifshitz 1983, 1986c. 25 Bourdieu 1990: 86. Swidler (2001) support this assertion.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
153
a democratic culture, an incoherent but practical norm such as rotatzia
tended to ruin trust and motivation, cause injustices, unnecessary turnover
and brain-drain; if it was at all coherent with high-trust, democratic
culture, it was only at the level of foremen in charge of routine jobs which
required little specialization and could be allocated to almost anyone. For
instance, dining hall work where the routines were simple and widely
known, so that a foreman’s role required few qualifications and rotatzia
did little harm. However, even in early days of agriculture, rotatzia no
longer fitted branch management, as shown in Ein Harod’s orchard branch
of the 1920s-1930s, as depicted by Maletz (1983[1945]): Complex
decisions required agronomic knowledge held mainly by its head. As the
branch grew, another member took on the task of organizing work of 12-
15 permanent members and many seasonal workers, and dealing with the
kibbutz work organizer (sadran avoda). Others were uninvolved in
decision-making, did not learn lessons of either professional or
organizational experience, and could not succeed the two without great
loss of proficiency. Only deliberate efforts by the two to involve others in
deliberations could coach some to be proper successors whom workers
would trust. Rotatzia even less suited succession in mechanized,
sophisticated and innovative production branches of later eras, nor did it
fit succession in the management of a large kibbutz of these eras, a
position requiring much specialization and expertise in order to find just,
fair, efficient and effective solutions. Oplatka (2002) found that capability
for creative innovation in managing a primary school of 500-700 pupils
and 30-40 teachers required both considerable prior teaching experience
and eight to ten years on the job, while a four-generational community of
600-900 inhabitants, with advanced industry and agriculture, was much
more complex than that. This explained why rotatzia was adopted quite
late by successful kibbutzim, in the 1950s, and some of the most complex
jobs, such as heading their large factories, were mostly exempted.26
However, rotatzia’s main defect is ruining trust. Trust creation requires
time and motivation to cooperate, but rotatzia diminishes both (Axelrod
1984). It makes officers formally responsible, but most power is held
behind and/or before the scenes by irreplaceable patrons and power elites;
thus, authority is differentiated from responsibility. The power-holders
26 Topel 1990; also Chap. 6, 12, 15 and 16.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
154
specialize in managing and leading, gain life-long power continuity, and
patronize short-term officers whose jobs are degraded into stepping stones
to power elite jobs. I will show that power continuity, including by the use
of circulation, turned high-moral, public-servant radical leaders, into low-
moral, self-serving conservative oligarchs who could barely be trusted to
care for the common good.
As mentioned, wherever rotatzia was used, high-moral, highly trusted
leaders who brought successes rarely appeared.27 The exception that
supports this assertion is that of Pericles (444-429 B.C.) who brought
Athens its Golden Era: he was a strategos (army commander), the only
type of officer allowed consecutive yearly terms due to required
proficiency, was re-elected fourteen times until his death, and continuity
thanks to high-trust, made his exceptional achievements possible.28 The
US presidential norm is semi-rotatzia, two four-year terms. It encourages
high-moral, servant leaders to a greater extent than rotatzia, since a second
term asks for voters’ trust. However, trust was only one of the reasons for
a re-election of a president; others were power and intangible capitals
gained in office, which were even more decisive in the incoherent practice
of oligarchic continuity of senators, congressmen and top-level officials,
such as FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who largely controlled decisions by
short-term presidents (Drury 1959). This defect was even more
conspicuous in the rotatzia of Latin America’s presidents who were
allowed only one term, while veteran tenured congressmen and other
politicians largely ruled polities behind the scenes.29
Self-serving, low-moral oligarchic power elites who rule behind the
scenes ruin trust, as they are irreplaceable in spite of their breaching
confidence by obstructing problem-solving efforts by radical servant
officers, who are then replaced. This has been illustrated in the vein of
comic satire by Lynn and Jay in their BBC television series “Yes,
Minister”, and then “Yes, Prime Minister” (1986). However, since the
1940s, the kibbutz field, has resembled low-trust Imperial China led by
autocratic Emperors, with lowest imperial officials, district magistrates,
27 In addition to next footnotes see: Shapira 1978/9, 1987, 1995a; Gabriel &
Savage 1981; Segal 1981; Vald 1987; Henderson 1990; Mainwaring 1990. 28 Burn 1964; Bowara 1971; Fuks 1976. 29 Davis 1958; Sanders 1989; Linz 1990; Mainwaring 1990; Tzur 1992.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
155
controlled by rotatzia (three years) and deliberately ‘parachuted’ far away
from home villages. These magistrates were largely at the mercy of local
power elites, mostly led by ex-magistrates who used illegal fortunes made
in past offices in illegal ways, to control their home regions.30 Even high-
moral leaders of Kibbutz Kochav who had engendered trust and creativity
that brought success (Chap. 16-17), often curbed members trust as they
were non-elected patrons whose conservative dominance in many cases
hindered public aims. Trust created during their radical past had blinded
many members to their negative roles later on, and their vast power and
intangible capitals due to FO jobs were major obstacles for replacing
rotatzia by a democratic leadership succession system.
Leading by trust is especially problematic in a large organization where
participants rarely meet the leader personally and may scarcely judge
whose aims he is serving. Trust in him is mediated through a long chain of
command manned by loyalists who help mask self-serving deeds.31 Even
if some critically minded officers rebel and expose these deeds, this will
cause their dismissal or demotion and exit, but only rarely the fall of an
autocratic leader. A rare case of such a fall was Tnuva’s Landesman,
whose public denial of illicit use of silicon in milk processing, was
exposed a bluff by a dairy security officer when fired, holding non-
reputable tape cassettes of the deed.32 Kibbutz movement leaders were
supposedly subject locally to members’ social control, but the heading of
large FOs shielded them by hierarchies of loyal pe’ilim, by FO
headquarters located away from kibbutzim, and thus, most of their actions
were shielded, as well. This enabled masking of the change to self-serving
accumulation of power and capitals which sanctioned forsaking leadership
by trust and consent in favor of coercive strategies and tactics, maintaining
an image of success that legitimized continuity despite abandonment of
main missions. The three organizational levels, kibbutz, FOs and national
organizations, each with a variety of cultures, different gravity, and many
factors involved, made the field so complex and intertwined that both
30 Chang 1955; Chow 1966; Folsom 1968; Watt 1972. 31 Hughes 1958; Dalton 1959. 32 Jackall 1988: 146. On the fall of Tnuva’s Landesman: Halevi 1995; even his
fall was partial: he remained an executive in charge of Tnuva’s real estate:
Manor 1998.
9. Trust, Leaders’ Morality and Performance
156
members and researchers failed to grasp the far-reaching consequences of
its oligarchization and how it led the kibbutz movement astray.
CHAPTER 10
Transformational Leaders Became Self-Serving
Conservatives, Autocratic Leftists
In a social movement aimed at the promotion of socialism by its own
communes as models of democratic and egalitarian ethos, it is not simple
to explain the ruination of this ethos by its prime leaders who were, at
first, highly committed, zealous pioneers who paid heavy personal prices
to succeed in the mission of turning their lofty moral ideals into social
reality. Within CKP the incongruity of the early high-moral,
transformational leaders with their later self-serving conservatism, was not
problematized and was overlooked by ignoring FOs. Even if low-moral
deeds of pe’ilim were exposed, they were not suspected to be the outcome
of a cultural change caused by the decay of past radical, high-moral
leadership. Even the few critical ethnographers who exposed the decay of
kibbutz cultures due to low morality of local leaders, missed the context of
their behavior, namely the Admors who had become low-moral, self-
serving conservatives from the 1940s, and their numerous loyal clients
who followed them.1
Turner (1983) has suggested that, over time, a large and influential
social movement changes itself by the societal changes it causes. Kibbutz
leaders led the cutting edge of the powers who changed Jewish fate. Their
movement grew enormously due to success in the promotion of major
societal aims and this changed the movement completely. The Admors
who had commenced with a few poor communes and several hundred
people, after twelve years at the helm headed two large federations, each
with dozens of prosperous communes, populated by many thousands of
people, organized by other FOs, educating tens of thousands of youth in
hundreds of branches throughout Europe for communal pioneering, and
had representation in all executives of Yishuv’s organs. Explaining the
effects of this radical change requires, in addition to theories of social
1 See ethnographies: Kressel 1971, 1974, 1983; Fadida 1972; Topel 1979; Bowes
1989.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
158
movements, large organizations and power elites, leadership theory, as
well. For instance, Kets de Vries’ (1993) theory of power’s negative
metamorphic effects is required to explain Yaari’s hubris, stating: “I,
Me’ir, am Mapam. I am Hashomer Hatzair...”.
Another reason for missing the oligarchic change was the growing
differentiation within FOs and kibbutzim. In each category, some units
mainly imitated low-trust capitalist firms, some were conservatives with
norms of the early days, and many vacillated between the two or adopted
innovations of creative kibbutzim. Thus, a kibbutz might emulate the
innovations of others for some problems, might use capitalist practices for
others, and might continue old solutions for still others. FOs also mixed
kibbutz and capitalist practices; thus, it was quite hard to discern the
decisiveness of the oligarchic change and connect it etiologically to the
emergence of capitalist practices.
Early Era of High-Moral, Servant Radical Admors The first period, up to mid-1930s, was dominated by high-moral, public
servant Admors who enhanced trust and solidarity, the opposite of self-
serving officers depicted by Banfield (1958). Take, for example, Hazan’s
marriage to Berta, a young widow with a young daughter who came to
Palestine after working as a kindergarten teacher in Vienna. At first, she
failed to adapt to the harsh life of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek and to
Hazan’s total devotion to the KA’s cause, and returned to Europe. It took
six years of intermittent relations until she agreed that his roles as a
kibbutz member and KA leader would receive priority over any personal
interest in her and in family life. This was made especially clear in early
1932: He abruptly left both her and his academic studies in Vienna within
six months, although these studies had been planned for a full year, and he
was very happy with both. He left when Yaari called for his help in
solving a crisis in the KA. He returned home, was chosen KA general
secretary and worked 16-18 hours a day. His headquarters was a one-room
hut in Mishmar Ha’emek, with one aide. He did much of the office work
himself, trying to turn a loose association of poor kibbutzim into an
organized movement. After a day’s work in the office, he usually traveled
by public transportation to visit a kibbutz, participated in its secretariat
meeting and later lectured for hours to its members, retired at midnight
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
159
and early in the morning traveled back to Mishmar Ha’emek, to repeat this
schedule. No less intensive was his work while on trips to Europe.2
During this era, he and other leaders backed many radical, original
innovators which served kibbutz aims. For instance, the ‘Stockade and
Tower’ system was invented by Shlomo Gur in 1937, during the second
year of the rebellion by Palestinian Arabs against the Jewish settlement
project. Gur was a member of KA’s group of youngsters situated in
Kibbutz Beit Alfa and who were planning to found their own kibbutz in a
dangerous nearby location, where the Jewish National Fund had bought a
piece of land surrounded by Arab villages. Gur’s system enabled the
renewal of the Jewish settlement project through the establishment of a
fortified settlement within one day. Fifty-five years later, Gur clearly
remembered the support of Hazan and Hagana leaders for developing his
idea into a workable system.3 Three dozen kibbutzim, as well as 15
moshavim, were subsequently established this way.
Another example can be found in a different sector: The radical poet
Avraham Shlonski and his Tel Aviv-based literary group opposed the
literary establishment headed by H.N. Bialik in the 1930s. They were
radical liberals, quite critical of Marxism and the Soviet regime, who
needed literary jobs and help in publishing their works. Although KA
leaders viewed themselves as Marxists, in 1939 they established an
alliance with this radical group, gave them jobs in their newly established
weekly newspaper and publishing house, and published their works.
Despite the ideological gap, and Shlonski’s abstention from joining KA’s
Socialist League and then Hashomer Hatzair party, the alliance continued
for decades and greatly benefited the KA and its national party (Shapira
1974).
In 1942, Tabenkin and the KM’s leadership created the working army,
Palmach (acronym of commando companies), which turned a small,
under-trained and under-equipped militia numbering a few hundred, into
an army of some 2500 troops and a similar reserve of ex-soldiers by
military training combined with work in kibbutzim. The Palmach won
2 Tzachor 1997: 137-45; Likewise was KM’s Ben-Aharon (Gvirtz 2003). 3 Hagana was Yishuv’s clandestine defense organization under Jewish Agency
control. On these problems in adjacent Beit Alfa from 1922 to 1948, see
Goldenberg 1965.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
160
almost all of the victories in the first stage of Israel’s War of Independence
and was the backbone of many of the later ones.4 Tabenkin proposed this
innovative solution when he realized that, without such an army, Jewish
independence could not be attained, but no solution for financing an armed
force was found by the Hagana. The proposal was adopted by KM pe’ilim,
not only those who had led the armed struggle with the Arabs from 1936,
but also those in charge of economic decisions and finances. These pe’ilim
joined forces in the effort to convince dozens of chief officers of
kibbutzim to finance this army with what little money they had. Thus, an
abstemious, egalitarian army was created, whose culture imitated that of
the kibbutzim in which it based its makeshift camps, hidden arms caches
and underground arms production plants.5
Another KM innovation was the Mosad Le’alia Bet (Literally: “The
Institute for Ascent B”. Ascent meant Jewish coming to Palestine, while B
meant illegal), aimed at overcoming British restrictions on inserting Jews
fleeing from Hitler’s Germany and its neighbors. The Mosad was
pioneered in 1934 by KM emissaries in the Hachalutz youth movement in
Europe. A number of Mapay leaders supported it, and, after further
limitation of immigration by the British in 1939, the Jewish Agency
adopted it as a wing of Hagana. However, like the Palmach, it remained
largely a KM pe’ilim-led organization, financed by a variety of fund-
raising efforts of both Hagana and Movements’ emissaries abroad.6
Admors Ended Creativity and Turned to Sterile Leftism No such creativity as previously described could be discerned after 1942,
when Tabenkin had been at the helm for 19 years and Yaari for 15. Signs
of growing autocracy were centralization of KM and KA control (Chap.
5), office continuity of Admors’ deputies and other senior pe’ilim, and a
few privileges. Involvement in national politics was enhanced by
establishing affiliated parties in 1944 and 1946 respectively, which united
in January 1948 into Mapam which aligned itself with Stalin’s USSR,
ignoring the horrors of his dictatorship, adopting radical Marxism which
4 Kanari 1989: 365-9; Tzachor 1997: 188. 5 Kanari 1989: Chap. 3. The KA joined the effort only a half year later (Carmel
1986). 6 Avneri 1985; Kanari 1989: 239; Ofer 1990; Near 1992: 333.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
161
legitimized it known as leftism, and evading, denying and concealing its
contradiction to kibbutz ethos and culture (Kafkafi 1992). This soon
caused the kibbutz movement major crises, but when crises overcame due
to others’ efforts, Admors became charismatic saviors and continued as
seemingly indispensable leaders.
Revolutionary ideology is a major tool of social movements against
hegemonic cultures (Gramsci 1971; Jasper 1997), but leftist reverence of
the USSR was irrational for kibbutz aims and did not include any new
element that advanced its cause. On the other hand, it discouraged political
support by most Jews who rejected Communism and feared the USSR in
light of decades of anti-Zionism and repression of Jewry by Stalin’s
totalitarian, brutal rule.7 Leftism posed a professed radical solution, a far-
away mysterious idol whose true nature was veiled by secrecy and
disinformation. The Admors were conscious of this, knowing well that
nothing had changed for the better since the showcase trials and bloody
purges of the 1930s, which only Tabenkin had not criticized when
embracing leftism in 1937 (see below).8 This idol was supposed to bring
the final victory of socialism in an unknown future, but this ‘socialism’
was repressive with a ‘justice’ that cost the lives of millions and a cult of
personal adoration of a dictatorial leader, which was anathema to kibbutz
ethos. Yaari himself criticized the USSR as “Machiavellian” in 1940.9
Though he and Tabenkin did not know the whole truth regarding Stalin’s
murderous regime, unlike ordinary members, they had credible
information concerning it from many sources, including their own
disciples who came from the USSR in 1942, and in 1945 from ex-partisan
leaders who had experienced years of brutal Soviet rule in the forests of
eastern Europe.10
In the Early Days Admors Contained Leftism
The KM and KA had used Marxist revolutionary ideas since early days,
but Near (1997: 69) found their attitude to the USSR up to 1943 to be
“independent and critical”. He and others have found that Admors Marxist
7 Kafakfi 1992: Chap. 8-10; Near 1992: 365, 1997: 329; Tzachor 1997: 188-204. 8 Kafkafi 1992: Chap. 2; Near 1997: 69; Kanari 2003: 471-5. 9 Zait 1993: 121; Kanari 2003: 478. 10 Zait 1993: 203-8; Near 1997: 70; Porat 2000: 171-234.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
162
rhetoric was very calculated at first, aimed at defending the political
independence of KM and KA against Mapay efforts to unify the kibbutz
movement under its leadership to bolster its own dominance. However, in
this way, they caused dualism which was hard to maintain, using
revolutionary rhetoric but participating in a democratic Zionist project.11
Until 1933, Admors had been struggling against internal leftist factions
which revered the USSR and criticized Zionism. Tabenkin and other
would-be KM leaders fought against the leftism of some of Gdud
Havoda’s leaders headed by Elkind, until the latter left in 1927 and
returned to the USSR (Near 1992: 140-3). The Warsaw branch of
Hashomer Hatzair in 1925 expelled a group of leftist graduates who
admired the USSR (Zertal 1980: 168-73), and, in 1932-3, a few younger
KA kibbutzim were leftist, objecting to the Histdarut’s struggle for the
introduction of Jewish Labor into Jewish-owned citrus orchards in place of
Arab laborers, arguing that it violated worker solidarity. Hazan criticized
leftist leaders of these kibbutzim, especially Oren and Riftin, and accused
them of involving the KA in excessive political troubles (Tzachor 1997:
153-8). Only after a long struggle and the departure of many leftists, did
this conflict subside.12 However, leftist leaders stayed and promoted to
pe’ilut under Yaari’s auspices, using them against Hazan’s seemingly
rightist protégés.
Admors’ Leftist Turn 1937-9, and Problematic Slide
Explanation
Both Tabenkin and Yaari, each in his Movement, used leftists for power
enhancement against rival leaders who leaned towards Mapay’s prime
leader Ben-Gurion, but until 1937 the two remained quite critical of the
USSR. However, Tabenkin began to support leftism in 1937 by organizing
a Leninist-type cadre seminar in which USSR’s showcase trails were
vindicated (Kafkafi 1992: 29-31). In 1939, most KM and KA leaders
criticized the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the cynical move by which Stalin
turned the German war machine westward, but Tabenkin and his disciple
Ben-Aharon supported it, as did Yaari and KA leftists. Hazan led critics,
11 Kanari 1989: Chap. 5; Kafkafi 1992: Chap. 5, 8. Near 1997: 65-74, 329;
Tzachor 1997: 155-63. 12 Kafkafi 1992: 11; Near 1992: 142-3; Zait 1993: 23.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
163
but after a long debate Yaari prevailed. However, in order to keep Hazan
and other critics on his side, the next year, when the USSR attacked
Finland, Yaari criticized it as Machiavellian.13
Both Tabenkin and Yaari needed a decade of efforts and a radical
change of USSR policy to convince other leaders who were critical of
Stalin’s regime. Only after the USSR had supported the UN resolution
calling for the establishment of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine in
1947, did KM and KA stop the careful distinction between the USSR’s
Communism and kibbutz’s, ignored the former’s totalitarian nature, and
denied the imperialist nature of its control of Eastern Europe states. They
established Mapam which aligned itself with the Soviet Bloc’s struggle
against “reactionary capitalist-imperialist powers”, and leftist leaders,
hitherto restrained, became Mapam’s main speakers and then its
negotiators with Ben-Gurion for the formation of a government coalition
(see below). The negotiations failed and Mapam became the opposition
for six years.14
The leftist shift seemingly accorded a slide explanation: At first was
introduced revolutionary rhetoric that resembled the USSR’s and served
critique of Mapay; then a positive attitude emerged due to USSR’s
victories over Hitler, then were found KM’s and KA’s political parties
(1944, 1946) which used leftist arguments against Mapay, and, finally,
leftism was formally adopted after the USSR had shifted to support
Zionist aims. But the slide explanation has a major drawback: it cannot
explain what had happened to the faculties of such experienced and
talented leaders who had suppressed USSR’s admirers and had managed
their policies away from the trap of revolutionary rhetoric leading to
admiration of a dictatorial regime, contrary to kibbutz ethos and culture.
Indeed, the dualism was not easily maintained and the use of ideas and
practices taken from the USSR’s arsenal created the grounds for the shift,
but the fact was that, up to 1948, cooperation in the Zionist project was not
harmed. As experienced leaders, Admors knew well how to differentiate
rhetoric from deeds and remained tightly aligned to the democratic Zionist
movement, for instance, suppressing Palmach commanders who tried
disobey some decisions by the Yishuv political leaders (Kafkafi 1992: 82).
13 Zait 1993: 121; Tzachor 1997: 157-64. 14 Kafkafi 1992: 91-3; Zait 1993: Chap. 12; Tzachor 1997: 157-64, 188-96.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
164
Slide cannot explain why Admors aligned themselves to Stalin’s USSR,
knowing it would isolate their Movements in Jewish society and enhance a
negative attitude to the kibbutzim, as indeed it did. There must be a deeper
reason for such a shift by such able leaders. The slide explanation does not
point to any motive or interest for the change. In contrast, it is explicable
as a power perpetuation strategy, in accord with the Michels’s
(1959[1915]) Iron Law, in view of their growing predicament due to
political inefficacy both in the national arena and in the internal
Movement leadership arena.
Admors’ Growing Predicament Due to Political Inefficacy
While kibbutz pioneering succeeded in the 1930, Admors were troubled
by a loss of political power in contrast to dominant Mapay. They had no
political success after 1935, when KM and KA led the defeat of Ben-
Gurion’s pact with Jabotinski in a Histadrut referendum.15 Ben-Gurion,
however, soon enhanced his power, was chosen head of the Jewish
Agency, while Ben-Gurion’s main partner Berl Katzenelson began a
campaign to unify the kibbutz Movements. The wide support this gained
among ordinary KM members caused Tabenkin apprehension: The only
possibility was a unification with Hever Hakvutzot, given KA’s opposition
to the idea, and this would turn his supporters into a minority against Ben-
Gurion and Berl supporters, and might curtail his power.16 In the 1936 KM
conference in Kibbutz Yagur, the secretariat, consisting of Tabenkin
loyalists, failed to prevent discussion of the unification proposal and was
astonished that almost one-third of the delegates supported it (Near 1992:
349). After the conference, opposition to KM’s secretariat grew, and
Kafkafi (1992: 40) has explained Tabenkin’s turn to leftism as an effort to
suppress opposition by legitimizing centralization of KM control and
making unification with the Hever, the most decentralized Movement,
impossible.17
Tabenkin’s leadership was also attacked by two major leaders, Gershon
15 Near 1997: 329; On Mapay’s dominance: Shapira, Y. 1993. 16 Zait 1993: 44-51; Kanari 2003: Chap. 21. Everyone called Berl Katzenlson by
his first name. 17 Landshut 2000[1944]: 80-2; Near 1992: 348; Baruch Kanari, personal
communication.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
165
Ostrovski and Eliezer Livenshtein who successfully led KM emissaries in
Poland and Germany respectively. They accused him of authoritarian rule,
of violating egalitarianism by KM functionaries remaining in jobs for long
and never coming back to the ranks, and of sparing his son manual work
by pressing Ein Harod to make him a teacher (Kanari 2003: 389-91).
Kanari explained Ostrovski’s critique as frustration: on returning from
Poland he had “failed to find his place in [Kibbutz] Ein Harod” (p. 389).
In reality, Ostrovski was demoted: in Poland he had led the success of the
huge pioneering movement, Hachalutz, which was the prime factor in
KM’s doubling its size within two years (p. 395). With this record, he
could have expected another high office, as was usual in the KM, but
instead he was sent to the ranks since his critique joined Livenshtein’s and
damaged Tabenkin’s power by exposing non-democratic and non-
egalitarian rule.
In 1937, Tabenkin widened the rift with Ben-Gurion and Berl by
opposing their support for the British plan of Palestine’s partition into
Jewish and Arab states, which even his staunch loyalist Ben-Aharon
concluded was the only feasible political solution.18 In 1939, he and Ben-
Aharon furthered leftism by supporting the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
opposed by all other KM leaders (Kafkafi 1992: 38-9). The row with Ben-
Gurion and Berl led to the Mapay split in 1942. The KM established its
own Le’ahdut Ha’avoda party, and its youth movement became leftist and
split, as well.19 In 1945 Tabenkin furthered leftism, using a Leninist-type
cadre seminar whose motto was a non-rational view: Belief in the future of
radical socialism was more important than truth. The attitude towards
Stalin’s inhumane, dictatorial regime was uncritical, and the tacit message
was that Tabenkin’s rule deserved the same attitude, another sign of his
predicament (Kafakfi 1992: 66-75).
Yaari’s predicament was double, on the outside and inside. On the
outside, KA Admors were marginal in top level Yishuv deliberations, and
the Arab uprising of 1936-9 made their preaching cooperation with Arabs
irrelevant.20 On the inside, he was menaced by both his inability to solve
major problems facing kibbutzim (see below), and by Hazan’s
18 Gvirtz 2003: 181; Kanari 2003: 532. 19 Kafakfi 1992: 61-75; Near 1992: 353-6; Izhar 2005. 20 Zait 1993: 102-8. Tzachor 1997: 156-7.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
166
ascendance. Hazan as General Secretary of the KA since 1932 proved
himself as an excellent organizer and propagandist of KA ideas (Tzachor
1997). In 1936, Yaari defeated Hazan’s objection to aligning the KA with
its urban supporters, who established ‘The Socialist League’. But soon
afterwards Hazan almost equalized status with Yaari, as he supported a
harder line toward Arab terror, and supported the use of the ‘Stockade and
Tower’ settlement strategy which successfully coped with it. In addition
he led KA opposition to Mapay using the idea of a bi-national state in
Palestine, proposed by Mishamr Ha’emek member Bentov.21 Yaari took
back the lead in the struggle against Mapay by supporting the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact which Mapay had denounced, and proved his supremacy
by defeating the critique of the Pact by Hazan and others (Zait 1993: 120-
1).
In 1940, Yaari tactically retreated (“USSR was Machiavellian”),
appeasing Hazan and other opponents, but in 1942, Hazan failed to
prevent adoption of Yaari’s proposal to establish a party (Zait 1993: 79).
Moreover, Yaari wrote a leftist ideological book which impelled Hazan to
quickly write a competing, non-leftist book, which failed (Tzahor 1997:
167-8; Zait 1993: 122). Only then, after the Stalingrad victory, did Hazan
join USSR reverence. However, the main reason for this was the repeated
failures to oppose Yaari: in 1936 (the ‘league’), in 1939 (Molotov-
Ribbentrop), in 1942 (a party), and in 1943 (the book). Yaari proved
unbeatable and Hazan surrendered; further conflict with Yaari would have
endangered his status as Yaari’s co-leader.
Admors Dysfunction amid Fast Growth and Mounting
Problems Both Tabenkin and Yaari used leftism to bolster power and subdue
competing leaders. Their weakness, however, was not only an outcome of
political inefficacy, but an even more significant dysfunctioning as kibbutz
leaders who evaded mounting problems.
One main reason for many problems was the enormous growth and its
ramifications in the kibbutz system during the 1930s. During the previous
two decades, growth had been very slow; in 1927, when the KM and KA
were founded, there were only 17 kibbutzim with 1453 members, but half
21 Interview with Shlomo Gur, Tel Aviv, 1992; Tzachor 1997: 157-64.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
167
of the members were in the three largest ones; most others were small,
poor and economically struggling. In 1926, a team of agricultural experts
was brought from the US by the Zionist management to study whether
further financing of kibbutzim was worthwhile; they found that all
kibbutzim except for three were not viable, and recommended minimizing
help for them.22 The main reasons for lack of viability were backward
technologies, mostly imitating local Arabs, and low production: a local
cow yielded only 25-30% of the production of a Dutch cow, and wheat
produce was 30-40% of European standard. Second-hand machinery, lack
of spare parts, and inexpert mechanics hampered mechanization, while
economic recession and the policy of dumping of imported agricultural
products without any duty, curbed profitability.23
In contrast, during the 1930s, all veteran kibbutzim became profitable
as a result of both production improvements and Yishuv prosperity; real
disposable income grew by 12% annually, 54 new kibbutzim were
established, population reached 24,100, and the growth rate was three
times that of the Yishuv. KA pe’ilim growth was exceptional: in contrast
to two in 1932, there were 59 in 1939; KA had 33 emissaries abroad, and
26 pe’ilim in other FOs and national organs.24 KM’s youth movement in
Europe, Hachalutz, grew to 50,000 members in 720 branches and 220
training farms in 1933 (Kanari 1989: 64). Fast growth and development
characterized other FOs, though the exact extent is unknown as a result of
their evasion by researchers. The Mashbir Merkazi, Tnuva and
Agricultural Center grew in accord with the growth of kibbutzim and
moshavim, and new FOs were founded, including Movement Funds, KA’s
regional boarding high school, KM’s and KA’s publishing houses, weekly
newspapers, quarterly journals and others. Successes also enabled the
kibbutzim to mobilize 13% of their members for the war effort, in contrast
to 5% of the rest of the Yishuv.25
FO growth required new solutions if pe’ilim as kibbutz elite had to
model kibbutz ethos and culture and curb the oligarchic and conservative
22 Landshut 2000[1944]: 61; Ben-Avram 1976: 28-9. 23 Near 1992: Chap. 4; Goldstein 2003: 118; various sources used in my Shenhabi
life story study. 24 Barkai 1977: 146; Near 1992: 336-45; Tzachor 1997: 161. 25 Shapira 1974; Kanari 1989, 2003; Sack 1996; Near 1997: 21.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
168
influence of Histadrut and other outside bureaucracies, but no such
solutions were created. At first, Movement headquarters were situated in
Admors’ kibbutzim together with auxiliary FOs, such as publishing
houses, printing presses, KM’s seminar center, and Fund.26 Growth of
both KM and KA to dozens of pe’ilim required new solutions which
would adapt FOs to kibbutz ethos and culture, as accomplished with
Palmach platoons a few years later. Alas, instead, headquarters were
moved to Tel Aviv, new FOs were based in urban centers, largely
adopting their cultures, with additional problems caused by circulation and
‘parachutings’, and became capitalist Trojan Horses inside the kibbutz
field, as depicted.
A major problem was the decline of democracy in large kibbutzim.
According to Argaman (1997), General Assembly functioning in four
veteran kibbutzim which included Yaari’s Merhavia and Tabenkin’s Ein
Harod, was in a process of decline as early as the 1930s. Only in Hazan’s
Mishmar Ha’emek was this not true. Neither Tabenkin, nor Yaari coped
with this decline. Worse still, Admors’ power enhancement efforts, such
as centralization of Movement control (Chap. 5), contributed much to this
decline, as ethnographies below will corroborate. Sociologist Uri Merri of
Kibbutz Maagan Michael depicted this decline: “As the kibbutz expands,
its members lose confidence in their ability to control their own destinies,
…the size of the kibbutz contributes to members’ sense of impotence”
(Niv & Bar-On 1992: 52).
As Chapter 8 made clear, and ethnographies of kibbutzim will further
show, a third major problem was growing material inequality as FOs
furnished pe’ilim with amenities which enhanced their standard of living.
Moreover, outside sources did the same for some other members, such as
the salaries of the thousands who served in the British army, and young
urban middle-class joiners with personal possessions above the kibbutz
level, as Katzir’s (1999: 76) case exampled. Another example: In Kvutzat
Avuka some members lacked basic necessities such as coats and blankets,
while others had more than one but did not share them. One reason for
failed egalitarianism was failed democracy: as officers violated general
assembly decisions without any sanction, members could not expect the
assembly to alleviate their plight (Ben-Horin 1984: 78-82).
26 Kafkafi 1992: 10, 27; Near 1992: 262-72; Sack 1996: 50. Tzachor 1997: 150.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
169
A fourth problem was capitalist-like industry: From 1940, many
kibbutzim established workshops and plants with capitalist practices: hired
Labor, autocratic management, privileges to managers, etc. (Daniel 1975).
The leaders denounced hired Labor, but not other capitalist practices; nor
was creativity encouraged to instill kibbutz ethos. Later on, the plausibility
of instilling kibbutz ethos in industry was proven by the successes of
creative local leaders who were never supported by the prime leaders.27
A fifth problem was the division of many new kibbutzim into two: one
section, consisting mainly of women and children, who remained at a
provisional camp adjacent to a town in the center of the country, while the
other half, almost only men, settled in a distant desolated area. Growing
differences between the sections caused conflicts and even dissolution in
some cases. Ben-Horin (1984) explained these cases by lack of effective
leadership, but he ignored the impact of oligarchic FOs on the suppression
of creative local leaders who might have solved these problems.
These problems, as well as others depicted above in FOs and those to
be depicted below in kibbutzim, leave little doubt that, in 1937-9, when
Tabenkin and Yaari commenced the leftist turn after fourteen and twelve
years at the helm respectively, they both approached dysfunction phases in
accord with Hambrick and Fukutomi (1991). Any assertion that solutions
should have been created by local kibbutz leaders, must prove that
Admors encouraged this, while in fact, they did the opposite, suppressing
radicals and critical thinkers and promoting conservative loyalists and
barren leftists who, in accord with Hirschman (1970), enhanced their
power and obstructed creative problem-solving in both kibbutzim and
FOs. As with company cars, Admors prevented innovations which could
have elevated competing leaders whom they suppressed, like Ostrovski,
Shenhabi and others (see below and next chapter). Concurrently,
unification efforts by Berl menaced Tabenkin’s leadership, and Hazan’s
ascendance menaced Yaari’s primacy. Thus, leftism was a power
enhancement strategy, as were other power concentration efforts (Chap.
5): Instead of KM and KA councils of kibbutz-chosen delegates, in 1933
the KM erected Extended Secretariat which later was named Council, and
in 1935 the KA erected Executive Committee. Admors-headed
27 Shapira 1977, 1979a, 1980, 1990, 2001; Rosner 1992.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
170
committees composed these bodies, named their members en-bloc to
Movement conventions, which ratified them; kibbutzim chose delegates
only to conventions whose intervals were stretched to 3-7 years, and hence
became almost powerless.28
Admors Enhanced Power by Leftist Changing of
Cosmology For Admors whose power and standing were threatened, leftism was a
radical solution to their plight: It bolstered power by legitimizing
centralization of Movement decision-making, de-facto cancelling
democracy. It also curbed free writing by censorship of publications;
critics were not published and others were publicized only after major
revisions in accordance with Admors’ leftist views.29 For instance, in 1946
Yaari and Hazan censored the chapters on the brutal anti-Semitism and
chauvinism of Stalin’s emissaries out of books written by partisan
survivors of forests of Eastern Europe, which the KA had published (Porat
2000: 178-82, 294). Leftism masked dysfunction as it was sterile
concerning problems; it required only revolutionary rhetoric, a skill the
Admors had honed for many years, it legitimized office continuity like
Stalin’s, and instruction of pe’ilim by leaders in Leninist-type cadre
seminars.
In fact, leftism bolstered Admors’ power far more than could be
deduced from the use of these measures, as it changed a democratic
ideology into an undemocratic one that legitimized Admors’ autocratic
rule. Wolf who studied the links of power to ideology in three extreme
cultures found (1999: 283-4) that
“(i)t is better to deal with such foundational ideas in terms of their
functions in society. They can be shown to legitimate and justify forms of
rulership”. “At the same time, these functions anchor rulership in a cultural
structure of imagining, which… postulates cosmologies; cosmologies in
turn, articulate with ideologies that assign the wielders of power the role of
mediators or executors on behalf of the larger cosmic forces and grant
28 KA Scretariate Minutes, KA archive, File No. 5-2.20[1]; Tzur 1981; Kafkafi
1992: 35; Near 1997: 65; Tzahor 1997: 224; personal participation in
nomination process, 1963. 29 Keshet 1995; Tzachor 1997: 228-31; Aharoni 2000; Shure 2001.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
171
them ‘natural’ rights to dominate society as delegates of the cosmic order”.
Leftism meant a new cosmological order in which Stalin became “The
Sun of the Nations” and the USSR was hallowed as the culmination of
socialism, against which the kibbutz was to be measured. USSR ideology
became the justification of kibbutz ideology. No longer did its unique
ethos and its pioneering of Jewish national aims justify kibbutz culture.
The USSR’s imagined regime in which Stalin was not a brutal dictator,
but only headed a “guided democracy”, assigned Admors a similar role of
guides who knew the limit of Movement democracy so that it would not
run wild and disregard socialism. Thus, they were irreplaceable. With
leftism, their power emanated less from successful leadership of the
Movements, than from “the role of mediators or executors on behalf of the
larger cosmic forces” which the USSR represented and supposedly guided
their leadership. This role granted them the “natural right to rule”,
justifying power concentration and other undemocratic means. Kibbutz
members knew very little about USSR practices which negated kibbutz
ethos and culture, and had little grounds for criticizing its adoration.
Revolutionary discourse camouflaged oligarchic conservatism and
created a radical image that masked evasion of major kibbutz problems. It
helped in conscripting thousands of youth to fill the place of the thousands
of disenchanted who left. However, it was only a partial remedy: from
1955 to 1970, leaving members exceeded those who were admitted by
16,150; only a high birthrate prevented downsizing of kibbutzim (Shepher,
Y. & Fogel-Bijaoui 1992: 39). Worse still, as the ethnographies will show,
exits were selective: while many radicals and critical thinkers left,
mediocre conservatives and naive zealots stayed, with grave consequences
for democracy, creativity, egalitarianism and effectiveness.
Abstention of Direct Involvement in Coping with
Challenges Even rulers who mediate cosmic orders, face challenges which threaten
their authority by possible failure. The breakdown of cooperation with
Mapay in 1949 exposes how a strategy of minimal direct involvement in
coping with challenges helped to maintain Admors supremacy while
harming their movements. In the January 1949 elections, out of 120
Knesset seats, KM’s and KA’s Mapam gained 19 seats and Mapay 46;
together, the two socialist parties had a majority. Segev (1984: 255) has
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
172
explained Mapam’s remaining in the opposition by its excessive sympathy
for the USSR, while Mapay preferred the West, but this is a partial picture.
Kibbutz historians have depicted the widening rift between Mapay, and
KM and KA from the 1930s, parallel to growing leftism, which
culminated in 1948 with the firing of KM’s Galili from heading the
National Headquarters, dismantling of the Palmach, marginalization of its
commanders, and accusing them and Admors of a secret plan to turn Israel
into a Communist state.30
For Tzachor (1997: 191), the rift widened into a break during the 1949
coalition negotiations, with a loss of control by negotiators who failed to
harness confrontational dynamics, but this explanation ignores prior years
of the widening rift due to leftism. He, himself, has pointed out that even
Hazan, the closest Admor to Mapay, already distrusted Ben-Gurion’s
intentions in January 1948 (p. 184). Worse still, the Admors choice of
deputies, Ben-Aharon and Riftin, as negotiators was bound to enhance the
rift, and Admors surely knew this after such long experience with these
deputies. KA’s Riftin was chosen although, dating from the early 1930s,
he repeatedly denounced Mapay and called it “treacherous” (p. 153).
KM’s Ben-Aharon was known for his uncompromising criticism of
Mapay leaders, and he alone, among all KM secretariat members, sided
with Tabenkin’s leftism ever since 1939 (Kafkafi 1992: 39; Gvirtz 2003).
The two deputies were sent to negotiate since Admors forecasted
failure in advance and preferred that their aides lose prestige, a strategy
that Hughes (1958) has explained. They had used this strategy already in
May 1948, when a provisional cabinet was set up to lead the new state in
the crucial war with the Arab states; it included all major party leaders
except for the Admors who sent deputies. Tzachor (1997: 223) explained
this as continuing a Yishuv tradition, but this was untrue of dominant
Mapay, all of whose leaders were Yishuv executives and coped with
challenges personally. The Admors’ unspoken message in this choice of
negotiators was: “This is not as crucial as it seems, hence deputies will
deal with it”. They believed that Ben-Gurion’s government was doomed
without Mapam and that he would eventually ask Mapam to join on its
30 Kafkafi 1992; Zait 1993; Yaar et al. 1994; Near 1997; Tzachor 1997: 171-90;
Kanari 2003.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
173
own terms.31 Another reason for this choice: they chose those who
distrusted Ben-Gurion most in order to neutralize opposition to any future
agreement. Thus, either one or the other explanation, it was a move to
defend authority which was fragile after prior political failures.
Some of the Costs of Leftism Leftism was a great success for Admors; they ruled until biology
intervened. Tabenkin’s protégé Galili became KM’s informal head in the
1960s, but Tabenkin remained supreme until his death in 1971,
suppressing the more critically minded and proven leader, ex-Palmach
commander Yig’al Allon (see next chapter). Yaari continued until his
health deteriorated in early 1970s, and Hazan up to 1984, and he, too,
chose successors (Tzachor 1997: 267). This ultra-continuity had ruinous
effects on kibbutz cultures, as described above and as cited below; here I
mention only a few direct effects of leftism.
Ineffective loyalists and leftists who preached well but did not solve
any major kibbutz problem were elevated to power. They derogated
radicals who solved problems creatively as rightist and non-socialist,
marginalizing them and/or causing their exit. The kibbutz movement was
marginalized politically and socially; its influence on Israeli society in its
formative years was curbed and this helped Ben-Gurion’s efforts to
eradicate the Palmach tradition of a democratic army in favor of a British-
type autocratic one, which, in turn, enhanced oligarchic society due to the
army’s importance for Israel’s survival.32 Leftism led to political crises
and painful partitions: In 1951-2 dozens of KM kibbutzim were
partitioned and devastated socially and economically,33 and, in 1953-4,
Mapam’s leftist urban leader Sneh, and KA’s Riftin led hundreds of young
KA leftists to departure or expulsion by supporting Stalin’s anti-Zionist
showcase trials in Prague, in which their leftist comrade Oren was
victimized. Many of the exiting leftists were talented and became national
personae, while their departure devastated many kibbutzim. One example
is of Riftin’s Ein Shemer which lost some forty members, while shrewd
31 Tzur 2000; Gvirtz 2003: 219; Kanari 2003: 615. 32 Shapira 1984; Etzioni-Halevi 1993; Yaar et al. 1994. 33 Liblich 1984; Kafkafi 1992: Chap. 8; Near 1997: Chap. 7; Tzachor 1997: 205-
21.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
174
Riftin stayed and continued his Knesset membership under Yaari’s
auspices as he served his power (next chapter).34
These crises had ruinous effects on KM and KA leadership, such as
deep distrust among leaders. For example, Shem-Tov (1997: 33) disclosed
that prior to formal ratification, he and other candidates for Knesset
membership, had to deposit a signed letter of resignation from the Knesset
which Yaari could use against them if they renegade. Shure (2001), a
member of KA’s Executive Committee for four decades and editor of its
daily ‘Al Hamishmar’, exposed in his book autocratic rule, distrust among
leaders, corrupt financing and groundless politics. For him, Admors
personally persecuted opponents and castrated his generation’s leaders, as
Beilin (1984), too, has found and as the Reiner case will further reveal
(next chapter). Beit Alfa’s leftist intellectual Arie Aharoni (2000: 124)
was persecuted by Hazan as he dared criticize Admors. This caused him to
forsake politics, turning to a literary translation career.
The most precious price the kibbutz movement paid for leftism,
however, was the loss of servant, transformational leadership on local,
regional and national levels, by the suppressing, sidetracking and/or loss
of creative radicals who could have furthered the kibbutz cause using
creative solutions to enhance self-work, solidaristic democracy, trust and
egalitarianism. Without them, even the Admors’ main concern, the
struggle with Mapay, was doomed to failure. For instance, Vilan depicted
(1993: 271-2) such a failure in the 1950s when a fellow pa’il imitated
Mapay’s indirect buying of voters by nominating local dignitaries as
“evening secretaries” who, in exchange for humble salaries, would keep a
local party office open some evenings and bring their large extended
families and friends to vote for the party. But despite large sums of money
expended, Mapam gained no votes in this manner.
Leftism was a very successful bluff which fooled researchers as
completely as it did kibbutz members. After the 1956 exposure of Stalin’s
brutal regime, Admors did not admit their mistakes, leading loyalists to
believe that some of Stalin’s horrors were the inevitable price of progress.
Maintaining the bluff helped their continuity and provided an ideological
means for the suppression of radical critics (see next chapter). However,
34 Anonymous 1967: 50; Kafkafi 1988; Ben Horin 1984: 159; Tzachor 1997:
205-13.
10. The Metamorphosis of Transformational Leaders
175
trust was ruined both due to a lack of authenticity, credibility and high
morality anticipated of a radical movement leaders, and due to
conservative dysfunctioning. Researchers, on their part, were fooled into
believing that democracy and egalitarianism did not suffer from leftism or
they feared to expose the truth, defending the academic capital gained by
cooperation with Admors and their loyalists (Shapira 2005).
Any reader of works on high-moral, servant leadership cited above can
see that Admors failed to lead by trust and consent ever since leftism
commenced. In Hosmer’s (1995: 399) terms, they were distrusted, as
societal interests were not given “a degree of precedence that is right, just
and fair” over their own interests. Admors’ decisions and actions aimed at
self-perpetuation rather than at the advance of the kibbutz cause will
further be described, but even here, a reader doubtful of the above
explanation of leftism, might ask himself: How could an anathema like
Tabenkin’s “belief is more important than truth” be otherwise explained in
a secular movement based on trust and democracy? Could a high-trust,
democratic community be sustained for long by evading truth? Only a
desperate leader who has lost much influence, who has stuck to past
solutions and has suppressed radicals who seek new solutions in order to
perpetuate his power, could lie to himself and his followers, concealing
the true nature of the Stalinist dictatorship and maintaining that it could
lead to genuine socialism.
Admors’ leftism exemplified shirking the task of coping with the
cardinal problems their movements faced and legitimized similar neglect
by their loyalists, local patrons and power elites who also maintained
supremacy by minimal direct involvement. Let us delve into this strategy.
CHAPTER 11
Supremacy, Minimal Direct Involvement and
Ineffective Leadership
Admors sent deputies to cope with major political challenges, although
Ben-Gurion’s successive political successes signaled that this indirect rule
did not suit involvement in the new state. Direct involvement by prime
leaders in top-level politics was rational for the kibbutz movement, but not
for the dysfunctioning Admors. Such involvement in coping with
problems of a poor and struggling state might threaten their supremacy,
and challenge their leadership capacity under the scrutinizing eyes of
competing parties, the media and non-kibbutz Mapam members. Another
major reason for sending Ben-Aharon and Riftin to negotiate with Ben-
Gurion, was that, whatever agreement they might have reached, the
Admors were assured of its ratification by Mapam’s Central Committee,
as the two were major critics of Mapay in the KM and KA (respectively).1
Avoidance of direct involvement spared Admors from tasks which
required real coping and finding concrete solutions, rather than just
rhetoric. In such tasks, they might fail and lose prestige and power which
might lead to succession. This was not a hypothetical danger: Tabenkin’s
supremacy in KM had already been threatened in 1936 and 1939, while, in
the 1950s, Yaari and Hazan surrendered to leftists in some of the debates
in the KA secretariat and Executive Committee.2 This danger, as well as
the devastation many kibbutzim suffered due to the crises of the early
1950s, urged them to join the Mapay-led government in 1955 although its
policies negated kibbutz ethos and culture. Tzachor (1997: 189) explained
this as disillusionment from a revolutionary dream, but Admors did not
dream of any revolution ever since the early 1940s, as proved their
conservatism, but rather used leftism to defend and bolster power and
standing. Unfortunately, as leftism proved an unpredictable monster that
led to crises that menaced their power base, the kibbutzim, Admors
1 Zait 1993: 259-61; Tzachor 1997; Kanari 2003: 615-7 2 Kafakfi 1988; Tzachor 1997: 155.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
177
resumed cooperation with Mapay on its own terms. However, they shirked
from coping with challenges, and sent deputies to take charge of
Ministries, so let us first explain the dilemma of direct involvement in
solving problems under one’s jurisdiction, and then differentiate the prime
Admors who chose detachment, Tabenkin and Yaari, from Hazan who
wanted involvement but surrendered to Yaari’s opposition in order to
maintain their alliance.
Minimal Involvement Defends ‘Parachuted’ Managers’
Authority Following Hughes (1958), I found (1987, 1995b) avoidance of
involvement in coping with challenges under an officer’s jurisdiction,
which required competency and risk of failure, to be a major strategy that
protected the power and standing of many ‘parachuted’ Reg.Ents pe’ilim.
These pe’ilim faced the decisive problem of defending authority as they
usually came without local information and know-how required for sound
managerial decision-making. They mostly defended authority by
concealing incompetence, detaching themselves from problematic tasks
and situations that might expose ignorance, as did the retarded youth
studied by Edgerton (1967) who donned “the cloak of competence”.
Without penetrating secrets essential for solving major problems, these
pe’ilim remained ‘half-baked managers’ in Dore’s (1973: 54) terminology,
like Shavit and Zelikovich.3 The Admors’ avoidance of cabinet positions and sending deputies to
negotiate political deals was using the same strategy. Urban Mapam
activist and Cabinet Minister Victor Shem-Tov (1997: 33-4) compared
Mapam in the 1960s to the USSR’s Communist Party. Indeed, in both
cases indirect rule safeguarded power of conservative dysfunctioning
leaders by minimal direct involvement. In the USSR, cabinet ministers
who coped with concrete problems were relatively powerless and, hence,
rarely tried new solutions, while detached party officials were considered
leaders although they led nowhere, but only conserved supremacy and
privileges while controlling means of influence and coercion (Gur-
Gurevitch 1995). The Admors’ power of coercion was much more limited
as they headed a voluntary movement, but the rest was similar: Yaari and
3 Shapira 1987: Chap. 4-5. See also: Deutsch 1958, 1962; Zand 1972.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
178
Hazan controlled all nominations of any importance as well as all major
decisions, censoring publications and agreeing among themselves on
policy decisions which were then adopted by KA’s and Mapam’s
seemingly democratic bodies. Discipline was strict and trust low, as
proven by the pre-signed letters of resignation which Knesset Members
gave to Yaari, who could use them if the signers violated party line.4
Less strict was the rule of KM by Tabenkin, due to a tradition of
political pluralism. But in the early 1950s he alone chose KM’s General
Secretary not from among the most successful leaders, such as ex-Palmach
commander Yig’al Allon who was ready to assume office, but rather an
unknown kibbutz secretary whom he could better control.5 KA Admors
similarly defended supremacy by preferring junior loyalists for important
positions, rather than seniors of whom control was less assured.6 No one
has studied how detrimental the Admors’ indirect rule actually was. It is
plausible that, by assuming ministerial jobs in May 1948, they could have
prevented Ben-Gurion’s complete eradication of the Palmach, its
traditions and its successful commanders from the army, almost all of
whom were Mapam members or supporters. However, since Mapam
aligned itself to the Soviet Block from its inception in January 1948 and
its leftists had become main speakers, some of them viewed the Palmach
as possible political leverage for replacing Ben Gurion as Minister of
Defense. This placed the trustworthiness and loyalty of the Palmach in
doubt and encouraged its dismantling. As many opposed it, a cabinet
committee headed by Interior Minister Gruenbaum proposed a
compromise, but Ben Gurion rejected it (Near 1997: 163-4). He had good
reason: Had Mapam accepted compromise without Admors as Cabinet
Ministers committed to it, working out its details and observing its
execution, who could assure him of fair implementation? Would they not
try to evade some difficult parts of the agreement under mounting leftist
pressures? A sensitive political deal concerning a major part of the army
required the highest level of confidence which only Admors’ direct
involvement could have obtained. Only they could restrain leftists and
obtain full obedience by Palmach commanders for whatever agreement
4 Beilin 1984: 128; Shavit 1985; Shem-Tov 1997: 33; Shure 2001. 5 Cohen 2000: 201-2. See also: Kafkafi 1992; Near 1997. 6 Shem-Tov 1996: 32; Tzachor 1997: 247.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
179
reached, as they had done in the past when commanders violated Yishuv
leadership decisions (Kafakafi 1992: 82-3).
Admors’ detachment was detrimental in the realm of elections, as well:
Had they become Cabinet Ministers in May 1948 and had their names
appeared daily in the news, they could have led much better Mapam’s
campaign in 1949 from ministerial offices, and could have had the
publicity that certainly would have pulled more people to meetings,
especially among the many new immigrants (see below). They could have
gained more votes and Knesset seats, and they might have negotiated with
Ben Gurion from a better position. As party heads, their abstaining from
Cabinet offices shirked their responsibility for their public duty. Hazan’s
opposition to this abstention (Tzachor 1997: 223-6) accentuates how
critical this shirking was.
Hazan’s Uniqueness: Both Local and National Involvement Hazan wanted a ministerial office and direct involvement in top-level
decision-making, in accord with him being the only one among the three
who remained highly involved in his kibbutz decision-making after
becoming a national leader.7 He did not hold any chief kibbutz office, but
was very active in the General Assembly, was a member of the secretariat
and economic committee, and headed both a ‘social secretariat’ in charge
of sensitive personal issues and the Building and Planning Committee. All
these committees convened on weekends when he was back in Mishmar
Ha’emek (Tzachor 1997: 179). Unlike the other two, he sacrificed almost
all of his weekends for internal deliberations and was updated in details of
decision-making. Accordingly, he wanted to be a Cabinet Minister, but
yielded to Yaari’s objections in order to keep the partnership by which
they ruled KA. Likewise, only Hazan dared direct involvement in the most
problematic task of the election campaign of 1949: He went to the
ma’barot, the makeshift camps in which poor new immigrants lived in
inhumane conditions, and met Mapam activists among them, while
Tabenkin and Yaari discontinued these visits after making a few, and
agreed only to appear in the large cities before veteran crowds. Hazan
continued, despite the fact that frequently only a few activists came and
usually did not let him discuss politics, taking over the meetings with
7 Argaman 1997; Tzachor 1997: 252-3; Kanari 2003.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
180
various grievances, demands and requests for personal help (Tzachor
1997: 195).
Unlike Yaari’s total rejection of new solutions for immigrant
absorption in kibbutzim, Hazan agreed that new solutions were required.
However, he did not support proposals of such ones, seemingly to prevent
conflict with Yaari (see below). Hazan’s involvement in his kibbutz, by
which he learned the true problems of communism, seemed to explain his
disbelief in the USSR’s ‘achievements’ and its status as “the world of the
future”. Hence, he objected to Yaari’s leniency toward leftists in the 1930s
and then Yaari’s own leftism, until surrendering in 1943. However, his
continued kibbutz involvement could explain his support of Reiner and
other innovative KA new generation leaders in the 1950s, until ultimately
surrendering to Yaari and helping him to suppress them (see below).
Tabenkin’s Protégé versus Yig’al Allon: Opposite
Involvement Strategies In Tabenkin’s case, support for the hypothesis of minimal involvement
strategy is found both in his minimal involvement in Kibbutz Ein Harod
affairs dating from the early 1930s,8 and by looking at his protégé who
became his quasi-successor, Israel Galili of Kibbutz Na’an.9 From the time
KM’s party joined the government in 1955, Galili never took charge of a
ministry, although as Tabenkin’s deputy, he clearly could have received a
ministerial position if he had wanted one. He postponed joining the
government until 1966, when he joined the cabinet without a portfolio. He
continued in this post up to 1974, in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Golda
Me’ir. As Me’ir’s closest adviser, free from ministerial tasks, he led a
hawkish policy which barred compromise with Egypt’s Sadat and brought
Israel its worst calamity, the 1973 war in which almost 2600 Israeli
soldiers were killed, some 10,000 wounded, Israel’s economy was
devastated for years, and kibbutzim lost hundreds of their best young and
middle-aged members, many of them officers and pilots.10 When Me’ir
resigned, Galili did not, remaining in the Knesset until 1977, when a
solution for barring oligarchic continuity of Knesset members, introduced
8 Argaman 1997: 179-206; Kanari 2003: 322. 9 Tzur 1981; Near 1997: 123. Shapira 2004: 479. 10 Israel 1986: 333; Vald 1987.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
181
by the Labor Party, forced his retirement (see Chap. 18).
The opposite choice of direct involvement was exemplified by ex-
Palmach commander Yig’al Allon of Kibbutz Ginnosar, who took charge
of problematic Cabinet portfolios, such as Labor and Welfare, Absorption
and Education, and was Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.11 He
was a critical thinker and a prime military leader of the 1948 war, and was
revered by thousands of KM members who had fought in this war. He was
never leftist, and openly criticized Tabenkin’s idolization for the USSR in
1949. Therefore, he was not nominated as KM’s General Secretary in the
1950s as his supporters had wished; they tried to persuade him to declare
his candidacy for the position even without Tabenkin’s support, but he
refused.12 Nor did he succeed Tabenkin as the main KM leader in the
1960s, both because he could not be controlled behind the scenes, and he
viewed Tabenkin’s idea of not giving Palestinian Arabs any part of
Palestine as unrealistic (Shapira 2004), unlike hawkish Galili. His critical
thinking benefited from his two intensive years of study at Oxford
University in the early 1950s, excelling there, even though he had not
completed high school due to early conscription to Hagana forces in 1936.
Allon, like Hazan, remained directly involved in his kibbutz through the
years in various ways in accord with outside duties, and solved its major
conflicts both within and without.13
Further support for the minimal direct involvement thesis will come,
while the strategy is clear: Prime Admors Tabenkin and Yaari kept power
by avoiding offices requiring concrete solutions to public problems, rather
than just preaching and politics. Galili continued this strategy, while Allon
did the opposite. Hazan wanted direct involvement, but sacrificed it in
favor of his alliance with Yaari. Detachment enhanced Admors’ continuity
by preventing exposure of their dysfunction. Instead of coping with
problems, prime Admors turned to barren leftism, preached self-work
without being models for it, and adopted counterfeit solutions that
enhanced power, such as rotatzia. Trust was curbed and mass exit by the
disenchanted, critical thinkers and radicals enhanced conservative rule by
patrons, as ethnographies will show. Admors’ public appearances
11 Dror 1999; Cohen 2000. 12 Cohen 2000: 201-6; Shapira 2004: 457, 479. 13 Yahel 1995; Shapira 2004: 102-29, 162.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
182
maintained their fame and reputation as being indispensable, even after the
leftist bluff had been exposed, while their tight control of the Movements
and their rule behind the scenes discouraged radical, trusted potential
transformational leaders so desperately needed for advancing the kibbutz
cause.
Suppressing Potential Successors Made Admors
Indispensable Detachment protected prime Admors’ cloak of competence, but it provides
only part of the explanation of their extraordinary continuity, beyond any
Michelian nightmare. Another part was decisions by potential successors
to avoid challenging them: i.e. Allon’s failure to challenge Tabenkin for
the office of KM General Secretary, and Hazan’s surrender to Yaari’s
detachment. However, such challenges could hardly have succeeded
without renewal of Movement democracy which the prime Admors had
already castrated in the 1930s. Thus, Allon’s and Hazan’s main mistake
was missing the need for such a renewal, which Reiner and other critical
young KA leaders tried to achieve in the 1950s (see below).
Ansell and Fish (1999) have pointed out that it is not necessary for a
leader to be charismatic in order to become indispensable; it is enough if
he becomes a symbol of a party or a social movement and his authority
seems essential for its survival and success. In both the KM and KA,
leftism promoted leftist pe’ilim which bolstered Tabenkin’s and Yaari’s
power by putting them in the middle, between the leftists and the seeming
rightists, many of whom were true servants of the kibbutz cause who
sought new solutions and defied Admors conservatism, such as Allon and
the three innovative KA leaders depicted below. Both leftists and
“rightists” seemed to be trying to divert KM and KA from the right course,
and this image made Admors indispensable at the helm. Tzachor (1997:
155) asserted that KA Admors failed to suppress leftists Riftin and Oren,
but both Beilin (1984) and Kafkafi (1988) found these two and other
leftists served Yaari’s power against Hazan’s nurtured “rightists”. Hazan
could not get rid of Yaari’s leftists protégés, but he balanced power: Each
nomination of a Yaari protégé was followed by a nomination of Hazan’s.
The two decided on nominations and then appeared united and gained
approval by KA or Mapam formal organs (Tzachor 1997: 224). This
undemocratic rule, as Siamese twins, explains the success of Riftin and
Oren, as well as the failure by Reiner and other young leaders to get rid of
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
183
leftism after the 1956 exposure of Stalin’s horrors, to democratize the KA
and cope with its main problems (see below).
Admors have been viewed as charismatic by students, but this view
was valid only when crises caused by leftism overcame by others’
inventions and haloed them as saviors. These crises include the
dismantling of the Palmach, the failure in the 1949 elections, sterile
Knesset opposition, failure in immigrant absorption and the resulting
growth of hired Labor (see below), KM partition, KA mass expulsion of
leftists, and Mapam’s 1954 partition. Admors became indispensable
saviors in the eyes of most of those who stayed, and especially among
loyalist pe’ilim. Moreover, they retained indispensability by suppressing
critical radical younger leaders. Tabenkin marred Allon’s advance, while
in the KA, such one’s career was doomed after losing a patron, either
Yaari or Hazan. Such patronage resembled Shavit’s control of Thomas,
giving pe’ilim only as much independence as did not threaten Admors
supremacy; any critical thinker who was a potential transformational
leader who might succeed them, was allowed only mid-level KA jobs.
Hazan repeatedly surrendered to Yaari whims whenever his protégés
seemed to challenge Yaari’s rule.
Mordehay Shenhabi was a brilliant, charming, exceptionally talented
and creative founding member of Beit Alfa and, then, of Mishmar
Ha’emek. His most important life accomplishment was Yad Vashem, the
national memorial for Holocaust victims in Jerusalem, which remains a
must for every high-ranking persona visiting from abroad and every Israeli
youth. He started planning and promoting this project in May 1942, on the
eve of the industrialized extermination of Jews in Europe. Prior to this,
from 1920, he had pioneered many innovations while serving in various
kibbutz and KA offices, including chief economic officer of both
kibbutzim, emissary missions abroad at which he excelled, and leadership
of a number of major KA projects, such as founding its first boarding high
school in Mishmar Ha’emek and the first large factories in kibbutzim.14
In 1942, he clashed with his patron Hazan over the founding of a
second boarding high school in Beit Alfa which he intended to direct. It
seemed that, like Reiner’s group case below, Yaari was behind this clash,
14 My unfinished study of Shenhabi’s life history, based on archival material and
dozens of interviews with his partners in various projects, 1991; Zait 2005.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
184
aimed at preventing another major success by Shenhabi. Shenhabi knew
that without Hazan’s patronage his career was doomed because he had
been having conflicts with Yaari since 1921 when Yaari triumphed over
him in heading the first Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz. However, since the
KA did not offer him any challenge, Shenhabi brilliantly forecasted the
dimensions of the Holocaust and founded Yad Vashem under the auspices
of Zionist organizations in which he had many ties dating from earlier
projects. Had real democracy prevailed in the KA, Shenhabi would have
surely been a prominent member of its quasi-parliament without Hazan’s
patronage. He might not have advanced to head KA, but if Hazan or
another critically thinking, innovative leader had succeeded Yaari in the
1940s, thanks to norms which would have barred oligarchic continuity
proposed in Chapter 18, gifted Shenhabi surely would have been a great
help by inventing radical solutions to kibbutz problems.
Another potential transformational leader was Shim’on Avidan Givaati,
his third name being that of the huge brigade, numbering 9,000, which he
commanded and which defeated the Egyptian invasion in 1948. Dagan and
Yakir (1995) explained the success of the Givaati brigade, by Avidan’s
use of Palmach democratic culture: minimal hierarchic distance, many
initiatives from below and officers providing personal examples of leading
the charge under enemy fire. His career as a commander had commenced
in KM Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar in 1936, where his creative tactics in the
war against Arab terror gangs gained the upper hand for the small Hagana
force. He advanced, as did his peers Yig’al Allon and Moshe Dayan, in the
Field Companies, and then in the Palmach. He left Ayelet Hashachar,
criticizing its political passivity, and joined a KA kibbutz. KA
membership slowed his advance, as KM pe’ilim dominated the Palmach.
Due to his German origin, he commanded the Palmach’s German platoon,
aimed at camouflaged fighting behind enemy lines. In 1942, he criticized
KA Admors for not joining KM’s efforts to nurture and finance the
Palmach (Carmel 1986). In 1949, his Palmach leanings and KA
membership prevented his promotion to the rank of general in the army,
despite Givati’s clear success. He left the army, but did not advance
greatly in KA hierarchy due to his criticism. For instance, in 1953, he
criticized Yaari’s disregard of the threat to many kibbutzim by clandestine
activity on the part of Sneh’s and Riftin’s leftist faction (Dagan & Yakir
1995: 174-7). In his kibbutz, he was Secretary for short periods, and then
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
185
his career remained stalled in intermittent, mid-level KA jobs, while his
Palmach peers, Dayan and Allon, became Cabinet Ministers from the late
1950s and early 1960s, respectively, although only Allon had proved to be
a better military leader than Avidan.15
Beilin (1984: Chap. 5) depicted the case of Efraim Reiner of Mishmar
Haemek, and then, Gan Shmuel. He was a brilliant analyst, lecturer and
writer who led KA Palmach younger generation officers (Avidan was a
brigadier versus Reiner’s status as a captain). He unofficially led a group
of eleven KA young leaders who sought new solutions to major kibbutz
problems in the 1950s, while rejecting USSR ‘achievements’ as irrelevant
and criticizing Admors’ non-democratic rule and acceptance of FOs’
capitalist practices. The group members received minor KA jobs, but were
promoted no higher as they were targeted by Yaari. Their critique
resonated well among many KA members; such a resonance was
identified by both Snow and Benford (1988) and Goleman et al. (2002:
Chap. 2) as a major leadership tool that motivated followers’ action, thus
the growing support of critical KA youth for the group’s views became a
serious threat to Yaari’s dominance in 1956, with exposure of Stalinist
horrors, the USSR’s brutal repression of Hungarian democracy, and its
mass armament of Egypt. Then, a Machiavellian tactic was used: In the
name of democracy, Yaari accused the group of seclusion, of not opening
its meetings to other young leaders. Hazan, the patron of most of them,
surrendered to Yaari’s pressures in 1959 and persuaded them to admit four
Yaari loyalists. The latter soon diverted debates to USSR ‘socialism
questions’, and the group’s previous majority view of these questions as
irrelevant, crumbled. It also might have been that a few of them shifted
loyalty to Yaari in order to advance in the KA. The group unity was lost
and its influence declined, as well, as it stopped coping with concrete
kibbutz problems. It soon dissolved, and even Reiner’s success as leader
of the KA younger generation in the election campaign of 1961 did not
help: Yaari’s leftist clients barred Reiner’s advance. Then, Gan Shmuel
benefited from his creativity, for instance the creative solution for car
allocation, until he left in 1969 for a top Histadrut job.16
15 Dayan was promoted under Ben Gurion’s auspices; see Shapira 2004. 16 Personal knowledge as a Gan Shmuel member. See also: Reiner 2005.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
186
The Critical Failure in Absorption of Mass Immigration To pinpoint the conservative absence of creativity in coping with
challenges due to Admors’ rule, the gravest of the kibbutz failures must be
exposed: its failure to cope with the national absorption effort of mass
immigration in the 1950s. This should have been a major opportunity for
both pioneering a societal mission and solving manpower shortages in
kibbutzim which had caused proliferation of hired Labor. But Admors
largely sidestepped this challenge, only preached against hired Labor,
while suppressing most proposals of new absorption methods and adapting
kibbutzim to help the national goal. Hence, this failure was critical from
both strategic angles of pioneering societal missions and defending
communal cultures.
In 1948-1958 almost a million Jews came, half of them from non-
European countries, more than doubling Israel’s population while the new
state was just emerging from a devastating war. Most immigrants had no
means of support and often no skills useable in the new society. For many
years, they remained mostly unemployed, and lacked proper housing and
basic necessities, but relatively few of them joined kibbutzim, and then,
almost only the Europeans. Kibbutz economy was booming due to a
shortage of agricultural and industrial products and ample arable land left
by Arabs who had fled or who were deported. The Holocaust had wiped
out the main source of kibbutz growth in the past, European youth
movements (Near 1997: 168-76). A clear sign of the manpower shortage
was the growth of hired Labor. The main employers were factories of
Ichud kibbutzim and a few other large plants, but hired Labor was used in
seasonal agricultural work, as well, and already in 1949, some half of
KA’s veteran kibbutzim were using it; from 1,400 hired workers in 1951,
numbers soared to 7,500 in 1958 and almost 10,000 in 1965, about 19% of
the total Labor force.17
Hired Labor is anathema to kibbutz ethos and culture (Chap. 2). In
major American communes it signaled a final blossoming before decline
(Knaani 1960: 76-7). Its drawbacks were market and hierarchy controls
instead of trust and democracy, and the fact that, when members stopped
17 Anonymous 1967: 50; Daniel 1975; Kynan 1989: 177; Hacohen 1994; Near
1997: 245.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
187
working themselves, creativity was curbed.18 In the kibbutzim, various
new solutions were proposed in order to introduce more immigrants to the
kibbutz way of life so that they would join. Some solutions, such as Ulpan
Le’ivrit (Hebrew schools) and Merkaz Klita (Absorption Centers), were
introduced successfully later on, but not when they were urgently needed.
Kynan (1989) found that the prime reason for this failure in the case of
KA was the Admors’ rejection of all new ideas proposed by kibbutz
officers. New methods of absorption were required since, contrary to
youth movement graduates who had learned both Hebrew and kibbutz
ideas in Europe, immigrants knew no Hebrew and next to nothing of
Israel’s problems, not to mention kibbutz socialism. Kynan (1989: 188)
summarizes: “Me’ir Yaari was... against any innovation... every new idea
of a new, unconventional way of absorbing [new members]... was rejected
a priori”. As mentioned, he and other KA and KM leaders believed that
without their movements’ support, Mapay government would fail. Hazan
claimed the need for new solutions, but opposed all concrete proposals and
ignored Knesset Member Bentov’s proposal for the establishment of
agricultural training camps adjacent to kibbutzim, although Bentov was
his loyalist (p. 45).
Admors Prevented a Solution for Problematic Hevrot No’ar
KA Admors only supported the old solution of Hevrot No’ar: groups of
immigrant youth aged 14-17 who studied half a day and worked half a day
in the kibbutzim. From the 1930s, they were brought from the Diaspora by
a branch of the Jewish Agency, Aliyat Hano’ar (literally “youth ascent”,
i.e., youth immigration to Israel), which partially supported their
maintenance. The rest was paid for by their work. Over 7,000 of them
were accommodated, educated and worked in the kibbutzim during 1948-
52. In KA kibbutzim they consisted of up to 17% of a kibbutz’s population
(Kynan 1989: 65, 193).
In an egalitarian society, this was a problematic solution: kibbutz
offspring of the same age received better education, better living
conditions and worked fewer hours. This caused much tension and even
open conflicts, as Amir (1984) depicted in his book describing his
experiences in Mishmar Ha’emek’s Hevrat No’ar where KA’s largest
18 Zamir 1979; Rosner et al. 1980; Shapira 1980, 2001; Stryjan 1989.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
188
boarding high school was located. He described how these youths felt like
second-class citizens compared to their privileged peers, while many
kibbutz members were frustrated as they made sacrifices to accommodate
these youths, while their own standard of living was not much better.
Concluded Kynan (1989: 192):
“The outcomes of this encounter [with hosting kibbutzim] were often
traumatic. The various problems that accompanied it often left a negative
impression on the souls of these youths. Especially conspicuous was the
gap between the educational system of kibbutz offspring and… Aliyat
Hano’ar. This gap… left deep [negative] sediments in the hearts of the
latter. There were kibbutz members who forecasted this negative influence.
They said… the gap… would cause a negative attitude to kibbutz
members. A society whose emblem is collectivism and equality but does
not implement it, only enhances frustration, anger and alienation”.
New solutions were clearly required, but only one kibbutz, Gan
Shmuel, dared disobey Admors conservatism and equalized the living
conditions of the two categories of youth. The immigrants were also
included in the local Hashomer Hatzair branch, which did not differentiate
between the two categories as did other kibbutzim. Kynan found that the
cooperative atmosphere could enhance absorption of graduates in Gan
Shmuel, but the KA sent most of the graduates, largely against their will,
to younger kibbutzim who suffered high exit rates (Ben-Horin 1984;
Chap. 14-15). These youngsters did not view themselves as KA soldiers
rescuing its mismanaged kibbutzim, and they mostly left. Thus, statistics
of retention rates cannot ascertain the positive effect of Gan Shmuel’s
solution on graduate absorption to which the qualitative data points, while
the Admors’ negative attitude prevented other kibbutzim from following
Gan Shmuel.19
However, an additional major problem caused low retention rate of
graduates: the severe situation of most parents of these youths in the
ma’abarot, makeshift camps which were maintained for up to a decade
due to sluggish building of public housing and slow economic
development. Many parents were unemployed or employed at very low
wages, requiring help from their adult offspring whose age, education and
knowledge of Hebrew enabled them to earn more. This income could get 19 Kynan 1989: 81, 96-101, 118.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
189
the family out of a ma’abara, renting a private apartment in a town or city
where parents could earn a decent wage or open a small workshop. Those
graduates who joined kibbutzim could not provide such help; kibbutzim
either did not agree or could not afford more than a small monthly
allowance for needy parents. In addition, the parents rarely favored the
solution which some kibbutzim proposed, joining them in the special
status of member’s parents. Many graduates took a few months leave to
earn larger sums for their parents, and this often led to their exit, since, at
the end of such a period, many did not want to return, or their parents
asked them not to leave a good job.20 The total effect of this problem is
unknown due to a lack of research, but, for instance, Ben-Horin found
(1984: 153) that this was a major cause for deserting Kibbutz Har’el by
hevrot no’ar graduates, since extreme inequality emerged between those
with needy parents, as against Hashomer Hatzair graduates of urban
middle-class descent whose parents gave them considerable financial help
and weekend refuge from the harsh conditions of the impoverished young
kibbutz. KA’s pe’ilim, on their part, were indifferent to this inequality, and
did not encourage the search for new solutions until the kibbutz was
dissolved.
Tabenkin’s Conservatism and KM’s Two Failed Attempts The KM was not very different. Though there is no comparable study to
that of Kynan, ample evidence shows that Tabenkin and other leaders
largely ignored the challenge, much as they ignored other major problems
bothering kibbutzim. At the KM convention in late 1949, they urged
utopian and contradictory proposals: The kibbutz should be turned into “a
school for work, for trade unionism, etc.” for immigrants, no matter that
they were mostly unemployed. Concomitantly, kibbutzim must raise living
standards so that “those of the lower classes whose standard of living is far
worse than that of the kibbutz would flow into it” (Kafkafi 1992: 125,
131). These proposals were impractical as they had to be financed from
the same purse that, in many kibbutzim, barely provided existing members
with proper housing and basic necessities, hence they were ignored as the
prior impractical proposals of Tabenkin had been ignored (Kanari 2003:
593, 604-5, 635-52). In addition, Tabenkin barred any new proposal for
20 Ben-Horin 1984: 99, 153; Bar-Sinay 1997: 116; Kedem-Hadad 1998.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
190
solutions of major problems which could help absorb North African and
Oriental immigrants; for instance, some kibbutzim liberalized
consumption practices which could help absorb people with very different
tastes and preferences from those of current European populations, but
under Tabenkin’s pressure the KM convention banned this change
(Kafakafi 1992: 125-7).
The KM tried two solutions for the absorption of immigrants, both of
which failed. One was Shacharia, a training camp for kibbutz life which
was founded in the semi-arid south. Unlike Bentov’s proposed training
camps adjacent to kibbutzim, or Merkazai Klita inside them so that
kibbutz life could be learned through practice, no such practice was
instituted in Shacharia, so that learning remained theoretical and did not
lead to joining.21 The experiment of havurot (meaning: groups) failed as it
enraged members of gar’inim, groups of youth movement graduates who
enjoyed no better housing and other amenities than havurot members, but
were not paid for nine months of work if at the end of such a period they
did not join a kibbutz as were havurot members. Moreover, in order to
attract more candidates to havurot, a monthly allowance was added which
gar’inim did have not; this further angered gar’inim and terminated the
experiment.
Negative Outcomes of the Failure
Admors’ conservatism, which negatively affected immigrant absorption,
encouraged hired Labor which was ruinous to kibbutz cultures. Worse
still, hiring immigrants from ‘developing towns’ and backward urban
neighborhoods as workers of kibbutzim and Reg.Ents, ruined the kibbutz
image and status of a serving elite who cared for societal interests more
than its own. These ‘developing towns’ and neighborhoods were backward
for many reasons, but the major one cause was unemployment, which
lowered wages.22 The government supported the establishment and
enlargement of plants in adjacent kibbutzim and Reg.Ents by cheap loans
and grants in order to curb unemployment (Yaar et al. 1994: 77). This
social aim legitimized hired Labor in the eyes of many kibbutz members
who perceived themselves as helping poor unemployed immigrants, and
21 See Hakohen 1984 on both experiments. 22 Spilerman & Habib 1976; Semyonov & Kraus 1982; Yaar et al. 1994.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
191
economic officers saw this as help in industrialization and in the
industrialized processing of agriculture produce. Immigrants, however,
viewed kibbutzim as the villains who profited from their towns’ plight,
and who were interested in perpetuating it. This was a prime reason for the
negative attitude toward kibbutzim that brought massive support for right-
wing parties, which helped to bring about the fall of the Labor-led
government in 1977 and which has prevented support for the Labor party
in these towns ever since.23
Though the underdeveloped nature of these towns was largely
independent of kibbutz influence, as indicated by similar backward towns
in regions with few kibbutzim and no Reg.Ents, this mattered little for
immigrants. Although kibbutz and FO employment helped them, they
rarely advanced to supervisory jobs with higher wages since these were
kept for pe’ilim. Pe’ilim as managers often behaved like capitalist owners,
and worse still, the success of a capitalist plant opened possibilities for
promotion, but senior pe’ilim ‘parachuted’ loyalists and other ex-kibbutz
officers to supervisory jobs.24 A capitalist owner has an interest in a
plant’s success, so he rewards committed and competent workers, but the
main interest of most Reg.Ent pe’ilim was the image of success to further
circulation; they sought collaborators in this image creation rather than
effective workers and foremen. Moreover, even if a pa’il rewarded
effective subordinates, soon another pa’il would come to whom they
would have to prove themselves afresh, and since the new pa’il usually
chose detachment and stayed ignorant of local know-how, he barely
distinguished them from incompetent, self-serving impostors. The
impostors helped his image building efforts, and were duly rewarded to
the frustration of the competent and committed workers (Shapira 1987).
There were many other negative outcomes for immigrants hired by
kibbutzim or Reg.Ents’ plants: Though workers were usually better
remunerated than their equivalents in the private sector, they were
annoyed by the gap between prospering kibbutzim with high quality
services organized by FOs, in contrast to their own backward towns.25 The
23 Bijaoui 1988; Pavin 1991; Yaar et al. 1994. 24 Rosolio 1975; Shapira 1987, 1995a, 1995b. 25 Yaar et al. 1994: 80-1. For a pa’il who ignored this problem see: Gelb 2001:
Chap. 12.
11. Supremacy, Detachment, Ineffective Leadership
192
gap furthered the social rift and the political animosity between the two,
especially since it paralleled Israel’s stratification: Kibbutzim resembled
higher strata veteran Europeans and their offspring, living in developed
areas, while Oriental immigrant workers were low-status as were their
mates elsewhere. Thus, kibbutz members were grasped as indifferent to
the plight of immigrants like all veteran Israelis (Yaar et al. 1994: 76-8).
Moreover, as a result of FO conservatism, Reg.Ents imitated backward
capitalist firms: no profit sharing, nor any employee participation in
decision-making such as Quality Circles, nor democratic trade unions. A
kibbutz job usually meant a better salary than a capitalist one, but little
mutual trust with superiors, little solidarity among peers which could help
guarantee one’s job, no promotion and no any other positive effect
emanating from socialist ethos.26
The Admors’ conservatism which barred creativity in immigrant
absorption, turned tens of thousands of them or even more27 into kibbutz
hired employees in low-trust, stratified, autocratic bureaucracies, in which
officers’ circulation and ‘parachutings’ ruined trust even more than in
many capitalist plants, purging both involved and effective servant pe’ilim
like Thomas and Yaakov, and effective hired employees. Kibbutzim and
individual members made many philanthropic efforts to help poor
immigrants,28 but these efforts were futile when contrasted with
possibilities of helping them by new ways of absorption and by
encouraging the establishment of high-trust, cooperative factories like
those of Mondragon or others, instead of capitalist-like FOs and kibbutz
plants.29 But this would have required creativity, which Admors and their
loyalists suppressed.
I have examined FOs with help of direct empirical knowledge of some
of them, and now I will probe kibbutzim in the same manner.
26 Shapira 1987; Pavin 1991; Yaar et al. 1994: 80-83. 27 The exact number is unknown due to a lack of research; I extrapolate this
number from Reg. Ents observations which exposed high turnover, especially
of low-wage seasonal workers. 28 Kynan 1989: 160-66; Yaar et al. 1994: 82. 29 On these cooperatives: Whyte & Whyte 1988; Gherardi & Masiero 1990;
Morrison 1991. On others: Semler 1993.
CHAPTER 12
Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
The next chapters will use ethnographies of five kibbutzim: a conservative
veteran Rama, younger conservatives Chen and Olim, a younger creative,
Carmelit, studied by Schwartz and Naor (2000), and a veteran creative
Kochav (all names are fictive, as are members names below). Rama is
first, representing the rare case of a ‘liberal’ kibbutz in which many
talented members, including ex-pe’ilim whose managerial careers had
stumbled, advanced in outside careers such as army officers, professionals,
professors, authors, editors and experts, among others. I have called them
the Talented; they both foiled egalitarian norms which interfered with their
privileges and accumulation of power and intangible capitals, and
challenged the dominance of the circulative elite of pe’ilim and ex-pe’ilim,
mostly economic ones, as well as the authority of kibbutz officers. This
foiling and other reasons deterred talented members from taking public
offices, and, without talented officers, anarchy ruined communal culture.
At first glance, this process was largely independent of the impact of FOs,
but detailed analysis has exposed that the oligarchization of FOs was the
prime culprit; without it, Rama’s anarchy and relative backwardness are
inexplicable.
Field-Work Methods and the Kibbutzim Studied The time is fit to present ethnographic work I personally conducted in four
kibbutzim. My work commenced in 1986, in Kochav, which was founded
in the 1920s, and distinguished itself by creativity, becoming large and
successful. It was studied for fifteen months, two days a week. In addition
to observations and study of its archival records, open interviews were
conducted with 123 people, mostly present and past officers, of all ranks
and generations, as well as many who had left, some of whom had become
nationally prominent. Interviews lasted between thirty minutes and several
hours, and some people were interviewed several times. Subsequently, two
younger and smaller kibbutzim were studied: Olim, founded in 1949, with
some 450 inhabitants in 1990, and Chen, founded in 1954, with some 300
inhabitants in 1991. Field-work lasted only three months in each, as
previous ethnographies of both kibbutzim were used, and was done in the
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
194
same manner; only Chen’s archival records were not studied.1 Interviews
consisted of 35 and 29 people respectively, and included ex-members. The
last to be studied was medium-sized, veteran Rama (some 650 inhabitants,
founded in the 1920s) in which field-work took six months. Methods were
quite similar except that no ex-members were among the 51 interviewees,
and my own previous ethnography of its plant was used. In addition to
interviews with chief officers and branch managers of the crisis period
(1986-1991), many other elite members were interviewed. Some
interviewees read the research report and expressed no reservations,
further strengthening the validity of findings.
Rama Reacts to Crisis: Self-Reinforcing Imitative Changes
Rama is situated in central Israel, and its some 400 members and 250
children live in a scenic, green, suburban-like community interspersed
with trees and lawns.2 A casual visitor who sees many renovated houses
would barely discern crisis, but between 1990 and 1992 its membership
decreased by some thirty people, and the total population decreased by
some fifty people. While less committed youngsters had left, families
stayed, twelve new ones were absorbed, and others applied for
membership. Rama is encumbered by an average sized debt due to late
and conservative industrialization with few investments in innovation.
Until the crisis, it depended largely on agriculture, which had become less
profitable, and a plastics plant which employed some sixty, mostly hired
workers, and sells mature products in shrinking markets. More profitable
are a small chemical plant with fifteen member employees, several
workshops (three-four workers each), and a new food plant with twenty-
five employees. It is based on imported know-how and a brand name, and
also uses hired Labor.
In the past, kibbutzim abstained from commerce, but now (2008)
Rama’s commercial park, adjacent to a main road, hosts private businesses
on a rental basis: various road services, restaurants, shops and a
supermarket. Some members are part-time employees of these businesses,
earning some extra private money after their day’s work in Rama. The
1 Fadida 1972; Topel 1979; Bloomfield-Ramagem 1993. 2 As usual in ethnographies, unless explicitly stated otherwise, present is the time
of observations.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
195
change in this direction commenced in 1986, as Rama started coping with
dire economic straits. At first, internal services turned to outside
customers. Though this seemed to be a rational reaction that made better
use of kibbutz assets, it was a process with far-reaching consequences and
self-reinforcing change to a quasi-capitalist society which, at least up to
now, has had little success, although it may have averted collapse. Be that
as it may, parallel to introducing outsiders, hired Labor increased and
many members took outside jobs. This was legitimized by setting a
minimal condition: that members working outside were to be paid at least
the national average wage. However, due to mandatory employer
payments, having a member work on the outside and an outsider hired to
replace him was worthwhile only if the outsider was paid much less than
the member. Often this was not the case, and worse still, as the chief work
officer (rakaz avoda) confessed, “The kibbutz ability to assign members to
jobs became negligible”. This was because outside job markets impacted
members considerations concerning local jobs, since outside work had
become a legitimate alternative.3
In the past, however, it was unheard of for a member who wanted
outside work to propose a hired worker to succeed him. Until
industrialization in 1968, hired Labor was limited to a few seasonal tasks
and manual construction jobs. In the plastics plant, it was, at first, limited
to arduous work in a department working on shifts, but later diffused to
other tasks. As kibbutz industry research found, hired Labor encouraged
boring, Labor-intensive techniques that deterred members, especially
women, from taking industrial jobs, caused brain-drain and conflicts
among members, which also deterred taking industrial jobs and furthered
dependency on hired Labor.4 This explained members seeking other jobs,
and indeed, mass hired Labor in Netzer Sireni’s factories was escorted by
much outside work (Kressel 1974). In Rama’s case, another factor
encouraged taking outside jobs: the influx of higher status clients which
accentuated the disadvantages of Rama’s jobs; many of the jobs were in
unprofitable branches and seemed non-secure, were given no fringe
3 Likewise in Carmelit although Schwartz and Naor (2000) ignored it. I deduce it
from the manning of jobs known as problematic in kibbutzim, by hired labour
(pp. 128-30). 4 Shapira 1979a, 1980; Zamir 1979; Rosner et al. 1980; Satt & Ginzburg 1992.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
196
benefits, were assured no pension, etc. The chief work officer said:
“Generally, today, there is no identification with the kibbutz. People care only for their own private needs, working where it is convenient, easy and fashionable, where one can associate with peers and see prospects of promotion soon. The tendency is towards ignoring the system’s needs
when deciding where to work”.
Self-Serving Elite Members According to Swidler (2001), culture shapes human action by repertoires
and codes it provides for actors. In accord with the maxim that low
morality begins at the top (in Hebrew we say “The fish stinks from the
head”; e.g., Kets De Vries 1993), elite members introduced self-serving
capitalist repertoires and codes: the plastics plant manager and its chief
engineer “jumped” to outside high-level jobs in spite of plant needs.5 Their
move seemed to resemble turning to pe’ilut, but it was different: Their
know-how and expertise were sold for large salaries which they gave to
Rama and, thus, enjoyed a new kind of prestige unknown in pe’ilut.
Sharing their company cars with members as some pe’ilim did, was out of
the question, and soon their status was symbolized also by enlarging
apartments with money they had saved from expense accounts, using
another outside norm, private construction which Talented elite members
had introduced (see below).
Yet the kibbutz lost: without them, major plant changes were thwarted
which would have generated revenues far greater than the salaries they
brought to Rama. Worse still, the same happened at lower echelons with
the chief mechanic, a plant department manager, a senior cook, etc. This
was common in kibbutzim from the late 1980s; their unique values lost
meaning as economic survival legitimized imitation of outside society, and
thus, personal motives guided members’ behavior, without consideration
of community needs.6
Outside Work and Growing Inequity
Outside work magnified problems of equity which were not solved by
managers in a just and fair way, causing wide distrust, in accord with
Hosmer (1995). Many held company cars, and conceding to pressure by
5 On “jumping” see Downs 1966. For more details: Shapira 2001: 19. 6 Leviatan 1995; For a similar point: March & Olsen 1989: 131.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
197
others who lacked cars and who cited three Rama cars given to outside-
working professionals long ago, it was decided to provide a car for anyone
who earned a salary of over $3000 a month.7 This was arbitrary and unfair
to any male member who earned more than $1800 and less than $3000:
even if he had received a car costing $300-$400 a month, he would still
bring in more than the minimum to which he was obliged, the national
average of $1400. A woman had to earn only $1,000 (the national
average); thus, the bylaw unjustly punished women even more: all those
who brought in more than $1400 and less than $3000. Alas, the senior
cook mentioned above was allowed outside work even though her
employer deducted $250 for a car, essential for her work, from her $1000
salary. This was a clear violation of both bylaws without a convincing
explanation. In contrast, a professional woman working as a freelancer and
who was well-paid by the hour, did not receive a car, as her monthly
earnings were sometimes below $3000. This hampered her work until she
stopped, bitterly critical of officers’ injustice.
Officers’ Ignorance of Unfairness In many other cases, unfair norms were introduced or unfairly executed by
officers, who did not abide by their own rules, as with the above cook.
Kibbutz ethos required just and fair solutions, but short-term,
inexperienced and/or incompetent officers lacked the motivation to create
them or were too weak to introduce them, using simplistic rules that could
answer needs of ‘normal’ cases. This marginalized other seemingly
‘abnormal’ cases, as in the case of the above professional woman, who
remained at the officers’ mercy. Extended officers’ discretion rewarded
them with feelings of power and competence (Kets De Vries 1993),
encouraging them to continue in jobs despite bitter criticism by injured
members. This continuity was important, as often they were the only
members who agreed to the job (see below).
The turn to the outside brought in norms of a culture incommensurate
with kibbutz ethos. In kibbutz ethos, work is a social obligation to the
community, not a market commodity; part-time work is not differentiated
from full-time, nor men’s work from women’s. The differentiation of
those above the $3000 line from those below it was neither a kibbutz
7 I translated Israeli New Shekels to $US due to inflationary economy.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
198
norm, nor a capitalist one, but the officers’ hybrid of the Movement policy
of giving cars only to pe’ilim above mid-rank; hence officers decided that
a $3000 salary represented such a rank and seemingly followed the
Movement. Unfortunately, in many cases, other FOs and outside
employers gave cars to much lower echelons; for instance, the Reg.Ents
gave cars even to low-status provisional young female clerks; thus, the
officers’ solution was spurious. Worse still, outside markets rated work of
women thirty-forty per cent less than men (Alexander 1997); hence, if a
man had the right to a car with a salary above $3000, then a woman should
have had this right if she earned above $1800-2100. Alas, Rama’s women
were weak; the two power elites were both male, and chief officers
included only one female in the weaker job of co-secretary, together with
a male secretary;8 thus the inequality women suffered by the by-law was
ignored.
The above and other decisions mentioned below, made clear that
personal aims guided officers more than public aims, and this curbed trust
in them, as in Banfield’s (1958) backward Italian village. They sought
solutions acceptable by power elites and some members, even though
many others were injured. It encouraged violation by powerful members,
such as the above cook, who was well-networked to elite members, and
three veteran Talented professionals (see below).
Was the Turn to the Outside Worthwhile?
Turning to the outside was presented as a necessity in a dire situation that
required any kind of instant solution, but, while selling services to outside
customers instantly added revenues, due processes caused a financial
balance sheet which was no better. In addition to the aforementioned
disadvantages, outsiders’ work required more control than that of
members’ and more bookkeeping, adding costly bureaucracy. Instead of
qualified personnel taking outside jobs, only less qualified substitutes who
caused failures were found. Worse still, markets might provide, at a price,
qualified cooks and mechanics, but not trusted leaders. For instance, even
if a qualified manager was found and appointed plant head, no market
could assure that he would choose direct involvement in the problem-
solving required to gain subordinates’ trust, learn local secrets, and lead a
8 See Chapter 17 on the creation of the norm of parallel two kibbutz secretaries.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
199
cooperative search for best solutions that would bring success like
Thomas. Like many ‘parachutists’, such a one might choose detachment
and coercion, breeding destructive conflicts, resignations, brain-drain and
plant failure, as Chapters 6-7 explained.
This explains why mediocre insiders in the plant replaced those who
“jumped” to the outside: Cooperation with them was good and little
coercion was used; alas, they abandoned major changes for which
predecessors had worked so hard in favor of efficiency efforts which
brought only modest results. The lack of better inside candidates for top
jobs was explicable by the fact that the plant was partially open to market
forces from inception due to hired labor. Hired labor deterred young
talented members from joining as line workers; they gained academic
educations and were ‘parachuted’ to jobs with similar negative effects as
Reg.Ents’ ‘parachutings’ (Shapira 1987). Moreover, tradition of
conservatism commenced by the plant’s founder and his successor, both
ex-pe’ilim of the Reg.Ents, also caused brain-drain. Thus, lack of
competent insiders was not incidental, but was caused by the low-trust
culture which used market and hierarchy controls, rather than trust and
democracy. Worse still, this was self-perpetuating: both detached
‘parachutists’ and mediocre insiders suppressed talented innovators,
enhancing Hirschman’s (1970) negative selection of radicals and critical
thinkers, as in many kibbutz plants with hired labor (Shapira 1980).
Rama’s power elites bothered little about these problems, and were
mainly interested in easing restrictions on adding perks for themselves
(see below). Rama’s officers, on their part, wanted easy-to-put-into-
practice solutions which would prove their functioning, enhancing control
and promising promotion. In accord with Hosmer (1995), trust was
curbed, or even ruined, as public interests were not given just and fair
precedence over elite interests. Injured members who pointed to injustices
were suppressed, and unfair execution proved that officers aimed at
maintaining rule, not at genuine solutions for public problems.
Distrust, Dwindling Democracy and Failed Solutions
A proper preference for public interest over one’s own, however, is not
enough to evoke full trust in a leader; in addition to good intentions,
positive results are required. Failure of genuine efforts by incompetent
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
200
officers, also ruined trust.9 This was the case with efforts by former
secretaries to stem the deteriorating authority of the General Assembly:
Only a handful of members regularly attended, while most did so only
when interested in topics on the agenda or as combatants, a well-known
problem of kibbutz assemblies.10 In accord with Parkinson (1957), crucial
topics were often dealt with in a brief debate involving few members, and
interested parties often appealed a decision and reversed it by mobilizing
supporters.11 Decisions lost the legitimacy of what Yankelovich (1991)
called “public judgment”, they seemed to be the casual preference of an
accidental composition of the few who gathered, or worse still, of these
few being almost only those with a particular interest in a decision.
Distrust of the public-serving motives of participants encouraged appeals
by opponents; debates repeated themselves and became a nuisance, and
many decisions were violated outright without sanctions against violators,
or ineffective sanctions whose ineffectiveness was known in advance.12
While some large kibbutzim try to solve these problems by instituting
representative democracy, i.e., a quasi-parliament of a few dozen members
who would decide on most matters and leave the General Assembly to
decide only on principle issues (Cohen & Rosner 1988: 261), Rama’s two
former male secretaries tried to cope with these issues by a ballot box
approach for decision-making, whereby not only those in General
Assembly attendance could vote. However, in order to prevent opposition
of power elites to this new practice that empowered ordinary members, it
was limited to the relatively marginal question of acceptance of new
members, ignoring more acute and decisive problems, such as work
allocation, car use and the planning, budgeting, and construction of
apartments (see below). When the two secretaries had completed their
terms, unsolved problems and the deepening economic crisis caused
growing demands for a change which officers did not deliver.
9 Shapira 1987, 1995b; Kramer & Tyler 1996. 10 Shatil 1977: 40; Rayman 1981: 225; Kressel 1983: 154; Argaman 1997: 85, 88,
93, 97, 155. 11 See Argaman 1997 for this phenomenon in kibbutz assemblies. 12 Cohen and Rosner (1988) and Topel (1992) ignored these problems which
Kressel (1983: 154-84) exposed vividly, and Argaman (1997) corroborated.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
201
The Rise of Lesser Officers and Their Weakness
The outcome was that two advocates of wholesale privatization, a man and
a woman, were elected as Secretaries, not so much because of their views
or managerial prowess, but since there were no other volunteers, as is
common in conservative kibbutzim (Am’ad & Palgi 1986), and because
they were devoted foreman and forewoman, respected veterans (over fifty
years old), with decent families and many friends and relatives. The two,
however, failed to promote solutions to major problems, as is usually the
case with short-term officers. Short-term office in a new area of
responsibility prevents introduction of major changes, especially if one is
inexperienced, coming up from the ranks, with little chance of advance,
while continuous power elites dominate, as in this case.13 The two power
elites of the Talented, outside careerists, and economic pe’ilim and ex-
pe’ilim, largely neutralized the Secretaries, who were perceived by many
as impostors who cultivated an image of coping without doing much. One
of their predecessors, Ilan, said:
“There were so many discussions in the Secretariat on changes, with so
many outside experts consulted [naming four consultants], that, when
nothing happened, even supporters of these changes stopped participating
in despair”.
Weakness drove the Secretaries to solutions which proved to be unjust,
such as the provisions for cars which were instantly violated. They also
circumvented the authority of other officers: A decision to construct 16
cheaper flats of lower quality, financed by the Ministry for Immigrant
Absorption, was handled by them without consulting the Planning
Committee, whose chairman tended to oppose it. Another subterfuge was
the elimination of committees, using difficulties in manning them as an
excuse for usurping their authority. This caused faulty decision-making
due to a lack of proper prior study of problems and alternative solutions.
Distrust, Minimal Communication, Meager Promotion
Prospects In their isolation and weakness, the Secretaries monopolized information,
13 See rotatzia literature cited in Chap. 1 and 6, and: Kochan 1986; Shapira 1990,
1992, 2001; Pettigrew et al. 1992: 278, 298; Friedman 1995.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
202
rarely reporting to the General Assembly and the local bulletin. Rama’s
social worker, herself a member of an adjacent kibbutz, compared Ilan’s
functioning to that of his successor:
“Ori is not communicative. In his predecessor’s days, there were always
people around, coming to discuss various personal and public problems.
Now it is quiet, no one comes, he is afraid to talk with them, he fails to
build relationships with people. You see his desk [pointing at it] is almost
empty. Before, it was always piled this high [indicating some five inches].
(I suggest that Ori has no answers to Rama’s complex problems, and she
retorts:) I am not sure of that, but I am sure he is not communicative. There
is much confusion and anxiety among members, but he leaves them in
their plight”.
Ilan’s partner as secretary depicted the difference as follows:
“In our time, we tried to bring maximum information to the members,
including things which some members said must not be publicized, since
we wanted to create interest. And members came to the [General]
Assembly since everything was on the table, openly discussed… Now
there is a lack of information and no interest in the Assembly which, as a
result, convenes only every other week [instead of weekly], and fewer
people come”.
This has characterized low-trust situations, which Zamir (1996) found
in kibbutzim where the debt crisis was acute. Sociologists Cohen and
Rosner (1988: 241), however, have presupposed that kibbutz democracy
assures high-trust and reliable information flow for proper decision-
making, though it may not reach all members when officers are
incompetent, and “there is a possibility of hiding or even distorting
information in the belief that it is in the public interest”. Self-serving
manipulation of information by officers is out of the question for these
naive veteran kibbutz members.
Members’ trust diminished since outcomes were disappointing, major
problems were bypassed or efforts to solve them failed. The new
Secretaries preferred detachment, as proven by their empty desks and
minimal communication, a major reason for distrust, like uninvolved
‘parachuted’ pe’ilim in the Reg.Ents (Shapira 1995b). In fact, after a short
time, their few changes brought further anarchy. For instance, more
outside workers tried to emulate the cook’s car arrangement without
authorization. The Secretaries gave up coping with problems, and only
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
203
intervened when they saw prospects for “quick fixes” that could mask
dysfunction. The members’ trust in them, which was not high to begin
with, vanished as they lost credibility, and they began to be seen by many
members as inauthentic leaders or even impostors.14
A major reason for their abandoning efforts to cope with problems, was
the fact that their prospects for promotion were slight. Even at the peak of
FO success, in the 1970s, when Helman (1987) did his study of
managerial circulation, only half of the ex-kibbutz secretaries had
advanced to pe’ilut. In the 1990s, very few advanced, as Movements were
drastically downsized (Chap. 3). Besides, they had no patrons and had few
qualifications for pe’ilut, while the branch teams from which they had
come and with whom they had close ties, wanted them to return. Thus,
both chief officers who genuinely sought new solutions in accord with
kibbutz ethos, and those who wanted to solve problems by dispensing with
the ethos, failed. Leaders are trusted if they solve problems, but
identifying them, seeking new solutions, campaigning for them and, after
gaining approval, attending to their implementation, required longevity
which officers lacked.15 The Secretaries failed, although at first glance
they seemed bound to succeed, as they strove for increased capitalist
conformity which was desired by both power elites. Their failure can be
largely explained by major debilitating conflicts being, in fact, supremacy
competitions between the two self-serving power elites and the officers.
Rama’s Self-Serving Power Elites Ever since the kibbutz field became oligarchic in 1930s-1940s, FO heads,
senior pe’ilim and others who continued in high outside offices or
continued circulating between them, have been top local power-holders
and patrons, using power and capitals to build loyalist cliques which
enhanced power. Within kibbutzim patrons usually headed cliques of
clients who held local main offices or were pe’ilim, in what Topel (1979:
119) called “fortified power structures”. Patrons were also main speakers
at the General Assembly, members of major committees and of Movement
Council/Executive Committee, delegates to conventions, and brokers of
14 Badaracco & Ellsworth 1989; Kets De Vries 1993; Kouses & Posner 1993;
Terry 1993. 15 Ample support for this kind of etiology is found in Giuliani 2002.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
204
kibbutz interests in FOs and other outside organizations where they were
usually well-networked.16 They mostly led the group who had established
the kibbutz and were its first chief officers, while, when they advanced to
pe’ilut, loyalists succeeded them. They then helped loyalists advance to
FO jobs and became their patrons. This was true of all kibbutzim depicted
below except Carmelit during Tomer’s era (Chap. 15), while in Kressel’s
(1974) Netzer Sireni, the founders competed for dominance with a large
group of veteran ex-KM’s Givat Brenner members who had left it in the
1951 partition and joined Netzer Sireni. After a decade, the founders
headed by the treasurer carried out a coup d’etat, replaced the veterans in
the management of the kibbutz’s two plants, and reigned for good by plant
enlargements with hired labor, patronage and privileges which clearly
symbolized supremacy, like FO heads and pe’ilim.
In Rama, however, old guard patronage seemed to be weak due to
mediocre success as pe’ilim; none had headed any FO. They were
conservative loyalists of FO heads and suppressed local creative officers.
This, plus the fact that they had established careers in the Movement’s
political and cultural sectors, encouraged a competing elite of younger
circulative economic pe’ilim. Old guard rule declined in the 1950s after
the Movement’s political crisis caused the exit of forty members which
devastated Rama (Anonymous 1967: 50). Economists introduced hired
labor in seasonal agricultural work, but no industry, as yet. It was only in
the 1960s, with the growing power of economic FOs, that the economists
became dominant, one of them heading a large FO and another a smaller
one. When the latter finished pe’ilut, he founded the plastics plant by
buying and removing to Rama the older production line of an adjacent
plant and operating it with the same hired staff, adding new lines staffed
by members. The FO head retired in the early 1970s, and no member has
since advanced to FO headship or senior pe’ilut. Thus, no strong
patronage emerged and a competing power elite of the Talented evolved
out of successful outside careerists who accumulated power and intangible
capitals, equalizing that of the Economic elite, and preventing it from
limiting their discretion, while foiling egalitarian decisions which curbed
their power and privileges, such as car sharing. However, earlier violations
of egalitarianism by veteran pe’ilim had legitimized this foiling.
16 Kressel 1974, 1983; Shapira 1978, 1990, 2001.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
205
Veteran Pe’ilim Created a Tradition of Violating
Egalitarianism Rama’s old guard leaders were continuous pe’ilim from the late 1930s; a
few more became pe’ilim later on, and all violated egalitarianism with
their privileges. In some cases, their violations far exceeded that of pe’ilim
like Beit Alfa’s David Kahana, who bought himself a private radio. For
instance, a member who had been Israel’s ambassador, returned home
with assortment of electric appliances which were unknown in any other
flat. This was exceptional, but violations by pe’ilim legitimated similar
ones by members who obtained presents due to various social ties with
outsiders. When Kochav and other kibbutzim introduced sharing of
pe’ilim cars in the early 1960s, Rama’s pe’ilim prevented it, and when this
norm was adopted many years later, many of them violated it.
The continuous pe’ilut of the old guard legitimized continuity in
outside jobs by three professionals who did not have company cars. As FO
cars proliferated, the three pressed Rama to furnish them with cars and,
after a long struggle, the kibbutz surrendered. This enhanced their career
success and they became models of a career alternative to pe’ilut. Since
Rama lacked FO heads whose auspices assured advance of ex-officers to
pe’ilut and circulation, instead of exiting when faced with status loss at a
term end, some ex-officers followed the professionals and turned to
outside careers. Later on, younger talents chose such careers from the
beginning. Thus, a large elite group of talented outside careerists was
created whose interests were promoted by non-egalitarian practices, which
were legitimized by following pe’ilim practices.
The Talented Followed Pe’ilim’s Violations of
Egalitarianism Most of the Talented got company cars from employers in various
arrangements which were often at Rama’s expense, as in the case of the
cook, but unlike her, they brought in higher salaries. However, they could
not prevent egalitarian changes which imitated creative kibbutzim and
curbed privileges; when Rama adopted car-sharing a decade and a half
after Kochav had innovated it and some pe’ilim violated it, the Talented,
including the three professionals using Rama’s own cars, followed suit.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
206
They suffered no sanction, like violator pe’ilim and pe’ilim of other
kibbutzim.17 I know of just one kibbutz, Hatzor (true name), which fully
enforced car sharing by stopping pe’ilut of violators. This was explicable
both by Hatzor’s unique location which made car use more essential than
in most kibbutzim, and by the strong egalitarianism of its leaders.18
At the time of observation, Rama’s few outworn cars were shared by
hundreds of members, while newer and better cars were held by dozens of
pe’ilim and Talented who rarely shared them. Asked about this inequality,
Ilan, the former secretary, explained:
“They [the three professionals] attained powerful positions and determined
norms their fellow members no longer had the strength to cope with. All
those who violate norms have tall trees to lean on. For instance, G. [a
professional with his own office in town] does whatever he wants, as if it
were his own car. He buys a new one every two years and has not put it at
the disposal of other members, despite its being formally owned by the
kibbutz”.
Weak Officers Surrendered to the Talented and the
Economists Rama’s short-term officers were clearly weak and unable to tackle major
problems. G.’s car was kibbutz-owned; without chief officers’
authorization, he could not sell it and buy a new one. Since other cars were
much older and in much worse condition, officers consented to the deal,
not because he was right, but due to his might which stemmed from
accumulation of power and intangible capitals, helped by privileges
symbolizing superiority. However, G. and his two mates could point to
both pe’ilim who violated car sharing, and to many members who had
violated egalitarian decisions by holding various profitable assets, such as
urban apartments for rent inherited from parents or other relatives,
financial assets which formally should have been handed over to Rama’s
treasurer but never were, etc. Thus, officers could not blame G. and his
mates as the only ones who advanced personal interests at public expense
17 Adar 1975; Ilana & Avner 1977; Shapira 1979b; Ginat 1981; Atar 1982;
Kressel 1983. 18 My wife is Hatzor offspring; I lived and worked there in 1973-4, and ever
since, have visited it regularly.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
207
by violating egalitarianism.
An especially problematic violation of egalitarianism, about which no
one agreed to talk, were outside incomes, not defined formally as salary.
These included expense accounts, accommodation allowances, severance
payments, pensions, etc. There were quite expensive and uncommon
durable goods that I saw in flats of some of the Talented which were a
clear indication of wealth, in addition to private enlargements of flats. The
possible magnitude of wealth obtained by top level outside jobs, could be
grasped when Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar sued its ex-member, Itzchak
Landesman, who had been Tnuva’s head for 26 years, to retrieve almost a
million $US he secretly retained from his income, instead of handing it
over to the kibbutz (Lifshitz 1998). Landesman headed Tnuva which
imitated capitalist firms in both salaries and fringe benefits; thus, it
pointed to possibilities which some of the Talented also had.
Officers could not enforce egalitarianism on power elites without a
clear mandate and stable trust by members and Movement leaders support.
As we know, the latter enhanced privileges, while the two local power
elites defeated officers on many occasions (below), since the crippled
General Assembly rarely gave clear mandates, while most members did
not trust them without successes as leaders. Such a mandate and trust were
decisive when enforcement proved problematic and caused a bitter
conflict. For instance, in the past Rama’s secretaries had tried to enforce
car sharing on a young pa’il, a financial expert of the Movement Fund. He
had resisted, pointing to other, more veteran violators, and when they
insisted on his sharing, he relinquished his formal membership in Rama;
the Fund agreed to his continuing as a hired employee instead of pa’il, and
he remained a resident of Rama due to his wife’s membership.
Membership is personal, and his wife and children were valued enough by
members to prevent expulsion. Officers could do little if they were not
perceived as just and fair public servants; even those who censored his
deed as unfair use of family connections, said it was unfair that veteran
violators of car sharing had not been reprimanded like him. No sanction
was used against him; his payments for the services his family got from
Rama left him better off, and soon, six others followed suit and the
powerful clique of seven non-member residents caused major norm
changes.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
208
Rama’s Power Eclipse: Family Boarding, Private
Construction The power of the seven was proven soon after the norm of boarding
children in nurseries with their peers was changed, in 1987, to family
boarding. The change was affected after many years during which a
growing number of parents violated the norm of communal boarding until
anarchy became intolerable. Each evening it was unknown how many
children would come to board at a specific nursery, and if too few came,
they would have to return to their family flats. Concomitantly, communal
boarding arrangements dwindled: Night watchwomen sometimes did not
appear or came very late since they were taking care of their own children
boarding in their flats, or since some had arranged to be replaced and the
replacement had forgotten her promise; the old collective intercom that
enabled night watchwomen to hear what was going in each house
frequently failed, among other such defects.
Although it had been quite clear for some years before the change that
communal boarding was in a terminal state unless something drastic was
done, no officer did anything and no one planned the change to family
boarding. It was well-known that this change would require huge
investment in flat enlargements, since this change had already occurred in
other kibbutzim. When Rama decided to forego communal boarding, the
economic crisis was already acute; money for flat enlargement was almost
unavailable and families had to accommodate their children in the modest
living room of their tiny, 38-48 square-meter, one-and-a-half room flats,
with no prospect of a better solution in the foreseeable future. Soon after,
the norm of collective construction of flats collapsed: The father of the
first family to add a room to his flat on his own initiative was the non-
member resident financial expert. The Secretaries tried to convince him to
stop, but to no avail. They brought the matter to the General Assembly
which decided he must demolish the half-finished addition. However, with
support of other residents and some member friends and relatives, he
completed construction. Subsequently, other residents followed him, then
a few members, and soon after, private construction was authorized
without any limitations, although all flats were in two- or four-flat
buildings and the neighbors’ interests should have been defended by
setting some limits. Alas, nothing of the sort was decided; everything was
left to individual whim.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
209
Low Morality of the Economic Elite Most members could not afford construction from the small monthly
allowances they were given by Rama, while the first to enlarge flats
included economic elite members, pe’ilim, ex-pe’ilim and outside
employed managers aged over forty-five, who had money saved from
fringe benefits, expense accounts, etc. Almost none of them needed space
for boarding small children as theirs were already grown up and the
youngest of them boarded at the regional high school dormitory. However,
as members of the Economic Committee, they found no money to enlarge
members’ flats, although $120,000 was found for building new offices for
the food factory, an expenditure the factory manager deemed inessential.
Like low-moral officers of capitalist firms, they ignored the plight of about
half the kibbutz members, preferring a marginal interest in their own
sector.19
When added to the fact that some of them did not share their cars, that
the careers of some of them ignored Rama’s needs, and that they rarely
participated in shift-work sharing in the plastics plant, a norm which
imitated self-work kibbutzim like Kochav, their low morality clearly
resembled that of Talented elite members.20 Both elites could not be
trusted to care for Rama’s member needs in a way conducive to
democratic egalitarianism, resembling the selfish elite of the backward
Italian village studied by Banfield (1958). Indeed, in interviews, members
expressed feelings of helplessness, distrust and suspicion about officers’
and other elite members’ morality, much like the Italians in Banfield’s
study.
Low Morality of ‘the Slaves Who Turned Masters’ Rama members had good reasons for such feelings: power elites were
indifferent to their plight, and incompetent officers evaded problems or
introduced faulty solutions. Worse still, the latter evaded public problems,
but private ones came to their desks due to the collective structure and
low-moral use of authority causing injustices. The pages of kibbutz
weeklies since the 1990s have been full of stories of such cases, but
19 See similar low morality in: Banfield 1958; Dalton 1959; Maccoby 1976;
Jackall 1988. 20 On shift work sharing see Shapira 1977 and Chaps. 15-16.
12. Rama’s Lack of Highly Trusted Leadership
210
Dvorkind’s (1996) autobiographical book, called ‘A Slave Turned a
Master’, has better exposed how authority given to mediocre, short-term,
self-serving officers caused mounting injustices. It details a row which
continued for years between Kibbutz Hamaapil’s officers and a veteran
member who was an FO comptroller and member of the Board of Israel
Comptrollers Association. The gist of the matter was his desire to help his
poor son and young wife who had left her kibbutz, penniless, to buy a
small apartment with some of a lump sum of money which he had
received in place of the pension he was to receive upon retirement. He felt
that he was entitled to this sum since he had brought Hamaapil a great deal
of money over the previous fourteen years by working some 7000 extra
hours. He said he had worked so hard in order to overcome long neglect of
improper payments, due to deficient procedures, corrupt ‘cost plus’
pricing and mismanagement by FO heads and pe’ilim, all of which were
common phenomena in Reg.Ents and other FOs (Shapira 1987; Shure
2001).
Formally, he was entitled to nothing, and should have turned this
money over to the kibbutz account, but since he had already turned over
much more money than he was required, and since the same was true of
the lump sum, using some of it to help his son was quite fair. This was
especially so in view of the many members who did not turn over
inherited money and other assets to the kibbutz. However, neither one
secretary nor his two successors solved the problem and the conflict
turned into an undeclared war between him and all chief officers who
insisted on turning the money over without an agreed solution. After two
and a half years, KA pe’ilim intervened and their arbitration led to a
compromise which was ratified by the General Assembly. Alas, in the
process of execution, the secretaries disavowed much of the agreement,
until he left the kibbutz.
While his testimony is, by nature, subjective, one point seems clear: no
supreme power, local or federal, stopped mediocre officers from using
their powers to torment a member for years. Their use of power seemed
ill-intended and cruel, or, at best, incompetent and aimed at concealing
this fact, proving members could not trust them to care for their interests,
as with Rama’s officers and power elites whose self-serving, conservative
shirking of leadership duties engendered anarchy, divisiveness, distrust
and destructive conflicts, as next chapter will expose.
CHAPTER 13
FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Divisiveness, Distrust
and Destructive Conflicts
Anarchy is associated with innovation by Peters and Austin (1986), but
this did not occur in Rama. Anarchy explains conservatism, as it
encourages destructive conflicts. At the height of the Viet Nam war, social
psychologist Deutsch pointed out (1969) that conflicts lead to creative
solutions if they become constructive due to trust created between parties,
while they are destructive if communication fails due to the lack of
common language and concepts because of cultural differences, without
prior positive relationships which will ensure the minimal trust so that
there is no double-talk, and that promises and agreements will be honored.
This will rarely happen if a conflict is grasped as a zero-sum competition
and if one party sees itself as more powerful and/or more morally just than
the other. Rama’s power elite conflicts were a zero-sum competition, and
each saw itself as more just morally: the Economists (i.e., the economic
elite) in communal terms, and the Talented in liberal terms. Both were
largely self-serving and foiled the few efforts made by officers to solve
problems constructively, engendering a process that furthered destructive
conflicts and distrust with growing use of market forces and hierarchic
coercion by all three elite groups.
Let us define Rama’s power-holders more accurately: Beneath the two
powerful, continuous and antagonistic elites, was a third, weaker officers’
elite. Formal authority over various functions gave them only limited
positive control, mainly only what Israel Shepher (1983) called “deterrent
power”. For example, until the children’s boarding change led to the flat
enlargement crisis, a building manager’s objection was enough to deter
private construction. However, power elites also held deterrent power: The
Talented deterred Rama administrators from interfering with their outside
careers and privileges beyond bringing in salaries, and the Economists
deterred the secretaries from interfering in budgeting. Both elites also had
positive power: the Talented introduced private construction and the
Economists introduced outside customers and developed the food plant
and the commercial park. Both elites were more influential in the General
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
212
Assembly and main committees than were officers, and, through ties with
high-level pe’ilim and other outside officers, they influenced career
advance of ex-officers on the outside. Last though not least, power elite
members were mostly older, senior and more experienced than officers;
some had been chief officers in the past, and, as pe’ilim or ex-pe’ilim, they
instructed chief officers of other kibbutzim.
The Power and Weakness of the Economists This, however, was not a guarantee of continuous power and high
standing. Until the debt crisis, Economists largely dominated Rama as was
in most of the kibbutz field since the late 1950s (Cohen, R. 1978).
Admors’ conservatism and continued leftism marred involvement in
Israeli society beyond election campaigns; thus, only relatively few
pe’ilim were involved in politics, while Admors’ conservatism prevented
any socialist, democratic changes in FOs. Only economic activity was left
open to change and became prime avenue for innovators’ careers. The
power of the Movements dwindled as leftism became outmoded with the
exposures of the USSR bluff, but as has been exposed, Admors suppressed
radicals who tried to shape new, relevant discourses. Those who did not
exit, turned to economic activity, which enlisted most younger talents;
thus, the Movements were left with lesser ones.1 One clear sign: most of
their General Secretaries in the 1970s-1980s came from economic careers,
rather than from social or political ones as was hitherto the case. Another
sign: Milu’ot’s Fridman defeated the Movements’ General Secretaries in
1969 and 1979, as was mentioned. Reuven Cohen (1978) summarized:
“The kibbutz today is a multi-aim organization, while the economic aim,
which is based on its economic values and laws, rules over all other
sectors… organizational-institutional patterns… have elevated the
economic area at the expense of other areas...”. (p. 47).
However, rotatzia, for instance, did not conform to “economic values
and laws”, but to FO heads’ interest in an egalitarian image that
camouflaged their own continuity and enhanced rule over lesser pe’ilim
whose circulation weakened them. This was the Achilles’ heel of the
power and status of Rama Economists; they had to find new jobs every
1 Thus my talented, radical father preferred managing Gan Shmuel’s plant over
pe’ilut.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
213
three-four years without any local patron helping them. Rama lacked
patrons due to its mediocre economy which incurred little prestige, similar
to Chen and Carmelit in the early days, while due to Carmelit’s later
success two of its officers became heads of large FOs (Chaps. 14-15).
Rama’s Economists feared the Talented because the three powerful
veteran professionals and many others enjoyed higher prestige due to
successful careers, free from rotatzia. They exhibited power by defying
egalitarian decisions which were mostly shaped by Economists, while they
turned extra means into extra prestige and power using status symbols.
Moreover, though I did not measure intellectual capacity by tests, both
interviews and written material, such as the local bulletin and General
Assembly protocols indicated that, in this area, Economists trailed behind
the Talented. This was consistent with FO findings: Economists were
mostly loyalists advanced due to a lack of critical thinking and
conservatism, while the Talented tended to be radicals or critical thinkers;
they were not promoted to pe’ilut or left it early due to conflicts with
conservative FO heads, as did Carmelit’s leader Tomer (Chap. 15).
One advantage of Economists over the Talented was more unity,
socially and ideologically due to more similar habituses (Bourdieu 1977),
and due to long periods of collaboration in both local and FO managerial
jobs as partners and/or colleagues. Among the Talented there was little
consensus as to how Rama’s problems should be tackled, while
Economists were unified about the capitalist course. However, the pace
and specifics of this course were controversial, since, as we have seen
above, FO and capitalist norms could not simply be applied to a collective
ownership system, if fair and just solutions were sought.
Low-Trust Culture and the Threat From Below In addition to these weaknesses, the Economists were threatened from
below by bright young radicals, innovative branch managers and chief
officers. The threat to supremacy of seniors from bright young radicals
who excel in their jobs and are rapidly advanced so that they can
ultimately turn into their seniors’ bosses, is a known but unstudied
phenomenon.2 Dore (1973: Chap. 9) explained Japanese firms’
innovativeness by slow and internal-only promotion which prevented this
2 Iacocca 1984: 166; Stryjan 1989: 90.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
214
threat, and thus, encouraged seniors to nurture bright young officers. The
Economists feared these young officers: rotatzia and the FO advance
system of ‘parachutings’, enhanced ‘high fliers’, ‘fast trackers’, as
organizational literature called careerists like Shavit (e.g. Dalton 1959)
who might surpass the Economists’ status and power; hence, they were
suppressed.
For instance, a young consumption sector manager proposed budgeting
electricity, which had been provided free of charge, causing much waste.
This had been done in many kibbutzim, leading to savings of up to 25%,
in addition to infrastructure savings. The idea had already been proposed
by his predecessor five years before, and, in order to decide how to budget
various flats, flats were equipped with electricity meters; thus
consumption records would have made it quite simple to allocate an
adequate quota to each type of flat in accord with its demographic
composition and other variables, and then reward or charge each family
according to actual use. Alas, the Economists blocked his move, contrary
to their own policy of privatization. His move would have required no
expense; thus, obstruction could not be explained by lack of money, nor
could any other explanation be found. Not allowing even a trial of the
proposal had its Hirschmanian price, brain-drain due to the exit of
radicals, unsolved problems and distrust: Members were astonished to see
that, after the initiator had resigned and left, his successor urged the same
solution and it was soon approved and implemented. Economists’
behavior was clearly questionable and led to the conclusion that the idea
was aborted at first to retain their supremacy which seemed threatened by
a talented junior. Avoidance of such deeds by leaders is the supreme test
of genuine democracy where leaders can be trusted to prefer the public
good over their own. This case signaled dirty politics, and inauthentic
behavior by discredited power-holders who could not be trusted.
Slightly different, but essentially the same, was the case of two
women, aged thirty and thirty-three who were chosen officers of pre-
school education; one was an experienced school teacher and the other a
kindergarten teacher. In accord with the Economists’ policy of introducing
outside clients, they accepted outside toddlers and infants for a fee. They
had persuaded the nursery teams to make the necessary extra efforts by
their own personal example, and they were much involved in decision-
making and implementation of solutions to the new problems it caused.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
215
However, the economic committee refused to allocate any of the
handsome profits their initiative engendered to a renewal of old buildings
and a modest purchase of toys, causing their frustration, despair and early
resignation.3 Since the two did exactly what Economists preached, and
since the sums requested were minimal, this could only be explained by
apprehension of Economists of further successes by the two.
The way their resignation was presented was also illuminating: it was
presented as normal rotatzia, without the two publicizing any sign of the
very negative feelings they had expressed in interviews toward
Economists. This can be explained by their aiming at future public offices,
an area controlled by Economists. Indeed, the more talented, tall,
handsome and better speaker of the two, was nominated soon after to head
the Members Committee, a committee of relative importance. This
resembled Admors’ control of pe’ilim by rotatzia: Her contributions to
Rama’s management were sought after, but only until they gained her
power which might threaten the supremacy of Economists. After she was
tamed and resigned from one office, her contributions were sought in
another, but if a major success had been in the offing, one which might
have boosted her prestige too much, her term would have again been
terminated and her career contained, unless a patron helped her. However,
the Economists just imitated the Admors and other patrons, backing
innovation only by those who could be tamed to insure own supremacy.
Although derailing the careers of the three innovators may not be
discerned by many members as a self-serving deed of a low-moral elite, it
could not fool all of the members all of the time, especially since the two
latter victims stayed, and what they told me was certainly heard by other
members, as well. In time, members discerned Economists’ preference for
less talented loyalist officers, and this surely curbed trust in them.
Alienated Talented, Non-Credible Power, Destructive
Conflicts Most Economists had neither high enough status, nor jobs which
continued long enough to secure standing and power. They barely
controlled the Talented, whose successful outside careers mustered
3 See much the same in Carmelit, but Schwartz and Naor (2000: 127-34) missed
it.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
216
resources by which they resisted or violated egalitarian decisions which
negated their interests. Their successes weakened Economists, as they
provided models of alternative successful careers to pe’ilim circulation.
Their status, power and privileges were more secure, but investing most of
their time and efforts in careers, left most decision making to officers and
Economists. I heard interesting ideas for solutions of Rama’s problems
from some of them, but, with no prospects of their execution, they
abstained from Rama’s offices, and participated infrequently in the
General Assembly.
Interviewees, especially Economists and officers, criticized the
Talented as selfish and uncaring for public interests. This was the Achilles
heel of the Talented, which largely neutralized their superior intellectual
capacities and intangible capitals: Their arguments were more valid than
those of the Economists on many occasions but were defeated. Voting by
members was only partially influenced by validity; trusting them to care
for public interests was also a major factor, and their behavior indicated
the opposite, as has been depicted. Another example: The chief work
officer complained that
“the whole issue of outside workers is disorganized, many of them work
five days a week. I don’t know what they do on Fridays. In principle, many
have agreed that they should work on Fridays [in the kibbutz, like other
members], but, in fact, this never materializes”.
The Talented were aware of the expectation from them to work on
Fridays, but they ignored this for at least four reasons: 1. It interfered with
their career advance. 2. It required them doing manual work which
signaled low status. 3. Their five days of work involved longer hours than
members’ six days. 4. Rama’s anarchic democracy alienated them. A
university professor, a Rama offspring who had been a young chief
economic officer as early as the 1960s, stated:
“I have not attended the General Assembly for fifteen years. Why was I
alienated? Because during my [personal] development I went through an
undemocratic process resulting from a decision-making system which is
too democratic, and approaches anarchy. When I calculate where it is
preferable to invest my time, I would invest [it in Rama] if I could lead
some process [of change]. They [nomination committee members] came
here and asked me to be a Secretary. I said: ‘Well, if they [kibbutz
members] do as I say’. They retorted: ‘That is not democratic!’ I saw that
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
217
it would be a waste of time and refused. My destiny is not determined by
Rama’s decisions; it is preferable that those whose destiny is determined
by them make [decisions]”.
This raises the question: Why is he a kibbutz member at all if he is so
alienated? One explanation the Talented gave was Rama’s ‘liberalism’,
but this was not an authentic answer since they knew that the term did not
mean anarchy, while this, in fact, was what they had led. Thus,
Economists view themselves as more just and prime contributors to
Rama’s subsistence, and as defenders of collectivism against selfish
Talented. Economists’ behavior, however, proved that they, too, were
selfish, contrary to their altruistic posture. Thus, both elites’ postures were
inauthentic and their assertions non-credible, depriving them of
trustworthiness, which ex-New York Mayor Giuliani defined (2002: Chap.
10) as “the indispensable virtue” of leadership, in accord with Chapter 9
discussion.
Inauthentic, non-credible assertions pushed conflicts to destructive
courses, since trust, the prime condition for the constructive search for true
solutions, was minimal. Without it, the success of a proposed solution by
one side threatened the standing and power of the other. Career tracks
were also a differentiating factor: Economists mostly advanced by
circulation and ‘parachutings’, while the Talented succeeded by
continuity. Finding common ground was problematic, as well, since each
power elite formally sought a different goal: one aimed at Rama’s
economic success, while, for the other, this success was secondary, and
only a basis for the prime goal of one’s career success, its rewards and,
sometimes, self-actualization.
Dependency of the Talented on Officers A fertile ground for conflicts was the special requirements essential for the
functioning of the Talented in their jobs, such as work rooms, computers,
cars, work expenses, travel abroad, etc. Rama was pressed to supply these
needs in many cases, unlike pe’ilim whose work needs were cared for by
FOs. Supplying them without harming egalitarianism, required creativity
and consideration, but the many officers whose main motive was an image
of success and approval by conservative pe’ilim and ex-pe’ilim so that
they help their advance to FOs, did not seek fair and just solutions, and
without them, conflicts became zero-sum games. The professor
remembered the gifted educator and writer whose vital interest was
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
218
ignored by officers, and when he fended for himself, they faked
egalitarianism to suppress him; he left and became nationally renowned
professor:
“In the 1950s, veteran members’ 38-square-meter flats had no door
between the living quarters and the bedroom. The writer used to work in
the corner of his living quarters until late at night, but his noisy typewriter
was an unbearable nuisance for his wife, so he asked for a door to the
bedroom. He was refused in the name of equality, and then privately
bought a door from a carpenter in the town. The matter was brought to the
General Assembly by officers [as a violation of equality], and it was
decided that he must remove the door. He did so, but then left Rama”.
Officers might have been afraid of other members asking for doors too;
this might have been a problem which could have explained their refusal,
but why not ignore the writer’s deed? By that time, privileged pe’ilim had
already violated egalitarianism to a much greater extent without any public
critique and negative sanctions. Thus, officers could have ignored the
deed. Alas, they were exposed as petty, and since their authority was very
fragile, they bolstered it by using faked egalitarianism. Had their authority
been more secure, they would have ignored the deed, and had they been
more experienced, critically minded and innovative, they would have
bolstered authority by offering true solutions to growing inequality, as did
Avraham and Sagi in Carmelit and Ran in Kochav (Chap. 15-16).
Basically, nothing changed from the 1950s: weak officers still tried to
camouflage lack of genuine care for member’s legitimate interests, and
sought an image of care rather than solutions. The Talented used this
situation to push liberal changes, while Economists supported only
capitalist changes which enhanced their power, that is, only their own
proposals and those of loyal mediocre officers. Until the crisis began,
conservative officers backed by Economists usually won conflicts, but
afterwards, the Talented usually won as communal values have lost
meaning, the economy was in ruins, members wanted changes, and the
early turn to outside careers by the Talented had been hailed by members
as wise.
The Old Guard Shaped Rama as a Conservative Kibbutz All of the above raises the question: Can Rama’s old guard conservatism
explain anarchy, and if yes, to what extent?
All signs indicate that it is indeed the prime explanation. From
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
219
inception, Rama imitated other kibbutzim rather than creating solutions
itself. There were some objective reasons for this guarded behavior: The
group of founders was relatively small, its settlement location was not
authorized by Merkaz Hakla’ii experts, and its financing by the Jewish
Agency was minimal. This led to extra care with investments. However,
conservatism reigned in all matters. For instance, years elapsed before
Rama followed adjacent successful citrus growers. Another example is
that while in the mid-1920s Shenhabi’s Beit Alfa and a number of other
kibbutzim raised mixed breed Hollandish bulls and Damascus cows,
almost tripling milk yield, Rama introduced this only in the 1930s. Even
more conservative was industrialization in which Rama trailed almost
three decades behind pioneers. Likewise, it trailed with cultural
production, and did not create any new style or content in holiday
celebrations. Other kibbutzim created new, secular versions of Jewish
holidays, renewed the agricultural content of holidays and their connection
with nature, used Biblical texts in songs, music and dances.4 Nothing of
that sort was created in Rama’s early days. Rama’s 40th Anniversary
Book (Anonymous 1967) depicted these days as follows:
“However, our holidays were painfully empty. ‘We forsook the traditional
content of holidays, without finding new content’, wrote members, ‘until
our children grew up and our yields increased. The children and the fields
accorded new content to our holidays’” (p. 34).
The prime reason for this was leaders’ suppression of young radicals,
like the Economists a half century later; they defended superiority rather
than allowing young radicals to succeed by creating the new content
which members were waiting for. In 1932-3 they repressed a large
hashlama (joiners) group of educated, radical youth. Many hashlama
members proved more proficient in their respective trades than veteran
managers, criticized their ineptitude, tried new solutions, and were radical
in both cultural events and political debates. Rama’s leaders raised
groundless political accusations against hashlama leaders and sought their
expulsion. This unified the group around its innocent leaders, until it left
Rama and joined another kibbutz and led to its success. A clear sign of the
veterans’ sorrow and shame for this act was the complete absence of any
4 Near 1992: 253-60, 371-8; Chapter 16.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
220
mention of the event in the above book that, contrastingly, did mention the
exit of another hashlama later on. There were other signs that I could not
expose for ethical reasons, while the conclusion is clear: Rama’s old guard
preserved superiority at the expense of public interest in the creativity of
young talented radicals, like the Economists half a century later.
The etiology of Rama’s anarchy is clear since the old guard’s self-
serving conservatism preceded anarchic violations of egalitarian norms by
two decades, appearing in the 1930s while anarchy commenced only in the
1950s; the Economists just continued the low-moral tradition. The case of
Carmelit (Chap. 15) will prove such continuity is not inevitable if
transformational leaders emerge, but it will also expose the eventual
victory of a low-moral conservative leader due to power and capitals
gained in pe’ilut and patronage of officers. However, in accord with
previous chapters, the low-moral, low-trust, conservative Rama culture
continued for generations largely due to FO heads supremacy.
Rama’s Culture was Largely Shaped by Oligarchic FO
Heads The above further proved that rotatzia enhanced conservatism by
enlarging FO heads’ power. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely” stated Lord Acton, and recent major frauds by heads
of Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat and others have provided new evidence.
However, why does power corrupt? Or better, examining the matter more
sociologically along with Hosmer (1995): Why does more power lower
morality, i.e., engender unjust and unfair decisions for private aims? For
Hirschman (1982), officers shift involvement to private aims following
their inability to promote public ones, but more power comes with
accumulated experience, knowledge and capitals, it enables a leader to
promote aims which were impossible before, so why not turn to such
aims?
Psychologist Kets De Vries (1993) answers the above question citing
the negative metamorphic effect of power: its use makes power-holders
narcissistic and stimulates other negative syndromes that cause leaders to
forego public aims. Sociologically, however, power lessens a leader’s
vulnerability to negative sanctions when foregoing public needs, while the
very use of power, apart from outcomes, subordinating others to his will,
is rewarding, elevating status and self-worth (since all leaders were males,
masculine language is used). Organizational success adds loyalist deputies
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
221
who please a leader by telling him he is right, and camouflage his self-
serving deeds as public service, while critics who expose the harsh reality
of unsolved problems or those aggravated by him, are marginalized,
deprived of rewards, demoted, and mostly leave.5 Hughes (1958) pointed
out that a lawyer can tell the court her/his hands are clean, since aides and
hired hands do the dirty work required to win a case. The latter are blamed
if camouflage fails and wrong deeds are exposed, while her/his high status
and the rewards s/he gives or promises them assure secrecy and no
defiance in case of exposure.
A lawyer uses just one or two levels below him/her, while, below
Admors and other FO heads, there were many levels and ample room for
such tactics. Admors evaded major challenges, preferring promotion of
conservative loyalists, and sidetracked critical thinkers like Ostrovski and
Livenshtein, and radicals like Shenhabi, Allon, Avidan and Reiner who
could have coped with them. Any critique of their continuity and that of
their deputies, of pe’ilim privileges and other non-democratic, non-
egalitarian policies, was derogated as grumbling. Radicalism of the youth
was diverted to barren leftism, and when the leftists’ idol was exposed as a
bluff, Admors masked root causes, faked Movement democracy and
masked oligarchic rule. They feigned the image of inspirational and
ideological leaders who were above mundane affairs, but actually shaped
all major decisions. Tabenkin’s and Yaari’s detachment from Ein Harod
and Merchavia deliberations (respectively), spared them failures and
mistakes which might have toppled them, but also deprived them of
knowledge for decision-making,6 while their privileged deputies often
ignored members’ plights. Hazan’s involvement in Mishmar Ha’emek
made a difference for this kibbutz, but little for the KA, as he usually
surrendered to Yaari, and, after he had succeeded him, he was too used to
dysfunctioning, to a “world of ruined dreams” as Tzachor (1997: 222)
cited him. Exit by the disenchanted was not massive enough to topple
them as German Democratic Republic leaders were toppled (Hirschman
1995), since enough young people joined kibbutzim, as the Israeli context
was also oligarchic.
As explained in Chapter 1, rotatzia magnified the above effects by
5 Michels 1959[1915]; Dalton 1959; Jay 1969; Hirschman 1970. 6 On detachment depriving knowledge: Shapira 1987, 1995b.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
222
detaching power from responsibility: Power was concentrated at the top,
while responsibility rested on changing mid- and low-level officers. This
invited conservative, hands-off management which became self-serving in
accord with Hirschman (1982). Leadership requires creativity which needs
a long-time horizon (Jaques 1990) and high-trust relations which require
time and motivation to create (Axelrod 1984). However, oligarchic
continuity of Admors and other FO heads thrived on subordinates’
circulation and rotatzia, which was the prime cause of the destructive
conflicts of Rama’s elites and failures to solve problems by radical and
critical thinkers.
Rotatzia Deterred Talents from Offices
Rotatzia and power elites’ conservatism marred careers of Rama’s young
officers who promoted public aims by creative solutions; they received, at
most, passing glory, but rarely a promotion. Viewed as risks by
conservative power-holders, they were replaced when it seemed possible
to manage without them by failing them with the help of rotatzia. They
exited or turned to outside careers, and mediocre loyalists who became
officers ignored many member needs, encouraged egoism which led to
incommensurate solutions such as non-member residency. However,
neither officers nor Economists could be blamed for rotatzia’s perils. A
new solution for oligarchic tendency instead of rotatzia required critical
thinking and ingenuity, while their absence brought Economists power and
standing, and short tenures and status dependency on patronage deterred
coping with such a major change. Creating a new solution for the 2500
years old problem was the responsibility of Admors, as Washington,
Madison and Jefferson created US democratic norms. Alas, even Hazan’s
confession that rotatzia barred genuine leadership, did not cause him to
seek an alternative after he succeeded Yaari.
Kibbutz students missed it: surveys never asked about it, and
ethnographers who saw patronage and stratification, did not expose the
fragile status of officers due to rotatzia. Rama’s Economists allegedly
cared for public interest, but, as they shirked the moral duty of coping with
major problems, very few officers, as weak figures, were willing to risk
grappling with challenges. Moreover, these few either failed or had to
compromise, as did the two former secretaries. Rama’s conservative
anarchy is fully explained only within the context of two elites,
Economists and officers, castrated by rotatzia, circulation and the
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
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conservatism of FO heads and senior pe’ilim, as well as by the opposition
of detached continuous Talented who obstructed changes which harmed
their interests. In accord with Aristophanes who wrote “Leadership is the
interest of complete ignoramuses and the lowest of degenerates” (Chap.
1), talented members abstained from offices, causing the ‘internal leaving’
problem which plagued conservative kibbutzim (Am’ad & Palgi 1986).
However, these authors missed the mark by ignoring impacts of rotatzia,
officers’ weakness and FO heads’ oligarchic conservatism.
The professor’s interview supported the above explanation: He would
have agreed to be a Secretary in order to change things that bothered him,
but refused, since he saw no chance for success. He also had another,
unexpressed reason: For a young committee head or branch manager, a
nomination to a chief kibbutz office was a promotion and a springboard
for pe’ilut, but not for him, as a veteran ex-chief officer who had
abandoned circulation decades ago. Only prospective success in solving
acute major public problems could reward him enough for the trouble,
granting fame, self-actualization and perhaps advance to Movement
leadership which would justify forsaking an academic career. This was
impossible in the short term while power elites reigned, and repelled him
and his like who were better equipped than officers to cope creatively with
problems. In the past, rotatzia had demoted them from offices just as they
had understood what had to be changed, how to do it, and sometimes had
the public trust required for success. Afterwards they were denied pe’ilut
or ousted of it soon, as only loyalists and seekers of power, privileges and
status were promoted, becoming powerful and conservative. This wrong
could not be remedied by a ‘parachuted’ brilliant academician without
powerful supporters and a clear vision of the required basic changes such
as a democratic solution for oligarchy instead of rotatzia, both of which
the professor lacked.
Heidenheimer’s (1970: 184-8) critique of the corrupt US public service,
supports the above. It points to high turnover of officers being linked to a
political structure without adequate motivators to give proper meaning to
the conception of a public office as a public trust. Hence, few officers are
truly public servants. While Rama officers were rarely corrupt like some
American officials, only a few were truly public servants. They hardly
could be, because rotatzia denied those in office of the continuity which
was vital for using trust gained by early successful public service to solve
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
224
harder problems later on, as did Pericles in Athens’ Golden Age, 444-429
B.C. According to literature cited, rotatzia was a Procrustean bed for
genuine leaders; it explains the premature resignations of the plant
manager and the pre-school officers who defended status by seeking new
jobs. They were unsure of continuity since rotatzia legitimized
replacement without any intrinsic reason and encouraged Shavit-like
behavior: Forego coping with major problems, mask failures or blame
them on others, take credit for successes, even those which you tried to
abort, nurture ties with patrons, and do not bother about public interest;
camouflage its evasion, just create an image of caring.7
As proved, rotatzia did not prevent continuity of mediocre officers who
did not fail publicly and ignored efforts to rotate them from office, using
the lack of a formal succession timetable, clear-cut procedures and open
competition for offices. Without all these, incumbents lacked a clear
public mandate that defended authority, an additional reason to deter the
radical and talented from offices and enhance continuity of mediocre
officers which bred corruption as they shifted to private ends (Hirschman
1982), and then incompetent leadership: The veteran manager of the
avocado orchards was caught embezzling money. He promised to return it
all and left Rama, while no proper successor was found. Two member
workers were too young and inexperienced, and a veteran hired worker
was viewed as incompetent, in addition to the norm of reserving offices
for members. There were some veterans of the branch in other jobs,
including an ex-manager, but none of them agreed to leave his current job
to head a small, unprofitable, non-prestigious branch in a culture
dominated by private interests. At last, public servant Ilan agreed, under
pressure from officers and friends, when he had finished his term as
Secretary, even though, for many years, he had specialized in raising
poultry. He followed Thomas’s model of great involvement, but he lacked
basic expertise, as did his team, and after years in office, had still failed to
cope with major problems, as he admitted to me.
Outstanding Success of a Tenured Genuine Branch Leader Other agricultural branches were quite similar. An exception was the large
7 Dalton 1959; Jay 1969; Maccoby 1976; Shapira 1987; Jackall 1988; Scharfstein
1995.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
225
cow barn, almost 500 milking cows and some 300 calves. One reason for
its consistent profitability was the regulation of the milk industry by a
national FO (see Chap. 5, No. 10 in FOs list) with government backing.
This was in contrast to other, unregulated agricultural sectors which, even
if efficient, mostly incurred losses, lost prestige, suffered managerial
turnover, brain-drain and were pushed to use cheap foreign hired laborers
in order to survive. The cow barn had a proficient manager, aged thirty-
three, who had been promoted from the ranks where he had begun at the
age of twenty-two, and held office for some six years. With Rama’s
forsaking kibbutz norms, he felt quite secure in his job, and had no fear
that the rotatzia sword would be raised against him. Success was on his
side: The branch excelled on a national scale; hundreds of kibbutz and
moshav cow barns trailed behind its professional results which were
quantitatively measured, unlike results of toddlers education, and in
contrast to the poor results of the plastic plant. The reasons were
managerial proficiency and genuine, trusted, creative servant leadership.
He was a model of commitment, worked harder than others, trusted team
members to create new solutions which were carefully tried and
implemented. Talents were kept by offering them challenges, and team
solidarity was built by praising members’ achievements at various
gatherings; he initiated celebrating birthdays, babies born, etc., as well as
preventing criticism of failures from hurting the status of committed
workers who erred. One or two younger team members were plausible
heirs which he did not fear to nurture, due to high-trust relations which
made it implausible that they would seek his succession against his will, as
long as he continued to lead successfully.
Self-Enhancing Process of Self-Serving Anarchic
Conservatism This exceptional case further proves the rule: Conservatism and anarchy
reigned due to power elites’ suppression of talented, radical juniors who
were perceived as threats by seniors and were either sidetracked and left,
or ‘left inside’; thus, proficiency suffered. These juniors were pushed to
non-rotatzia jobs and/or outside careers that bred the alienated Talented
who violated decisions, although sometimes because bylaws did not
protect them and weak mediocre officers did not care for their needs as
FOs cared for those of pe’ilim. Economists failed to tame the Talented
since they were weaker as a result of circulation and self-serving behavior
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
226
which deprived them of members’ trust and helped legitimize behavior of
the Talented. Such anarchy was quite unusual among kibbutzim that have
mostly restricted outside work, while Rama failed because restrictions lost
legitimacy when the old guard imitated societal norms, continuing
privileged pe’ilut, and because chief officers were too weak for reasons
explained above. In addition, as explained and as was in Kressel’s (1974)
Netzer Sireni, hired labor encouraged members turning to outside work.
Conflicts between elites were destructive due to distrust and due to
their zero-sum nature and the use of values and norms of contradicting
cultures, kibbutz versus capitalist. Anarchy ‘dried up’ the general
assemblies whose decisions were easily overturned and/or violated;
officers feared to cope with major problems, while the paralysis of
problem-solving bred further violations and anarchy.8 In Rama, any
change was risky, as it was anyone’s guess what the final decision after
repeated appeals would be, who would violate that decision, and who
would follow suit; nor was it clear whether the authority of any decision
would be upheld at all. The feeling of ‘might is right’ encouraged
disobedience. The General Assembly was viewed as either ‘a rubber
stamp’ for the Economists’ demands, or as an arena of recurring conflicts
among elites, much like plant managers’ dominance in Netzer Sireni, and
the recurrent conflicts of its two factions (Kressel 1974, 1983). The
Assembly lost the authority of a supreme democratic body whose
decisions represent public judgment in Yankelovich’s (1991) terms.
Rotatzia discouraged officers’ risk-taking, honesty, sincerity, trust and
loyalty to members, like fast-changing officers in US public
organizations.9 Prospects for advance and circulation in the privileged
stratum of pe’ilim motivated them to play safe and to refrain from
grappling with problems. Rama’s anarchic conservatism fed on itself,
strongly supported by oligarchic FOs.
Comparable anarchic conservatism could be found in Kinkade’s (1994)
Twin Oaks commune, and Sasson-Levy’s (1995) ‘The 21st Year’, an
Israeli peace movement. In both, ideology was egalitarian and
participative, seeking consensual decisions without voting, while the
8 On ‘drying’: Kressel 1983: 154-84. On voting abstention: Argaman 1997: 56,
85, 149. 9 Maccoby 1976; Segal 1981: 52; Kanter 1985: 84; Shortell et al. 1990: 237.
13. FOs Enhanced Conservatism, Distrust, Conflicts
227
outcome was that a non-chosen few held power, and implementation of
democratic decisions was problematic. Twin Oaks was conservative,
suffered brain-drain and high turnover; only a small minority continued
for more than a decade while it was 25 years old, the second generation
rarely joined like Rama’s, and, as it was impoverished and its economy
largely depended on one laggard product, its future seemed bleak. ‘The
21st Year’ movement was undemocratic and ineffective, dominated by
two high-status male academics, while most members were females who
did the hard work and suffered most hardships, but whose voices were not
heard. Sasson-Levy found that “only a few knew how decisions were
really made, while all the rest were in a fog” (p. 49). The fog hid the true
rules of the political game and prevented genuine participation by ordinary
members who could not direct influence efforts at true power-holders.
Protected from succession like Admors and Rama’s power elites, they
ignored members’ opposition to many decisions, the movement remained
small, ineffective and soon vanished.
Distrust + Divisiveness + Defensiveness + Doubt = Decline Webb and Cleary (1994) summarized their ethnography of a problematic
high-tech firm which failed in the innovation race as follows: Distrust +
Divisiveness + Defensiveness + Doubt = Disaster. If ‘Disaster’ is replaced
by ‘Decline’, all the rest fitted Rama quite neatly: The destructive conflicts
of the firm’s managers and experts due to distrust resembled power elites’
and officers’ conflicts in Rama. In both cases the major sources of doubt
and uncertainty were changes and innovations that caused these conflicts,
and many of them were blocked as power-holders aimed at limiting or
detracting each other’s status and power, while gaining or defending
supremacy by various manipulations that caused distrust, divisions,
defensiveness and more doubts concerning the actions and intentions of
others. The four Ds caused Rama’s decline: they turned the economic
crisis into a social one, as well, causing the exodus of offspring and the
decline of communal activity, such as members stopping to eat supper in
the kibbutz dining hall and spending time in the kibbutz’s beautiful
clubhouse, the past creation of some of the Talented, where weeds were
already growing in the courtyard, signaling its long closure.
Let us see how in other cases self-serving conservative power-holders
who succeeded as Pe’ilim and patrons ruined kibbutz cultures without
causing anarchy.
CHAPTER 14
Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
None of Rama’s pe’ilim advanced to head a large FO or to any other
senior FO office after 1972, and none became powerful patrons. However,
in the three younger kibbutzim analyzed below, a few circulative pe’ilim
became local patrons without heading FOs because of their loyalty to
supreme patrons, Movement heads or other veteran FO heads, as Chapter
7 has explained. These patrons could have been high-moral leaders inside
their kibbutzim, as were Kochav’s prime leaders (Chaps. 16-17), but they
were low-moral, like Rama’s elites. Why? Were they low-moral from the
start, or did low morality emerge with accumulation of power and
intangible capitals like oligrachic continuous leaders?
As we have seen, the moral decline of leaders accompanies growth,
material and political success, oligarchization and power enhancement by
nurturing clients. These clients insulate patrons from the public, defend
them from negative consequences of self-serving behavior, and mask or
camouflage it, while promoting their own interests (Dalton 1959). In
contrast to Dalton’s US firms, kibbutz field processes were more complex
since pe’ilim as kibbutz elites were supposed to lead by much trust,
enhancement of consciousness of the kibbutz cause, and encouragement of
normative conformity.1 While pe’ilim usually failed to meet some or all
these expectations subsequent to the field’s oligarchization, there were
extreme differences both due to their own moral choices and to FO
normative differences.
For instance, Tnuva and the Mashbir Merkazi imitated capitalist firms
earlier and more profoundly than kibbutz-owned Reg.Ents, and their heads
were more continuous. It seems that this difference limited the moral
decline of Reg.Ents heads: None of them was known to be of such low
morality as Tnuva’s Landesman, taking a huge sum of money, perhaps a
million $US, for himself, instead of handing it over to his kibbutz. This
fact, however, did not prevent low morality of pe’ilim as kibbutz local
leaders. A prime reason was that advancing circulative careers conflicted
1 Shepher, I. 1983; Shepher, I. & Shapira 1992; Topel 1992.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
229
with caring for members’ needs and expectations, and for local kibbutz
interests.
Hired Labor Deepened Moral Decline of Continuous
Patrons One proof that most pe’ilim cared for these needs up to the oligarchic
change, was the exceptional success of kibbutzim, as has been depicted.
This change however, enhanced imitative industrialization in the 1940s,
but as noted, in the 1950s-1960s some plant managers created solutions
for self-work problems, others imitated them, and only a minority of
kibbutzim, some 15%, mostly of the Ichud Movement, used mass hired
labor like Netzer Sireni.2 Likewise, continuous plant managers became de-
facto kibbutz rulers, with concurrent stratification and moral decline worse
than in Rama. Sociologists missed this lesson of Kressel’s (1974, 1983)
work by rejecting the best kibbutz ethnography ever written, which
showed that where hired labor was used in the 1950s, already in the late
1960s, as plant managers became kibbutz rulers, high-moral officers had
vanished. In Rama, in contrast, which restricted hired labor up until the
late 1980s, some officers were still genuine public servants in 1991.
Moral decline in Netzer Sireni paralleled plant growth, which was
rapid, thanks to generous governmental loans obtained with the support of
Ichud pe’ilim. One plant doubled its sales and employees from 1966 to
1969, and another increased sales five-fold during this period while the
number of employees rose two and half times, with members remaining
only 18%. Concurrently, in 1966, violation of egalitarianism was minor,
such as limiting ordinary members’ use of the two cars which served
seven chief officers; in fact, they were rarely free anyway. In 1969,
however, these officers had six cars; each of the three plant managers had
a car for almost exclusive use, and if he gave it to a deputy, he was entitled
to use one of the cars of the four kibbutz chief officers although they were
not entitled to use his car, even if it stood idle. Kibbutz officers
surrendered to plant managers’ violations of egalitarianism in other
2 Zamir 1979. Leviatan (1975: 14) found these 15% employed 79% of all hired
workers in kibbutz industry. Since then almost all of them have gone bankrupt
like Netzer Sireni’s plants, another proof of hired labor nagation of communal
culture.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
230
matters as well: Managers took family members on business trips abroad,
phones in their flats were used privately at kibbutz expense while ordinary
members had no phones and paid for using public phones, etc. As these
managers became kibbutz rulers, they and their accomplices became self-
servers.
Kressel, like other CKP users, ignored the kibbutz field’s
oligarchization that preceded by decades Netzer Sireni’s and legitimized
plant manager acts, for instance, exclusive car use like pe’ilim. As in FOs,
power accumulation used patronage with rotatzia’s help: kibbutz chief
officers who proved loyalists of the managers, after their short terms, were
‘parachuted’ into continuous plant managerial jobs and joined patrons’
cliques of clients. The kibbutz treasurer who was the friend of the prime
patron, was exempted from rotatzia and furnished with a new car. With
the reign of quasi-capitalist culture, socialist symbols vanished: red flags
and May Day celebrations disappeared, and self-serving deeds were no
longer masked. For instance, managers’ privileged use of cars was
explained, at first, by their superior driving proficiency, but later this
explanation was dropped; this mask was superfluous in a stratified culture
(Kressel 1983: 107, 127).
Circulation Only Slowed Down Power Accumulation and
Moral Decline The above case fits Lenski (1966): power and prestige differentiation
instigated stratification; then privileges were appropriated, enhancing
prestige and power which were used to add privileges, and so on. The
sociologists who criticized Kressel were right in one point: that were few
similar kibbutzim. However, they did not study and could not tell whether
moral decline characterized the heads of some forty other kibbutz plants
which used mass hired labor, as they did not seek to determine how
kibbutz cultures were protected from the capitalist influence of such
plants. Shimony (1983: 282) notes that in such cases, kibbutzim separated
themselves from plants to curb their negative influence. Kibbutz Afikim
also used rotatzia: after the retirement of the Iron Law continuous head
who established its plywood plant, Kelet (over 400 hired workers), every
two or four years both the plant manager and the chief R&D engineer
were replaced.
Rotatzia, however, did not prevent power and capitals accumulation,
only slowed it down by making status and power of circulative elite
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
231
members more vulnerable. Since many ‘parachutings’ of circulators failed
and they were soon replaced, this complicated the task of patronage and
building cliques. In Kibbutz Olim, strong patronage of circulators was
found by Topel (1979) 26 years after the kibbutz was established, while in
Kibbutz Chen, Fadida (1972) did not discern patronage when the kibbutz
was 15 years old, while, in 1990, when it was 26 years old I found signs
that a patron had reigned ever since it was 18-20 years old. Carmelit’s
patron reigned from the time the kibbutz was 30 years old (details to
come). Thus, circulators became powerful patrons after longer periods
than Netzer Sireni’s Iron Law plant managers. The Carmelit case also
indicates the threat to circulators’ rule by setting up a plant if it was led by
a competing astute leader who successfully enlarged it to dominate a
kibbutz’s economy. This was likely in both Olim and Chen as they were
affiliated to the Ichud Movement whose pe’ilim encouraged hired labor
which enhanced such growth, as testified dozens of its kibbutzim with
such dominant plants. For this reason, in both kibbutzim, prime leaders
defended supremacy by obstructing industrialization.
A Leader’s Power Self-Perpetuation by Barring
Industrialization Contrary to Rosolio’s (1999) dependency thesis, Olim’s failure at
industrialization was not explicable by leader complacency. Olim’s main
patron and first chief economic officer, whom I called Mati, favored
industrialization at first, in 1952, three years after inception. Then he
changed his mind and prevented it, despite a general assembly decision in
1963 to establish a plant. The change of mind was unknown in Olim, since
Mati had shared the industrialization idea with its only other protagonist,
an engineer and one of Olim’s founders, who was Mati’s friend. This
engineer left in the 1960s due to this obstruction and subsequently
advanced to head the large outside plant, employing 1,500 employees, in
which he had been working since 1952. He took the job at this plant as it
was informally agreed between him and Mati, then chief economic officer,
that he would acquire expertise, look for plausible projects for a new plant,
and then establish and manage it in Olim. He later offered Mati four
plausible proposals for a plant, but Mati rejected them all, and, without his
support, they had no chance of success. Therefore, the engineer did not
publicly propose them.
I did not evaluate his proposals, but both his record as a very successful
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
232
industrialist and Mati’s later obstruction of industrialization decisions,
after his exit, supported his explanation of these rejections as outcomes of
local politics. Mati advanced in 1952 to a mid-level job in the Ministry of
Agriculture, returned to serve as chief economic officer in 1956, then
again became a pa’il, and so on for thirty years. To the engineer, he
explained his rejections as preference for agricultural development, but, in
reality, he was defending his supremacy: had the engineer established a
successful plant with mass hired labor, he would soon have become a
prime patron, as in Netzer Sireni. A plant was a real threat to Mati’s
dominance unless he headed it, which had other drawbacks (see below).
This is further proved by contextualizing his deeds. In contrast to other
kibbutzim who sought industrial projects with considerable potential,3
Mati sought non-agricultural projects of a limited scope. He traveled to
Latin America on behalf of Olim to collect investment money from
wealthy parents of members, who, in return, were given shares in Olim’s
public works firm which he founded and managed. The firm operated
earth-moving equipment and competed with Harish FO (Chap. 5, No. 36).
In 1967, Mati agreed to another non-agricultural business venture: On the
eve of the Six Day War, Olim’s carpentry workshop was urgently
requested by the army to produce coffins. After the war, with the army
build-up, tables and benches were needed so the workshop supplied them.
He agreed to the two businesses since their simple technologies and
limited markets promised that they would not develop into large and
independent plants, and this is exactly what happened. The first business
survived some fifteen years and the second only a decade.
An additional reason for the carpentry business was to prove his good
will concerning the General Assembly’s decision in 1963 to set up a plant.
He blocked the implementation of this decision by nominating his ‘ever
failing loyalist’ (see below), to head the team entrusted with finding a
plant, rather than the engineer who was much more qualified for this
mission. The carpentry business barely changed Olim’s dependency on
agriculture, which meant dependency on his brokerage of its interests in
the Ministry of Agriculture and in economic FOs, a result of his past jobs
and ties there. In 1991 Olim was deep in debt, with little prospect of
recovering as agriculture provided sixty-two per cent of its income
3 Bar-Gal 1976; Don 1988; Chaps. 15-16.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
233
(Bloomfield-Ramagem 1993: 96). Members interviewed, however,
blamed another patron, Shimon, who founded a plant in 1976 and after six
years left in despair together with the chief engineer. Observations and
interviews in Olim as well as with Shimon and the plant’s ex-chief
engineer, made it clear that the plant had failed primarily due to a shortage
of skilled managers and experts, resulting from a brain-drain which had
already commenced in the 1950s. In addition, the negative attitude of
Mati, and a third patron, Yehuda, whose clients managed Olim, deterred
competent members from joining the plant. After Shimon and the chief
engineer gave up and left, the plant remained unprofitable although both
Mati and Yehuda tried to rescue it, each assuming management for a term.
The plant’s failure was not connected by members to Mati’s behavior.
Though his objection to industrialization was common knowledge, many
believed that he had truly sought agricultural development. Only ex-
members noticed that he had obstructed both the 1963 assembly decision
and Shimon’s efforts, using his clients and in many other ways, but even
they did not notice the brain-drain it caused. In addition to Mati’s
successful camouflage (see below), members did not perceive his
responsibility for the failed industrialization as those who remained were a
selected tiny minority of zealots, expediency seekers and those who lacked
critical thinking, after almost all critical thinkers, radicals and innovative
leaders had exited, as occurred in many other kibbutzim, and in accord
with Hirschman (1970). Before proving this, however, let us see how Mati
created the image of a servant leader which maintained much trust in him
of those who did not leave.
Conservative Meshkism, Olim’s Rule and a ‘Branch Man’
Image The engineer depicted Mati’s leadership thus:
“Why did he come back from pe’ilut to work in the cow barn? Because it
was the most problematic branch, always lacking workers! I asked him:
‘Couldn’t you contribute much more in other places?’ and he retorted: ‘I
have to be back home (i.e., finish a pe’ilut), and back means ordinary
work, first of all’. He was a really conscientious person. In discussions,
however, he listened to all speakers, but always from above, creating the
feeling that we were all just children whose conversation was permitted
since, in the end, he would be the one to decide. He was somehow a snob
who never allowed anyone else in Olim grow and flourish”.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
234
Mati was a few years older than the speaker and the other founders. He
did not come from a kibbutz-affiliated youth movement like them, but
from a club of Zionist students. The son of a wealthy family, he graduated
as an accountant from a respected university, and, with his newly-married
wife, joined the gar’in (a group of youth movement graduates aiming at
establishing a kibbutz) at a veteran KM kibbutz. Soon he became one of
the gar’in leaders. He became chief economic officer when Olim was
established in 1949, and from 1952 circulated, was chief economic officer
four times, secretary for one term, and advanced in Movement jobs. Once
every seven-ten years he returned for a year to work in the cow barn. It
helped to preserve the egalitarian ethos and high status of manual work,
and was a humble price for dominating Olim and climbing FOs
managerial ladder which almost brought him to the Knesset.4 Topel (1979:
63) wrote:
“[Mati,] even though he was chief economic officer for some ten years,
and served once as a secretary, succeeded in the short breaks between
offices in being connected to a branch, presenting himself as a ‘working
man’ and ‘branch man’”.
In Olim, this was the highest praise a male member could receive, since
it was dominated by economists called meshkists (meshek means a
kibbutz’s economy). Talmon’s (1972) use of this designation, however,
missed the essential differences among meshkist types: Olim meshkists
were conservatives who preserved self-work by abstaining from
industrialization, did not allow members to take outside jobs (except the
engineer), and detested intellectuals who were not ‘working men’,
ideologists, educators, editors, authors, etc.; their views were ignored and
they were pushed to exit. In contrast, Netzer Sireni’s meshkism imitated
capitalism, used hired labor and allowed outside work, as in Rama.5 The
opposite type of both conservative and imitator meshkists, were economic
leaders, also called meshkists, who creatively innovated self-work,
egalitarianism and democracy, nurtured talented young radicals and built
successful plants which are still thriving in Carmelit, Kochav, Geva,
4 See Bowes 1989: 51. It seemed that only his premature death prevented this
promotion. 5 Kressel 1974: 37-40.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
235
Hatzerim, Gan Shmuel, Maagan Michael and many other kibbutzim. Their
continuing success was a result of creativity and innovation, unlike
imitative plants which mostly closed, sold out or resembled Rama’s plastic
plant.6 As in other matters, kibbutz students ignored Stryjan (1989) and
missed the decisiveness of creativity for solving the problems of growth
by industrialization with solutions consistent with kibbutz ethos and
culture.
Conservative Meshkism Disintegrated the Founders’ Group Conservative meshkism diminished democracy and disintegrated the
founding gar’in. As against Kochav’s founders, some 80% of whom
stayed for a lifetime, in Olim only some 18% remained. Within a dozen
years, most founders exited, following the exit of their youth movement
leaders, to become professors, diplomats, businessmen, executives, etc.
Same disintegration and brain-drain also characterized groups of joiners,
as happened in other mediocre kibbutzim which remained small as in the
two cases detailed below and in Bowes’s (1989: 36) case, or even
completely disintegrated, as in Ben-Horin’s (1984) cases. Interviewees,
both members and those who exited, mentioned one of Mati’s closest
allies, Sami, as the best ‘branch man’. He explained intellectuals’ mass
exit to me:
“They did not find the right environment here; they felt bad here. Olim
was a very meshkist settlement; work mattered above all”.
The success of meshkist kibbutzim where work also “mattered above
all” such as Geva, Gan Shmuel and many others, disproved Sami’s
simplistic explanation. The prime leader of youth movement days and ex-
ambassador of Israel to Latin American countries pointed out that all the
youth movement elite, including himself, left Olim, while Mati and Sami,
who joined the gar’in quite late, only in Israel, stayed. Mati and Sami,
together with would-be patrons, Shimon and Yehuda, amplified
pioneering hardships by ‘a Marxist approach of iron discipline’ as the ex-
ambassador called it, not caring for members’ minimal existential needs.
Two of the many examples I heard were bread that did not arrive for some
6 I studied Geva and Hatzerim plants in 1977. Recent change by such plants to
hired labor is irrelevant for explanation of their past successes (See Carmelit
case, next chapter).
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
236
days or working shoes that did not fit, but no one attended to their
replacement. Such lack of officers’ care for basic needs of members was
rare in the early eras of successful kibbutzim.7 This approach had little to
do with Marx, but much to do with Tabenkin’s USSR adoration which
legitimized ignorance of basic needs and repressed liberal consumption
norms.8 Mati and Sami, as late joiners knew little about kibbutz culture
which had been learned in the youth movement, and in the veteran KM
kibbutz where the gar’in had been originally situated, they saw ‘iron
discipline’ as integral to it; signs of this ‘discipline’ I still found when
studying this kibbutz plant in 1977. The ex-ambassador said:
“I preached that officers should behave differently, but Mati, Shimon and
Sami did not listen. I said people must be given hope after coming to this
desert from a large, lively city like [a major Latin American city]. Officers
should not further cut members’ wings, which had already been broken
from so drastic a change”.
He left after eight years not only because officers had ignored his
preaching, but since they pressed him to cut short an ‘inessential’ pe’ilut
as deputy editor of Ichud’s quarterly journal after only two years, even
though, concurrently, Mati continued as an economic pa’il for four years.
For him, and three others like him whom I interviewed, the departure was
a combined result of lack of influence on decisions, no chance of gaining
‘branch man’ prestige, few career prospects as a pa’il in a non-economic
FO due to meshkist leaders’ antagonism, and no career prospects as an
outside employee since this was not allowed by meshkist leaders.
Many Reg.Ents pe’ilim used Mati’s strategy, for instance Shavit by
working for a year in the dining hall while waiting for Zelikovich to clear
the throne of the cotton gin plant for him, he thus modeled a ‘working
man’. The successful careers of Shavit, Mati and their like proved the
effectiveness of image maintenance efforts. Both were allowed one pe’ilut
after another, and were never stuck for long periods in local offices. Such
efforts to limit local commitments in order to advance on the outside were
an important reason for the shortages of competent officers, as Fadida
(1972: 89) exposed, but both E. Cohen (1983: 101) and Am’ad and Palgi
7 Pearlman 1938; Shatil 1977; Br’t 1998; Interviews with Kochav veterans. 8 Landshut 2000[1944]: 97-9; Kafkafi 1992: 125-7.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
237
(1986) missed this reason.
Abstention of Plant’s Foundation Enhanced Circulative
Career The threat to one’s career advance by being stuck in a local job helps to
explain why Mati did not use another way to maintain supremacy, by
setting up a plant himself. This was a challenging task that might have
failed, but worse still, it required much more continuity than two-three
year terms of kibbutz chief offices after which Mati was free to promote
his career on the outside. Finding, planning, establishing and overcoming
initial problems of a new plant up to the point of clear success, required
that Mati invest at least five-six years, and then he would have to find and
coach a proper loyal successor who would be smart enough to run the
plant, but not too smart to overshadow his mentor. The engineer was
clearly too smart; if Mati headed the plant’s successful establishment and
the engineer helped as its prime expert, then if he replaced Mati who
turned to pe’ilut, he would become manager for good by enlarging it with
hired labor, and, then, he would become Olim’s prime leader (e.g. Kressel
1974), overshadowing Mati.
Preventing a plant was better for Mati’s power and status. To further
his career, he was well-networked in the Ichud Movement, the Labor Party
and the Ministry of Agriculture with a range of high-level jobs to choose
from. Likewise, the other two patrons abstained from the challenge of
setting up a plant until the mid-1970. Mati’s close friend, the successful
businessman explained:
“At the top [of Olim], people seek political careers... Shimon always…
sought personal success wherever he was a manager and said ‘I did, I
built...’. Yehuda had political ambitions, and so did Mati, even though, as a
person, he was more restrained… returned every three, four years to the
job of chief economic officer in order to smooth over internal conflicts and
get things back on track”.
Mediocre Clients and ‘Riding’ on a Group Interests Putting “things back on track” meant, for instance, the nomination of
Mati’s loyal clients to jobs through which he controlled Olim. One of
them was depicted by interviewees as Olim’s ‘ever failing officer’; he
failed more than once as a branch manager, twice as treasurer and once as
a plant finder. When the successful businessman mentioned this, I asked if
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
238
Mati thought he was qualified to find a plant, and the answer was a hearty
laugh, after which he explained the nomination by citing Mati’s wish to
bar the plant establishment. Twenty years later, in the 1980s, Mati
nominated this loyalist to head a new branch founded together with an
adjacent kibbutz. To all accounts, the branch collapsed due to his
mismanagement and was sold to a private owner who has since profited
from it. Such a ‘successful’ career thanks to unquestioned loyalty by a
repeatedly failing officer, leaves little doubt concerning Mati’s self-
serving preferences.
However, circulative careers were vulnerable, and this explains another
power and status enhancement strategy used by Olim’s patrons. Mati
sought more power by a strategy called by Topel (1979: 87) ‘riding on’ a
category of members: gaining their loyalty by promoting decisions that
served their special interests, nominating them to offices and supporting
their claims for kibbutz resources. Mati ‘rode on’ the most influential
category of veterans, Shimon ‘rode on’ the hashlama (joiners) group, and
Yehuda on kibbutz offspring, younger than the hashlama. Due to Mati’s
special attention to veterans’ interests, they revered him as their interviews
proved, and this helps explain their ignorance of his thwarting major
changes for decades, changes which they mostly would have wanted.
Mati Led Patrons’ Obstruction of Democracy In addition to industrialization, from the late 1950s most members wanted
to change from communal boarding of children to family boarding, as did
a number of Ichud kibbutzim. In 1959 a referendum was held to decide
whether to change the boarding system, and supporters gained a sixty-two
per cent majority among voters despite unified leaders, led by Mati,
objecting to the change. However, the real majority was much larger but
remained unseen, as many members who wanted the change did not vote,
hesitating as they faced objection by all leaders. Only half of the members
cast their votes, and the leaders used this fact to ‘bury’ the subject in
committee red tape, until the main supporters of change had left, and
others gave up for two decades.
Olim leaders followed Ichud heads, and since they were all pe’ilim or
ex-pe’ilim who anticipated their next pe’ilut, their opposition is largely
explained by dependency on or expedient loyalty to these heads. However,
they had a problem: the majority would have to be addressed somehow
without alienating members. The red tape was presented as an effort to
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
239
help the undecided half who did not vote to deepen understanding of the
ramifications of the change and to reach a consensus on details among the
various versions used by kibbutzim, and, then to vote for a second time.
This vote was never taken and Mati was held responsible for thwarting the
will of the majority for two decades, after most Ichud kibbutzim had made
the change.9 Members did not see his behavior as undemocratic: he played
by the rules of the game. Ex-members, however, criticized it furiously as
an undemocratic act which had pushed them out. The widow of the fourth
main leader of the 1950s who was kibbutz secretary and then chief
economic officer, and who like Mati, Shimon and Yehuda objected to
family boarding, disclosed that, soon after the vote, her husband had
changed his mind. However, he learned that Mati and the other two were
lying to members to initiate red tape and did not intend to repeat the vote.
This low morality was totally unacceptable to him, and, as he realized he
could not change it, he left and succeeded in the academia.
Exits Left Zealots, Expediency Seekers and Mediocre
Loyalists Topel (1979) did not expose Mati’s low morality, seemingly due to using
CKP and a lack of perspective which could have been provided by
interviews with ex-members as I did, while veteran member interviewees,
as Mati’s loyalists, did not see it either. Nor did Topel grasp that, in accord
with Hirschman’s (1995) explanation of East Germany’s collapse, Mati’s
hegemony would have been impossible if no FO had refilled Olim’s
constantly emptying ranks: like the founders, 70-80% of hashlamot
(joiner) members also left.10 Mati’s mask of high-morality retained the
minimal trust of a sufficient number of members for Olim to survive with
constant refilling, but his conservative autocracy engendered Hirschman’s
(1970) selection, retained naive zealots, expediency seekers and loyalists
without critical thinking; loyalists filled chief offices as patrons’ clients,
suppressed innovators and led to failures and continuing brain-drain,
which furthered failures.
Olim’s three patrons headed “fortified power structures” said Topel
9 Schwartz & Naor 2000: 54. 10 As in Chen and Carmelit up to 1965 (next chapter), and in Bowes’s (1989: 36)
Goshen.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
240
(1979: 119), but he missed these structures were based on FO heads’
support of patrons’ non-democratic rule, promoting them and their
loyalists to pe’ilut, granting them power, status, intangible capitals and
privileges. Loyalty to FO heads and rotatzia both augmented
Hirschmanian selection and were decisive for these structures, explaining
much of patrons’ readiness to violate democracy in order to suppress
innovators. This readiness was strengthened by Ichud pe’ilim’s support for
capitalist-like industrialization that engendered leaders’ efforts to defend
status by low-moral seeking of power and capitals. Mediocre clients
whom they elevated to main offices were dependent on them, as Topel
(1979: 92-8) vividly depicted, and one could safely assume that, like
Rama, Netzer Sireni and Hamaapil, many of Olim chief officers followed
patrons’ low morality. Hence patrons’ ultra-conservatism was combined
with lack of care for elementary necessities and evasion of major
problems, and thus selective mass exit was fully explained.
Had FO cultures resembled kibbutzim like Palmach, according to
Buber’s (1958[1945]: 141) assertion that FOs must adopt kibbutz
principles, without privileges, stratified bureaucracy, lucrative continuous
jobs and without pe’ilim exempted from commoners’ hardships, Olim
leaders would have been less conservative. For instance, in the 1960s
Shimon, after he had lost hope of a political career, led Olim’s poultry
branch to become a state-of-the-art large compound, producing eggs for
breeding and selling day-old chicks to farmers. This success would have
been impossible without continuity in this job for a decade. If, instead of
undemocratic rotatzia, a genuine solution for the Iron Law had been
devised, it would have enhanced trustworthy leaders who could have
solved problems in accord with kibbutz ethos, answering members’ needs
and wishes, as in Carmelit and Kochav (Chaps. 15-17).
Kibbutz Chen: Superiority Retention and Leaders’ Moral
Decline The case of Olim raises the question: Did the selective retention of a
minority of conservatives lacking critical thinking, expediency seekers and
naive zealots give patrons too much leeway for self-serving to the point
that they lost their last moral inhibitions against corruption?
The case of Chen would indicate a positive answer. Chen was founded
in 1954 and differed somewhat from Olim. While Mati’s hegemony
achieved within a decade, Chen’s group of five leaders which was
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
241
structured in gar’in days, remained stable for two decades, and lost only
one member, the only woman, whom I have called Michal, who as a
young mother, fought for family boarding of children, lost the battle and
left with her family. The internal differentiation of leadership which made
Shaul more powerful than the others, emerged only in the late 1970s when
Shaul advanced to be a TKM’s financier during the days of the Balas
affair (Chap. 3), and became locally powerful, similar to Mati. This led to
low morality: He advised Chen’s young treasurer to direct Chen’s money
into a small bank where it was lost due to bankruptcy caused by
managerial fraud. The managers of the bank who were convicted of
embezzling clients’ money and returned only a small part of it, had been
Shaul’s close friends. Though it is unknown how much he profited from
directing Chen’s money into their bank, there was no doubt among
interviewees that he had made significant profit. But let us first see his
personal gains from Chen’s industrialization failure.
From inception, the state of Chen’s agriculture was critical: There was
insufficient water for irrigation and poor lands, some of which were
shallow and had never been cultivated before. Population, however, grew
quickly thanks to an independent youth movement in Latin America which
sent graduates to Chen.11 In the era of slumping agricultural prices,
although Chen suffered from members’ underemployment, and although
almost all kibbutzim without industry established plants, Chen leaders
evaded it up to 1966, using ideological reasoning (see below), but actually
motivated by personal interest. This was exposed after the 1966 decision
to set up a plant; no leader took the challenge upon himself, they all
preferred circulation between chief offices and pe’ilut during which they
gained higher education, and positions as emissaries abroad.
In 1968, a young member, a student of practical mechanical
engineering, agreed to try to seek a plant and was formally authorized.
However, when he asked to extend his studies to industrial engineering, as
well, as his task clearly required, he was turned down. He decided to study
on his own, received double diplomas, but no factory emerged from his
efforts. From descriptions of the many problems he and his colleagues
faced, it was clear that they failed for the same reason that extended
studies were denied: Chen’s leaders wanted a plant but feared its
11 See Fadida 1972 for details.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
242
manager’s success.
Leaders soon found a solution which better served their dominance: a
partnership in the successful plant of a veteran neighboring kibbutz
(fifteen kilometers away) which would employ 20 members. There were
clear drawbacks: Chen members would replace hired workers, work shifts
on production lines with little room for acquiring expertise and
promotion.12 Chen would pay for its share in the plant’s assets, 20% from
its share of profits, so there would be no profits in the near future, and the
plant could not accommodate other Chen needs, such as intermittent work
for women with toddlers, partial work for high-school youth, etc. In order
to solve the latter problem, it was agreed to transfer to Chen, within a
certain period, a department that was not integral to the main lines, as did
Kochav with its adjacent partner (Chap. 17).
Ichud pe’ilim supported the partnership, asserting that Chen would fail
to establish a viable plant. The practical engineer, however, pointed out
that they were just echoing Chen’s leaders with whom they had close ties
from earlier pe’ilut. Their previous refusal to take on the challenge of
plant establishment and their undermining his own efforts supported his
assertion. A partnership promised them comfortable administrative jobs
due to their managerial record, and no elevation of a competing young
leader. Indeed, Shaul became the plant’s economic analyst, while some
twenty, and later on thirty, Chen members worked on the lines, mostly on
shifts, and were treated much like the hired workers they supplanted,
rather than true partners whose voices were heard, as was usual in such
plants.13 No department was transferred, and when the plant suffered a
serious setback in the early 1980s, Chen resumed its own efforts to set up
a plant. Alas, the two attempts in which years of effort, in addition to the
approximately US$1,500,000 which was invested, resulted in a small
service workshop with nine employees that barely recovered investments.
While the negative economic environment of this era partially explains
these failures, indications were that, prior brain-drain and minimal support
by principal leaders were decisive in both failures.
12 Rosner et al. 1980; Shapira 1980; Shimony 1983. 13 See the same in Kressel 1974; Rosner et al. 1980; Shimony 1983.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
243
Communal Boarding and Members’ Complacency Leaders’ power considerations also explain Chen’s late and costly change
to family boarding of children. Chen’s communal boarding disappointed
parents from inception, as turnover of metaplot (nurses, caretaker women.
singular: metapelet; see Near 1992: 51) was staggering, and there were
many other unsolved educational problems. However, all prime leaders
except one opposed the change, and after Michal and her family had left in
1957, the issue was not raised again, both for ideological reasons and the
fact that it served to further the dominance by conservative leaders, as in
Olim.
However, a decade later, Chen was entitled to a large sum of money
from the Jewish Agency as final funding for its basic building plan, and,
as many of the Ichud kibbutzim had either made or planned the change to
family boarding, had Chen followed their lead, family flats could have
been enlarged instead of building more children houses. Many members
wanted this, but prime leaders objected, seemingly due to loyalty to Ichud
heads who made them pe’ilim. They used their power to prevent public
discussion of the matter, and led building of children houses. Soon after
building was completed, it was decided to change to family boarding, but
then, enlarging family flats was done at Chen’s expense and created heavy
debts, a major reason for its deep financial crisis in 1987-8 in which half
of the members left, including all chief officers.
At first glance, Chen’s leaders were complacent due to dependency on
the Jewish Agency which provided the money, as Rosolio (1999) asserted.
Closer inspection, however, raises questions which the dependency thesis
cannot answer: Chen’s leaders knew that many kibbutzim had changed to
family boarding in spite of the opposition of Ichud heads and a study by a
kibbutz member, sociologist Y. Shepher (1967), which supported
communal boarding. They were experienced enough to know their actions
could be a major mistake, and that there would be immense financial
difficulty if this change were made after final funding had been used for
children houses. They knew that many members preferred the change. So
why did they not ask member opinion for such a decisive decision? The
most plausible answer was that they did not believe complacent members
would dare to support the change against their unified objection, while
members’ complacency could be explained by the same Hirschmanian
selective exit of radicals, innovators and critical thinkers as in Olim.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
244
Retention of a Tiny Minority, Largely of Complacent
Members Both kibbutzim suffered low member retention rate: According to Topel
(1979: 7) Olim grew from 59 founders in 1949 to 197 members in 1975,
but only 43% of both founders and joiners remained. However, this figure
underestimates the exit rate since it includes only those who became
members, but not the many, maybe a similar number, who exited after a
year or two in Olim before formal membership. Chen was considered
more stable and its members proudly told Fadida (1972: 10): “Chen is not
a train station”. A ‘train station’ was Carmelit (next chapter) which
received 22 hashlamot numbering 25-40 members each, but only 120
members remained from these 500-800 people, i.e., 12-25%.14 Olim was
more stable, as proved by its growth, and so was Chen: its yearly exit rate
was 6.6%, in comparison to the average annual exit rate of 8.8% in the
Ichud’s younger kibbutzim. However, even so, out of 202 hashlamot
members who joined Chen up to 1969, 126 (65%) left up to that year, and
together with those who left before formal membership, the exit rate
reached 80% (Fadida 1972: 9-10).
Many exits followed group leader exits. A few leaders left as their ideas
of kibbutz life differed radically from what they found when joining, and
there were those who failed to cope with communal hardships. These exits
were not followed by others, as shown by the case of Michal, who insisted
on family boarding. Although she was a main leader in the youth
movement (one interviewee said: “She was like Hazan in the KA”), and
her husband was Chen’s first treasurer, almost all members opposed
family boarding in the 1950s, and the couple’s exit apparently caused little
following.15
Completely different outcomes followed departures by hashlamot
leaders who had become successful branch managers, advanced to chief
offices, tried to innovate to answer members’ interests, wishes and beliefs,
but felt that they were failed by the old guard. Their despair and exit was
usually followed by most of their mates, and the few who stayed were
14 Schwartz & Naor 2000: 57.
15 See similar stabilization after an initial exit period in Hazorea: Shatil 1977:
110-4.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
245
either loyalists of this guard, expediency seekers, naive zealots or
careerists whose success had little prospect of repeating itself on the
outside, especially mediocre ones who had advanced to jobs vacated by
exiting leaders. This was the case with the mass exit by hashlama
members who had joined Chen in 1972-3: Until the 1987 crisis, they
mostly followed their leaders and stayed; then, almost all of them left
following the exit of their leaders who had held all Chen’s chief offices
and most branch manager jobs.16 Most of the few who remained inherited
the vacated offices.17 Almost all interviewees, except the heirs, referred to
these hashlama leaders with great respect. They left in spite of their
success in jobs due to disillusionment: the knowledge that it would be
impossible to achieve kibbutz ideals with the low-moral old guard holding
the ropes. Miri, the wife of one of the leaving leaders, explained:
“When I joined Chen, the first impression was wonderful; people tried to
help us in various ways, relationships were warm and after a year of work
in the dining hall, I was allocated the work I wanted and knew, sewing.
After I gave birth to a boy and a girl, I became branch manager, succeeded
and was satisfied, but then it all exploded in my face… From the age of
ten, I had been educated in the youth movement according to values of
kibbutz, equality and Zionism, and then, in one moment, I felt that all of
this grand ideology on which I had been educated disintegrated; all of it
collapsed, was shaky, standing on one leg. There was no more ideological
reason to stay while our group disintegrated… [We left] though we knew
we would not be paid the severance payments owed us by the kibbutz, not
only due to its bad financial situation, but also due to animosity to my
husband by his heir and his partners”.
Most true leaders, like those of the above hashlama, had left their birth
place, middle class families and promises of affluence and career advance
in order to join kibbutzim, mainly for ideological reasons. What “exploded
in” Miri’s “face” and ended the couple’s belief in kibbutz life, leading to
their exit, was the financial scandal caused by Shaul’s advice, mentioned
above and further described below. Her testimony points to the domino
effect of the exit of influential leaders: first, one of the hashlama leaders
who was the treasurer when almost all Chen’s money was lost in the bank
16 On such leaving en masse in a quite similar young kibbutz: Bowes 1989: 37. 17 See the same in Carmelit: Schwartz & Naor 2000: 44.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
246
embezzlement resigned and left, then two other leaders left, Miri’s
husband and Chen’s secretary, and then, most hashlama members. The
ideological explanation for the leaders’ exit is supported by the fact their
success in jobs promised their advance to pe’ilut had they remained, in
comparison to the loss of status and sharp drop in standard of living
caused by exiting to unfavorable job market with nine per cent
unemployment, and without severance payments (see below). When
interviewed in 1991, after four years outside Chen, they were all still
worse off and were fighting Chen’s lawyers regarding severance
payments.
Veteran Leaders’ Corruption Was to Blame Miri’s husband, Moti, was Chen’s chief economic officer for three years
before leaving. In the two years previous to that position he had been
kibbutz secretary, and earlier, he had managed the cow barn. He and his
hashlama friend, who was the treasurer, had not imagined that Shaul could
lead them to such an immense financial failure which had cost Chen
millions of $US (the exact sum is unknown due to the secrecy of Chen’s
officers and records). He could not believe that Shaul would put Chen at
such great risk due to his friendly relations with the swindlers while he
had been a pa’il of the TKM Fund, and the desire to obtain a slightly
higher interest rate than that of solid banking. This resembled Balas affair,
thus pointing that also due to uncritical thinking Shaul induced the
greenhorn treasurer to deposit all of Chen’s money in the small bank, and
when it went bankrupt due to managerial fraud, Chen was left almost
penniless. Up to bankruptcy, Moti and Miri knew that Shaul was an
influential figure in Chen, but they then learned from their friend, the
treasurer, how Shaul had led him to the gross mistake while Shaul,
himself, stayed clear of the scandal in members’ eyes. Moti found clear
signs that Shaul had privately received money from the swindlers, and
then found that another prime leader, a successful careerist, who was an
executive of a large arms manufacturer, was turning in only a modest
salary while earning much more in secret deals abroad. Moti tried to force
the two to deposit these monies into Chen’s empty bank account, but
failed.
Testimony by other interviewees leaves little doubt that both these
leaders could not be trusted when they denied taking any money; signs
were that they had been corrupted by continuous rule. No better was the
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
247
third of Chen’s prime leaders for the first two decades, who became a
lawyer and left the kibbutz in 1974: He was found guilty of embezzlement
of customers’ money and lost his lawyer’s certificate for five years. As a
close friend, neighbor and colleague of both Shaul and the arms firm
executive, it is plausible that his corruption had also influenced the two.
Moti and Miri rightly concluded that hashlama leaders were just pawns on
the chess board of these self-serving power-holders. Chen veterans did not
uncover this as they were complacent, and had become reconciled with
low-moral, autocratic leadership long ago. They stayed either due to
loyalty to these leaders, expediency or due to the naiveté of zealots.
However, the last straw, which pushed Moti and Miri out was the
election of Chaya, one of the lesser members of their group, as kibbutz
secretary since this exposed the decline of leadership when genuine
leaders exit. They characterized her as “a narrow, closed-minded woman”,
and I also found her non-socialist, cynical and secretive. Her advantage
seemed to be forecasting the resignation and departure of chief officers,
and as she said: “Whenever someone threw down the keys (i.e., resigned),
I lifted them” (i.e., took the job; see the same with Yosef in the next
chapter). It seemed that Shaul was behind Chaya’s nomination: When he
returned from pe’ilut in 1990, Chaya proposed his nomination as treasurer,
presenting him as a great financier and Chen’s savior, ignoring his
involvement in the scandal and the huge losses incurred.18 No one wanted
the job, and he was chosen. As a savior, he soon led to wholesale
privatization that, within a few years, left little egalitarianism and
communalism, and seemingly assured the supremacy of the two for good
(Chaya advanced to a TKM job some years later).
A Complacent Selective Constituency Helped Leaders’
Corruption Such corruption of leaders is inexplicable without Chen’s conservatism
filtering out all critically minded members and radicals except for
powerless newcomers, loyalists, naive zealots and complacent others
whose opinions counted very little in leaders’ eyes as they rarely dared to
criticize leaders’ low morality or publicly oppose their policies. As in
Rama, Olim and Carmelit below, leaders’ rule was largely informal by
18 For similar choosing of failing officers in other kibbutzim see: Kressel 1991.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
248
heading ‘fortified power structures’ of loyal client officers; members
could not replace them, like the Admors. Even more serious, their role in
shaping and implementing decisions was largely unknown, like in Sasson-
Levy’s (1995) case of ‘The 21th Year’, even unknown to chief officers
who were not their clients, as was in Chen case. However, leaders’ power
and prestige were known and apprehended; thus, few dared to criticize
them, so they were out of members’ democratic control. This
undemocratic rule plus breach of trust by leaders, disintegrated Chen’s
group of founders which had still included 39 members in 1969. In 1991,
however, only 8 remained. The remaining few were viewed by leaders as
incompetents, unable to fend for themselves on the outside, and their
views were ignored.
Hirschmanian selective retention of loyalists and complacent members
encouraged leaders’ corruption. This is especially decisive in democracies
(or supposed democracies) which are susceptible to mass departure, as
Hirschman (1995) explained the demise of East Germany’s communist
regime. Much the same was true of the three younger kibbutzim analyzed
here: Kibbutz societal involvement expanded possibilities for conscripting
hashlamot, but hashlamot enhanced the tendency to cycles of mass exit,
brain-drain and retention of only complacent members due to the old
guard’s suppression of innovators, while complacency of those who
stayed, enhanced its corruption.
Additional Ideological Factor: Backward Looking to the
1920s In Chen’s case, there was additional reason for complacent members:
naiveté due to looking backward to solutions which had already been
abandoned as impractical. Once again, this contradicted Rosolio’s (1999)
dependency thesis, and was explained by an ideological-conceptual trap.
Chen founders had been a gar’in in veteran and conservative Kvutzat
Kinneret.19 This choice of training place was deliberate. Explained
Michal:
“We already knew in the youth movement abroad that some kibbutzim
used communa alef and some communa bet, and we even knew at which
19 It was called kvutza (group) as founders sought family-like smallness
(Landshut 2000[1944]).
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
249
kibbutz we wanted to stay as a gar’in - in a kibbutz which was not very
political and one that was an example of the best of kibbutzim”.
Communa Alef (communa for communism, alef meant A) was
conceived in 1921 by Kibbutz Alef of Hashomer Hatza’ir headed by
Yaari, aiming at total equality: clothes became communal, as after each
weekly washing by the laundry they were all distributed anew.20 In
Communa Bet (i.e. B), everyone had his own marked clothes and minor
differentiation emerged, even though new clothes were bought collectively
and distributed equally. Communa Alef vanished in the 1940s as
impractical; Communa Bet became the norm, including Kinneret. Nor was
there a “not very political” kibbutz: each Movement was affiliated to a
political party. This gar’in wanted a kibbutz that had vanished, and were
amazed and even disappointed when first seeing Kinneret’s nice dining
hall. Michal said:
“At first I thought ‘maybe there was no more need for pioneering’ [if
kibbutzim were so wealthy].”
Another surprise was the lack of rotatzia in many offices, contrary to
their beliefs. They viewed this as a flagrant violation of principle, and in
Chen’s first years all officers and committees were chosen each year
anew, like in ancient Athens. They also tried Communa Alef for some
years. “We were very idealistic” she said, “and made many mistakes, not
learning enough from the experience of veteran kibbutzim since we
wanted to try everything anew by ourselves”, the opposite of Rosolio’s
(1999) complacency thesis.
Chen paid dearly for looking backward, by remaining a small, poor,
isolated, agricultural kibbutz for years, suffering from an adjacent hostile
border,21 and dependent on others’ help. Facing failure, the leaders joined
the Ichud which sent them guides, veteran kibbutz members who brought
conflicting ideas concerning what a good kibbutz was. Some Ichud
kibbutzim were Kinneret-like, espousing self-work, smallness,
conservatism and agriculturalism, while others were industrialized, large
and imitative like Netzer Sireni and Afikim. However, only a few were
creative in the 1960s-1970s, for instance, industrialized by self-work (see
20 Bloch 1984[1921]: 32. 21 See Gorkin 1971 about a hostile border’s influence on kibbutz life.
14. Patronage and Moral Decline of Circulative Leaders
250
Carmelit below; similar were Geva, Magal and Hatzerim). Thus, looking
backward by Chen’s leaders suited conservative Ichud heads who
resembled Admors, and they were rewarded by pe’ilut which enabled the
acquisition of higher education for the furthering of outside careers.
Fadida (1972: 77-92) depicted bitter conflicts as many members in 1969
wanted higher education, but privileged leaders did not seek any
egalitarian creative solution like the one which rescued Carmelit (Next
chapter). This was another reason for the founder group’s disintegration.
No less than Rama and Olim, low-moral leadership decided Chen’s
fate, as it did in Carmelit from 1986, after prior two decades of success
due to high-moral, creative leadership, that had rescued it from the
previous decade and a half of failures, since its inception in 1951.
CHAPTER 15
Carmelit: A Self-Server Who Appropriated Others’
Creativity
The case of Carmelit indicates both the decisiveness of creative, trusted
leadership for kibbutz culture, and the vulnerability of this culture in a
crisis era when no larger movement supports it and many kibbutzim
forsake it. A veteran, self-serving and astute politician called Barak by
ethnographers Schwartz and Naor (2000), who advanced by circulation
between pe’ilut and local chief offices, patiently pulled the strings in his
favor after he became plant manager and controlled the main income
source of Carmelit. In contrast, another prime leader who had headed a
large FO, resigned and left the kibbutz in despair, realizing that he had no
chance of overcoming the conservatism of the heads of other economic
FOs and the megalomanic TKM heads. Barak built a power clique of
loyalists in the economic committee by which he reigned while circulating
to pe’ilut and back to plant management. Using the high tide in the Israeli
capital market, he turned the plant into a capitalist firm, and with help
from capitalist-leaning professionals, as has recently become common, he
ruined the communal culture.1 For Schwartz and Naor this was a
democratic change, but careful reading of their book, along with
knowledge from other sources and a few interviews with key figures has
exposed autocracy like previous cases.
The ethnography is entitled “Without Breaking the Tools: The Story of
a Planned Change in One Kibbutz”, but it exposed a decade of series of
‘change teams’ failing one after another in a crisis atmosphere of officer
resignations, main elite member exits and ex-officers and other talented
members abstention from offices. This proved that the change was far
from planned and that the main tools of past success had been broken:
Self-work and leaders modeling shift-work on the line vanished,
egalitarianism and democracy became meaningless, as the plant, which
1 Shapira 1992; Pavin 1994; Bein 1995; See similar impact in the US: Darr &
Stern 2002.
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
252
brought in 85% of kibbutz income became rich and separated into a
capitalist, bureaucratic firm dominated by one man who privileged himself
and his aides at the expense of the kibbutz. The kibbutz itself became poor
and dependent as it took the plant’s debts upon itself, while this man and
his loyalists also directly controlled kibbutz economy by economic
committee membership. Members thereby lost control of the main asset
which they had built twenty years for the kibbutz sustenance and lost trust
in their future as they were forsaken by almost all of the elite which had
led them to success. First Tomer, who had been the plant’s founder and
manager for a decade, left, and afterwards, twenty others who had been
designated ‘the pillars of Carmelit’ also exited (p. 114).
Carmelit is presented as a successful democracy, but the facts expose
an autocracy of a patron and his clique: The change led to “the
enhancement of economic-managerial elite rule” (p. 195), which included
six-seven members who were more powerful than is usual in kibbutzim (p.
90). They were mostly pe’ilim and a “de-facto board of directors [of
Carmelit] with two differences [that enhanced power]: On the one hand, it
was impossible to sue them for their mistakes… and, on the other, the
power they accumulated was greater than that of the usual board of
directors” (p. 146). Among this clique, “after Tomer left and so did
another plant manager, Hagay, the primacy of Barak was unchallenged”
(p. 90). Thus, Barak ruled through the clique which decided all financial
issues; he headed the plant’s board of directors which controlled kibbutz
sustenance, while also acting as the Chief Executive Officer of a large
national monopoly that made his salary, prestige, privileges and future
pension independent of the kibbutz. He was remunerated many times more
than members for an unlimited tenure. This was autocracy and it was not a
genuine democratic choice by members which brought it about.
The authors explained the change by
“[t]he memory of massive improvements after new beginnings, a
disposition to take seriously the ideas and the demands of the elite, a good
social and economic situation, and the dominance of an industrial plant run
according to managerial-capitalist rules” (p. XV).
While this memory might have helped the change, the rest is
questionable: Anthropologist Warhurst (1996, 1998) found the plant in
1988 socialistic, without hired labor; thus the “managerial-capitalist rules”
constituted a radical change, while “a good social and economic situation”
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
253
tended to enhance the culture that brought it about, rather than its
abandonment by radical changes. Secondly, the elite was clearly divided
about ideas of change: The minority, patron Barak and his clique of 7-8
members pushed for capitalist changes, while most other elite members
opposed them, as testify the leaving of the twelve families who were “the
pillars of Carmelit” (p. 114) after Barak proved unbeatable (see below). In
addition two veteran leaders who stayed, Avraham and Sagi, objected to
the changes for years (pp. 115, 157). Moreover, if the elite supported it,
why did its members who stayed decline chief offices for years,
engendering a crisis? Was it democratic that Barak’s loyalist, Yosef, took
all chief offices upon himself for a year and a half (p. 114)? Furthermore,
if members were disposed to take seriously the ideas of elite, why did it
take almost a decade and many crises to implement them? All facts prove
that, contrary to the authors’ assertion, members had to decide with which
elite group they sided, as one group objected to the change that the other
pushed for.
In fact, the change was an unplanned victory for Barak’s autocracy
which ruined solidaristic democracy, led to the exit of most of the
opposing leaders, and the rest, two elders, surrendered after prolonged
objection and stood aside as kibbutz culture was ruined. How did Barak do
it? Barak followed the maxim “If you can’t beat them, join them”.
Carmelit was founded in 1951, but until Tomer succeeded with the plant
in the 1970s, it was the poorest and smallest of the kibbutzim in the region
with staggering exit rates of 80-88%. The plant succeeded despite
obstruction efforts by conservative chief economic officer Barak, since
young Tomer was highly trusted thanks to servant, transformational
leadership which created an egalitarian culture, although with some
autocratic elements, and because he was backed by veteran social leaders
Avraham and Sagi (p. 58-9). After his 1974 failure to obstruct Tomer’s
efforts, Barak turned to pe’ilut, while, in local politics he reversed his
position and supported Tomer, and when, after a decade of plant success,
Tomer advanced to head the Reg.Ents concern, Barak succeeded him. I
interviewed Tomer and he explained that he had terminated pe’ilut early
and left Carmelit at the height of the debt crisis in 1986, disappointed by
the conservatism and passivity of TKM’s heads and other senior economic
pe’ilim (Chap. 3). Barak, on the other hand, sided with TKM pe’ilim, as
indicated by his 1988 advance to high-level economic pe’ilut. He was
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
254
replaced by loyalist Hagay (whom I interviewed), and then commenced
the capitalistic drive. As this caused a major crisis, but no formal change,
he used a more Machiavellian way: Carmelit’s share of repayment of FO
debts was quite large, and together with its own debts, its financial
situation was not very favorable, making some budget cuts necessary (p.
92-4). However, the plant was profitable and there was no objective
reason for a radical change (p. 105), but he and his clique amplified
worries among the members by pointing to negative economic indicators
(p. 93-4), and as controllers of the economy, they turned the plant into a
public firm and issued it on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 1993, while
transferring its debts to the kibbutz. They deliberately made Carmelit poor
and dependent on the plant (p. 105-7), while “the results of the change
through which the plant and the kibbutz had gone, were not clear at all to
members” (p. 108).
This was clearly undemocratic; in reality it was a deception which
suited Barak’s interests but not those of the members. Barak elevated his
status to Head of the Board of Directors, thus detaching himself from
managerial challenges and minimizing danger of failures which might
cause succession (p. 111), while the introduction of capitalist norms
abolished rotatzia and assured his unlimited tenure. He furnished himself
with a fancy new car, no longer shared by members, signaling his higher
status (p. 195). Self-work was abandoned by introducing hired labor,
making the plant independent of members’ will to work in it (p. 138).
Moreover, due to his FO ties while he was free of day-to-day managerial
decision-making, he got a higher outside job that furthered his power,
prestige and privileges, making him independent of members’ control.
Impoverished Carmelit was pressed to take austerity measures, another
crisis ensued and further changes seemed required (p. 107). Then came
even more crises (pp. 133, 139, 190), each one helping to bring about
further capitalist changes which enhanced Barak’s control (p. 195).
How Was Barak’s Advance to Autocracy Misinterpreted? Without referring to Michels, Mosca, Pareto, Dalton, Jay and other
oligarchy classics, the authors missed leaders’ Machiavellian presentation
of deeds aimed at enhancing their own interests as serving public ones.
Carmelit was no exception; it did not need the radical change which
served the patron and his clique of dependent clients:
“Barak was the principal member of this elite; he has great influence on
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
255
the image of the rest of its members, including the ability to decide who is
admitted to this elite, who continues in it, and who does not” (p. 82-3).
Barak used this ability to “drive away all those who did not accept his
authority” (p. 90), and suppressed young talented officers much like Rama
economists: he “finds weak spots” in a chief economic officer’s plan “and
in a moment he invalidates it…, he ruins the officer’s confidence, and
pulls the carpet from under his feet. He enjoys it. This is what they
[Barak’s clique members] did to chief economic officers to belittle them”
(p. 85). Tomer described to me Barak’s authoritarianism in 1973-4, when
Tomer led the plant’s establishment and Barak was chief economic
officer:
“When he came to a meeting he always tried to force his views on others,
but since a coalition was stronger than a lone fighter, we prevailed. I
always did my homework, finding out in advance what his intention was
and preparing my fellow officers for it; thus, he failed [to bar plant
establishment] and soon left [the chief economic office] for pe’ilut”.
Barak learned his lesson: he joined the winner in the economic
committee and waited a decade to succeed him while keeping managerial
status by pe’ilut, building a clique of loyal clients, and centralizing
control: “Barak was a ‘landlord’; every major decision went through him”
(p. 85). As in earlier cases, short-term chief officers were weak
apprentices of local politics and subject to patron Barak’s power. Only
those who proved loyal clients and were grasped as augmenting his power
were elevated to its hub, the clique of loyalists who continued economic
committee membership. As an astute politician, Barak was careful not to
lose power by direct involvement in battles he was not sure of winning. He
stayed away from difficult problems, sent clients to cope with them,
withheld support if they faced failure, and reimbursed them later on, as,
for instance, occurred with the nomination for plant manager in 1993, after
his promotion to head the Board of Directors. Although it was his
responsibility as head of the Board to propose a successor, Barak shirked
this duty, let two candidates compete, and when his protégé Yosef failed,
he soon found him another chief office, proving that loyalty was duly
rewarded. As was explained in Chapter 11, abstention from direct
involvement preserved his prestige and power. Thus, when Gadi, who
headed a ‘change team’, proposed the changes that Barak wanted but
which led to mass resistance and were bound to fail, Barak’s clique caused
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
256
his resignation, while later on it supported the same proposals, when it saw
good prospects for winning (p. 94-103).
Enhanced Power, Prestige and Privileges, Minimal
Accountability Ethnographers exposed Barak’s power, but not how he orchestrated
changes. They chose Carmelit to study a successful kibbutz democracy,
and so convinced were they in their choice that they missed de-facto
disappearance of democracy years earlier with the plant’s capitalistic
change and making the kibbutz poor and dependent on it. This change
enhanced Barak’s rule and destroyed any chance of opposition considering
the extra power it had given him; hence, most opposing leaders, “the
pillars of Carmelit”, left. The authors exposed tricky enrichment of the
plant at the expense of the kibbutz without members understanding, but
ignored the ruined trust which is essential for solidaristic democracy. Even
though the kibbutz was rich in qualified economists, an outside treasurer
was hired for the plant, but the authors missed its significance: 1. The new
treasurer replaced the kibbutz treasurer who had managed the plant’s
finances hitherto (p. 108), thus plausible divide et impera of the two
treasurers enhanced Barak’s rule. 2. As a ‘parachuted’ outsider, the new
treasurer was more dependent on Barak than any insider, like Shavit
dependency on Zelikovich.2
The authors missed how members were convinced to support the final
blow to kibbutz culture by Barak and his clique, market rate salaries, that
is high rewards for themselves and low rewards for others (p. 121). This
had to be done without creating a self-serving image in order to gain
public support; hence, it was the task of those aspiring to join the clique,
heads of successive ‘change teams’. As it was hard to create the image that
‘everyone would win’ for members to believe this bluff and support it, a
series of crises were required to bring it about: First, “the pillars of
Carmelit” left, including an ex-secretary and the plant manager. Then
democratic organs stopped functioning as no able candidates were found
for chief offices, hence, Barak’s loyalist, Yosef, assumed all chief offices,
like Chen’s Haya in a similar situation. Soon births dropped sharply amid
2 See it in Parkinson (1957). On the use of hired aides to enhance managerial
control of kibbutz plants: Kressel 1974: 33-7; Shapira 1980: 35.
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
257
an “atmosphere of depression”. After a year and a half, veteran leader
Avraham (see below) decided that capitalist changes were inevitable and
agreed to be secretary once more (p. 115); outside consultants were
brought in to convince members; another ‘change team’ tried hard to
introduce changes, was ‘burned’ in the process and resigned after the
clique had withheld support (p. 167). Only a third team succeeded when
the last opposing veteran leaders who had not left, Sagi and his wife (see
below), surrendered (p. 157). Soon after, Barak increased his rule by
introducing more changes (p. 195).
One question remains: When Barak went to pe’ilut in 1988, did he not
fear the success of his successor in plant management, like Mati’s
apprehension of the engineer that prevented industrialization? This was a
risk, but not a great one. I interviewed the successor and found him to be a
supporter of Barak’s capitalist drive. Thus, even if he had stayed, Barak’s
higher status, seniority and hegemony of the economic committee through
his clique of clients, assured his becoming head of the plant’s board of
directors after it had become a capitalist firm.
Industrialization Geared to Kibbutz Ethos Required
Creativity How did Barak succeed even though his outside career was not a success
at first, and although he was defeated internally, failing to obstruct the
plant?
Once again, creativity and FOs were keys to understanding. As
explained, due to Admors’ dysfunctioning, early kibbutz plants imitated
capitalist plants. Carmelit’s first founding group dissolved within a few
years. One reason was the imitation of capitalist firms. Like Chen, it
lacked water and fertile land, so a workshop for roof tiles was founded
which used a capitalist practice for motivating workers, a daily quota, and
this caused its failure as it prompted stark inequality: while all other
kibbutz members worked all day long, most workshop workers finished
their day’s work before noon, completing the daily quota of 250 tiles. This
quota was used by non-kibbutz tile workshops, and was introduced since,
at first, without it, there was low productivity and no profits (p. 43). The
conflict between those opposing the workshop and ‘innovators’ who
supported its imitation, helped the disintegration of the poor, unsuccessful
kibbutz.
The deserted kibbutz in which only Avraham remained of the first
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
258
settlers, was renewed in 1957 by a new gar’in. Until 1965, Carmelit was
in a worse state than Olim and Chen: a failing economy like Chen’s, and a
‘train station’. This caused an important difference: No powerful leaders
emerged, because ex-chief officers did not advance to pe’ilut, as their
failing kibbutz gave them little prestige, and/or they found no patrons.
They exited at the end of their terms and members followed suit (pp. 50-
5). In 1964, a fifty member hashlama group arrived at a time when veteran
kibbutz membership totaled 38. The hashlama members were upper-
middle class, coming from affluent neighborhoods in large cities and like
their urban peers expected to receive higher education (p. 54). Creativity
by two leaders who understood the problem of higher education for all,
which kibbutz norms did not offer at that time, rescued them from the fate
of previous hashlama groups, early disintegration and exit: Avraham, a
Palmach veteran who served as secretary “maybe 16 times” (p. 56), and
Sagi, who coached this hashlama, introduced a radical solution. Seeking
to stop exits, the two found that the main reason was the desire for higher
education. Together with hashlama leaders, they devised by-laws by
which the kibbutz would fulfill this wish, including priority to women so
that they could study before having children, and they convinced the
kibbutz to adopt these by-laws. Hashlama members stayed even though
some waited a decade for their turn at higher education. Their willingness
to wait so long, explicable by the innovation of higher education for all
and the new hope it gave for success of the kibbutz.3
In early 1970s when a large number of educated members desired
careers for their enhanced competencies, Sagi and hashlama leaders
initiated the establishment of a plant, and Avraham joined them to defeat
opposition by chief economic officer Barak who tried to obstruct the plant
even during its building and assembly of equipment (p. 58-60). Avraham’s
and Sagi’s support was decisive for success, as Barak was a veteran
economic decision-maker, while Tomer, a hashlama member, was still a
student in 1973 when persuaded by Sagi to stop his studies and head the
plant, as the previous founding manager had resigned and left (p. 59),
apparently due to Barak’s obstruction efforts.
Tomer’s creative leadership promoted a culture tuned to kibbutz ethos:
he was much involved on the shop floor and modeled high commitment by
3 See next chapters and Gamson 1977; Noy 1977; Shur 1977.
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
259
working shifts on the line when needed, while all senior plant staff, as well
as administrative and maintenance staff, were obliged to work a weekly
evening or night shift on the line, a norm favored by Avraham and Sagi.
Their guidance and support led to Tomer’s success in ensuring self-work,
although it increased plant dependency on kibbutz officers’ good will,
while the senior chief kibbutz officer, Barak, was hostile. It seemed that
the two had neutralized Barak’s opposition, and members eagerly joined
the plant which enhanced their participation in its norm shaping. For
instance, experienced workers were among those sent abroad to learn
about innovations. As in the Rama’s cow barn, great effort was invested in
creating team-work and solidarity; hence, educated members remained as
operators of automated lines and enhanced creativity and efficiency.4 The
plant’s finances were managed together with Carmelit’s by one treasurer
in one bank account, so few suspicions emerged among kibbutz officers
concerning its transactions. Success was also due to Tomer’s adapting jobs
to competencies of members; the sophisticated plant offered no less than
35 specialties to choose from (p. 62).
Tomer, however, was inconsistent and partially imitated the outside
firm whose head had brought the plant proposal to Carmelit (p. 61-3). This
partial imitation helped Barak’s efforts in the 1990s: many members did
not view the change to a capitalist firm as a major one and saw little
reason to resist it (p. 108).
FOs’ Conservatism, Creativity Loss and Veterans’ Natural
Rights Schwartz’s and Naor’s main omission, as usual in kibbutz ethnographies,
was the oligarchic context of Carmelit, capitalist-like FOs in which ex-
chief kibbutz officers retained managerial status and advanced careers.
Barak could not have won without repeated FO jobs since his 1974 failure.
Using CKP, the authors missed the fact that pe’ilut kept his managerial
status, helped him to succeed Tomer in 1983, and then to achieve higher
offices, while economic FOs were decisive for the building of his clique.
Its economists advanced through FO jobs (p. 146) which required
patronage, very likely by veteran pa’il and ex-pa’il Barak. Barak’s past
pe’ilut also seemed decisive for his 1988 promotion to head a major
4 Shapira 1977, 1979a, 1980; Warhurst 1996, 1998.
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
260
national economic FO and for his further promotion in 1993. Conservative
FOs helped Barak by encouraging Tomer’s departure; although he could
have come back to Carmelit after leaving the heading of the Reg.Ents in
despair in 1986, and he could certainly have been reinstated as plant
manager when Barak left for pe’ilut in 1988, but it was a status descent for
which he would have had to believe in a kibbutz future. In the interview,
however, he reiterated more than once that this belief had been lost in
years of witnessing FO mismanagement and backward-looking TKM
heads ignoring the impending crisis and objecting to any cut of inflated
bureaucracies. Tomer’s exit freed Barak of his main competitor for
Carmelit’s leadership. He could go on to pe’ilut in 1988, quite sure of his
own dominance. The pe’ilut enhanced his prestige, networked him to
professionals required for issuing the plant on the stock exchange, and to
national figures which very likely helped his advance to head the large
national monopoly.
The authors did not refer to Stryjan (1989) although they saw the
decisive effect of Avraham’s and Sagi’s creative solution for Carmelit
success, but without Stryjan’s theory they missed how this creativity and
Tomer’s creativity supported each other, and how vanishing creativity
after his exit paved the way for Barak’s victory. Parallel to this vanishing
creativity, Avraham, Sagi and those other “pillars of Carmelit” who had
opposed the capitalist change were silenced, since the media, all the
consultants, most FO heads and many other TKM kibbutzim supported
Barak’s capitalist drive. After the first prolonged crisis his drive
engendered, and without the support of “the pillars of Carmelit” as they
already left, old Avraham surrendered, and after two more crises, Sagi and
his wife did likewise. Members subsequently followed them, lacking any
opposition leader, as Fox (1985) has explained British workers compliance
(Chap. 6).
The authors celebrate the case as a democracy, but forget minority
rights: Barak’s clique ignored the natural rights of veterans who had built
the plant by many years of hard work. When it became a capitalist firm,
naturally, these veterans should have held much more of its stock and
voting power than other members who had invested fewer years. Alas, all
held equal voting rights as members of the kibbutz, which held eighty per
cent of the plant’s stock after its issue on the Stock Exchange. This was an
illegitimate appropriation of veterans’ efforts by newcomers. Had veterans
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
261
held their due part of the plant’s stock and voting power, they could have
decided on dividends for stock owners. By adding dividends to their low
pay as ordinary workers, technicians and foremen, they would have
enlarged their overall earnings beyond that of young workers, thereby duly
rewarding themselves for the dozens of years they had invested in
promoting the plant to its present status. Alas, this was against the interests
of Barak and the other managers as it would have diminished their
supremacy. They easily ignored the veterans, as securing their rights
would have required the devising of new bylaws, like those which Amana
communes devised in a similar situation in 1932, while inept TKM leaders
also shirked their duty to devise them.5
In conclusion, for over half of its fifty years, from 1951 to 1965, and
from 1986 to 2000, Carmelit resembled previous cases: conservatives and
imitators impaired creativity required for a successful kibbutz culture,
helped by conservative, imitative FO heads. Only when creative servant
leaders introduced higher education for all and developed industry which
was geared to the kibbutz ethos and the productive use of the acquired
educational resources, was success achieved. However, creativity vanished
when FOs both elevated the status and power of a self-serving
conservative patron and his clique, and frustrated a creative rival servant
leader who then left, leaving the prestige and power emanating from his
successful creativity to the patron, who, presumably helped by
connections to high-ranking pe’ilim, furthered his FO status and power.
Without creativity and with no transformational leaders who seek it, with
the field in crisis and drifting to further capitalist imitation, the veteran
patron and his clique used cynical, Machiavellian amplification of
members’ anxiety that their kibbutz would fail like others due to FO debts.
Masking the lack of any objective reason for apprehension, they
successfully promoted imitative changes that enhanced their rule without
members’ understanding, caused the departure of other rival leaders, while
a series of crises led to the surrender of the last opposing leaders and
eliminated kibbutz culture. Veterans were dispossessed of their natural
rights, and the rule by the patron had been permanently established.
With the detailed knowledge of three cases of communal cultures with
5 On Amana: Oved 1988: Chap. 4. Recently Mishmar Ha’emek and Gan Shmuel
devised such bylaws for such a future possible eventuality.
15. Carmelit: Self-Server Appropriated Others’ Creativity
262
mediocre success, and one successful case which turned capitalistic like
many successful DWOs (Stryjan 1989), let us examine high-moral
leadership, trust and creativity in a kibbutz where the original ethos and
culture largely survived up to the present.
CHAPTER 16
Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Curbed Rotatzia’s
Contrast with Creativity
“There is no reason to assume that a stable society can operate on the
principle of continuous exchange of personnel of authority positions”
(Dahrendorf 1959: 220-1).
Since the distinguished sociologist wrote the above concerning kibbutz
rotatzia, kibbutz society has thrived for decades without eliminating
rotatzia, while my analyses have proven that rotatzia did cause instability
in lower echelons, but the opposite in upper ones. Dahrendorf’s mistake
was missing the role of rotatzia in shaping complex leadership processes.
Ever since the Hawthorn studies of the 1930s, through all classics of large
organization ethnography, leaders’ and followers’ behaviors have time and
again proven inexplicable without unearthing informal action, hidden
deals, masked political efforts and other parts of the hidden iceberg of
power.1 This iceberg limits impact by short-term officers; continuous
others hold power and conserve or change a field’s culture and hegemonic
discourse, shape strategies and action modes, allocate vital resources,
define norms and enact major sanctions, while short-term officers do
routine tasks and solve technical problems, usually without lasting effects.
Rotatzia Furthered the Iceberg Phenomenon in Leadership One of the most stable and successful societies of our time was managed
up to the 1990s by governments whose heads were rotated every two
years. Vogel (1979) depicted Japan as Number One and others perceived
it as extremely successful,2 but even if they exaggerated as later years
proved, Japan’s stability amid rapid economic growth and rotatzia of
Prime Ministers cannot be denied.3 Similarly, ancient Athens was quite
1 In addition to these classics, political scientists: Banfield 1961; Bobbio 2002:
Chap. 4. 2 Dore 1973; Rohlen 1974; Ouchi 1981; Sako 1992; Fukuyama 1995. 3 For ethnographic explantions of Japan success and stability see: Kamata 1981;
Mehri 2005; Van Wolferen 1989.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
264
stable with yearly rotatzia of almost all of its administrators.4
Rotatzia breeds continuous power-holders, patrons and others who hold
the ropes mostly behind the scenes. In Latin America, until recently,
presidents were rotated and could not be re-elected; they were
constitutionally allowed only one four, five or six year term. Hence, the
main power was held by continuous senators, congressmen and other
senior oligarchic politicians.5 One of them, Don Fidel Velasquez, even
surpassed Admors continuity: in 1992 he was re-elected for the eighth
time, after 51 years in office, to continue to head Mexico’s trade union
federation, one of three sections of the PRI, the party that ruled from 1919
to 2000. Another powerful figure in Mexican politics was La Quina who
headed Mexico’s oil workers union for at least 37 years.6
Similarly, Japan’s bi-yearly replacement of prime ministers was
controlled in the 1970s and early 1980s by former Prime Minister Kaku’ai
Tanaka, and then until 1992, by Shin Kanemru, when the corruption that
enabled this control was exposed.7 Rotatzia prevented Prime Ministers
from accumulating enough power and capitals to prevail over the corrupt
political machines of the two. In addition to rotatzia, Tanaka’s and
Kanemru’s rule was supported by and, in turn, enhanced low-trust,
coercive and autocratic public officials. Japan lacked genuine civil rights,
a truly independent judiciary and free mass media which could help
servant leaders’ coping with these problems.8
Rotatzia furthered this iceberg phenomenon of leadership by
dissevering formal authority from power, while preventing comprehension
of leadership by formal studies. If, in a usual bureaucracy, formal study
exposes only the tip of the iceberg of the leadership process, in a rotatzia
organization, almost nothing is exposed by such a study. The kibbutz
dominant scientific coalition which stuck to formal methods, missed the
fact that rotational officers were just pawns on the chessboard of patrons,
as Moti and his mates in Chen discovered after years in chief offices.
4 Bowra 1971; Fuks 1976. See the same in Perkins & Poole (1996). 5 Davis 1958; Smith 1986; Sanders 1989; Linz 1990; Mainwaring 1990. 6 Sanders 1989: xii; Tzur 1992. 7 Van Wolferen 1989: Chap. 5; Kovner 1993; Newsweek 1993. 8 Van Wolferen 1989. See also ethnographies of autocracy in Japan’s largest car
maker and its involvement in politics: Kamata 1981; Mehri 2005.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
265
Formal methods did not expose the patrons and their interests, nor did they
discover the complex maneuvers by which patrons masked power and
capitals accumulation, and the efforts that turned others into their servants.
This masking was so successful that even in Kochav’s high-trust culture,
where information was shared more widely than in most kibbutzim,
rotatzia kept leadership processes largely hidden from members.
Kochav’s Success In previous cases, low-moral dominance by continuous patrons and power
elites was largely explained by FO oligarchic hegemony and imitation of
low-trust capitalist cultures. Kochav is a veteran kibbutz initially similar to
Rama, which had to cope with much the same hardships by quite similar
measures. The case of Kochav will further prove that morality of leaders is
the principal causal factor by showing that oligarchic holding of top FO
jobs did not prevent high morality within Kochav, so that rotatzia’s clash
with creativity was curbed, leading to Kochav success. However,
Hirschmanian negative selection of radicals in the promotion of kibbutz
officers to pe’ilut was true of Kochav’s leaders, like all other FO heads
and senior pe’ilim, and after the radicals were sidetracked or left in the
1970s, conservative circulators succeeded the old guard as main power-
holders and depressed creativity much as in previous cases.
In contrast to Rama’s 650 people, Kochav numbered 956 people in
1986, 550 of whom were members and candidates for membership.
Members and observers alike considered it very successful socially. In one
publication it is termed “a splendid kibbutz”, in another it is “the best
kibbutz of the region”, and a third called it “the flagship [of the
Movement]”.9 It resembled successful Kibbutz Makom studied by Liblich
(1984), but, at the time of observation, its economy resembled Rama’s,
suffering heavily from Israel’s unstable, inflationary economy. In 1985
alone, losses amounted to some $US 3,500,000 and exits soared from an
average of five members per year in 1981-5 to twenty annually in 1986-90
with a population decrease by more than a hundred. In the 1990s, it again
became profitable, many offspring who had exited came back, and, at
present, (2008) its situation is better than almost all other kibbutzim. For
9 In order to preserve anonymity I do not denote the sources of citations. Dates of
publications were: 8.11.1985; 18.2.1992; 11.9.1997.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
266
example, for the fifth consecutive year, members have received large
monetary bonuses due to a profitable plant with over $US 100 million in
sales, while the standard of living was already one of the highest among
kibbutzim. With economic success, all flats of families with children aged
fourteen years or less, were enlarged within a few years after deciding to
switch to family boarding in the early 1990s. Unlike Rama, economic
officers gave this project high priority, seeing it as their own
responsibility.
Leaders Solved the Plant’s Conflict Concerning Major
Norms A major reason for success was the relatively early industrialization. In
1949 a workshop was set up to employ aging members who, after three
decades of hard work, needed easier tasks. In the mid-1950s, it was
enlarged into a plant as a result of the new economic policy of hashlama
leaders who became chief officers after proving successful as branch
managers. They discerned a disparity between Kochav’s growing
population with mounting needs, and the relatively stagnant economy that
trailed kibbutzim which had industrialized earlier. They initiated major
workshop enlargement and entered new markets with fresh products made
by new equipment and technologies. They also modernized agriculture
while changing to more profitable crops. For growth and modernization,
they used expensive private loans, since banks denied financing, and
dysfunctioning Admors did not cope with this critical problem, as Chapter
3 has explained.
Growth using expensive financing necessitated a high utility rate of
equipment, i.e., shift-work which increased hired labor, as was usual at the
time due to Admors suppression of innovators who would suggest
solutions (Chap. 11). This caused bitter criticism by members, including
the three veteran oligarchic leaders. Criticism mounted as the plant
manager also violated rotatzia, continuing almost a decade. In 1963, under
pressure from critical younger, kibbutz-born chief officers and hashlama
ex-chief officers, the veteran factory manager resigned, his two deputies
turned the position down, and the son of one of the prime leaders, a retired
army major (rav-seren) who had finished a successful term as sadran
avoda (work organizer), was ‘parachuted’ into the job. However, in
protest against chief officers’ interference in plant affairs, the two deputies
resigned, and all three refused to impart their information and knowledge
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
267
to their successors.
These resignations and non-cooperation by ex-managers caused a
serious disruption that brought the plant almost to a halt. Major strife
ensued, creating two nearly warring camps of supporters of the two sides,
since both deputies were members of large extended families. In the past,
both prime leader, Israel, and one of the secondary leaders, Bilski, had
opposed industrialization; only the third, Moshe, had supported it.
However, perceiving the dangerous situation and supporting rotatzia and
self-work principles which chief officers tried instilling in the plant, all
three sought a solution for the crisis. In fact, their past behavior
engendered the crisis: As continuous top FO officials they did not model
these principles, never took part in urgent work tasks, and did not
encourage solutions to the problems which the two principles had created.
The manager and his deputies followed what they had practiced rather
than what they had preached, and this was another explanation for the vast
support the ex-managers found among members.
The leaders solved the conflict as they were highly trusted due to
Kochav success, their authority had been well-entrenched for decades, and
they had ample resources. They convinced most members that chief
officers acted in accord with kibbutz ethos that the resigning managers had
neglected, insisting that a new manager was needed to rid the plant of
hired labor.10 Israel found a pe’ilut for the ex-plant manager through his
ample FO ties and achieved the ex-manager’s cooperation, while lesser
managerial jobs were found for the deputies although only one of them
cooperated. The strife also subsided since the new manager behaved like
Thomas, Yaakov and Tomer, acting as a servant transformational leader.
He was soon trusted by the plant’s informal leaders as he involved himself
in coping with the problems of furthering automation in order to eliminate
hired labor. The plant was geared to the competencies of educated kibbutz
offspring, and many of them replaced uneducated hired workers and
helped experts to solve problems of new technologies, new products and
automation. Even more decisive was the invention of a shift-work sharing
system in which the manager and all technical and administrative staff
members gave a weekly night or evening shift on the line, preceding
10 Likewise in Gan Shmuel a new plant manager (my father) led ridding of hired
labor in the late 1950s.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
268
Tomer by a decade and curbing turnover among educated line workers
(Shapira 1977). However, as far as I knew no one proposed a new solution
for the problem of plant manager succession, although it was quite clear
that rotatzia was incommensurate with competent management of the
specialized and complex plant, which required considerable intangible
assets. As a result, some ex-plant managers returned for a second and third
time to head it, but no one raised the question of whether it would be
better for successful managers to continue instead of this circulation.
High-Moral Old Guard Backed Execution of Radicals’
Solutions Kochav’s shift-work solution was radical: While in Carmelit only plant
employees shared shift-work, in Kochav shared work soon included
kibbutz officers and some pe’ilim who worked on Thursday nights, when
coming back from the city. Shift-work sharing which elite members
modeled, giving up rest or sleep for the public good, solved the problem of
manning automated lines by educated members. It made the capitalist
solution of Carmelit in the 1990s unnecessary: conscription of members to
such jobs by extending fringe benefits; this solution was required because,
with Barak’s capitalist changes, Tomer’s past egalitarian solutions became
less effective.11
Carmelit and Kochav successes had two main common denominators:
First, egalitarianism due to creativity by high-moral leaders who promoted
high-trust, democratic and egalitarian culture. Second, continuous
creativity due to influential veterans’ backing execution of young radical
officers’ solutions. In both cases, without this backing, radicals would
have failed, as they had failed in the other cases. In order to stymie
industrialization, Kochav’s old guard would not have had to try hard:
without its support for implementation of General Assembly decisions,
conservative loyalists would have obstructed radicals’ efforts to introduce
new solutions. Thus, a key explanation for creativity was the high morality
of veteran leaders who backed implementation of decisions which they
opposed. In both cases, the old guard, in different ways due to status
differences, was highly trusted thanks to its competent efforts and personal
11 Schwartz & Naor 2000: 79-80, 138-40. In 1988 Warhurst (1996, 1998) saw no
fringe benefits, just other intangible motivators which Tomer used.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
269
involvement in solving major kibbutz problems. In Carmelit Avraham and
Sagi were personally involved in the introduction of higher education and
industrialization, while in Kochav case prime leaders were personally
involved in solving both the above conflict and other problems which
escorted creativity and depicted below.
In many other characteristics, the two kibbutzim were different. This
explains why, despite dwindling creativity dating from the 1970s, even
during the prosperity of the 1990s, Kochav employed only a few hired
workers, and has refrained from any other capitalist solutions. In a
nutshell, the difference could be seen in plant managers’ personal
behavior. Tomer used some capitalist practices which signaled status
superiority. In contrast, Kochav’s plant manager could not be
distinguished from other members by such practices when interviewed in
1977; his office was neither larger nor better than others, nor was it closed
to non-managers during management sessions as Tomer’s was. Though in
the new office building of 1986, differentiation between offices emerged,
this seemed to be functional: the plant was much larger and so was its
managerial team; hence, more space was required in the manager’s office.
The manager’s clothes were also now (1986) discernible from those of
workers, but this also seemed functional: in 1977, he worked in the plant
most of the time; hence, he wore work clothes, while now he mostly
traveled to the cities and abroad for business meetings, so he wore more
formal clothes.
Democracy Nurtured by Authentic, Credible Leaders Though Kochav was not as egalitarian and democratic as its founders had
intended, in accord with literature cited in Chapter 9, its authentic,
trustworthy and credible leaders brought it closer to a genuine democracy
with maximal member participation than most kibbutzim. In the early
days, one weekly general assembly allocated members to jobs; in a second
assembly, pe’ilim usually reported on national and Movement politics in
which they were involved, and these issues were discussed. A third, and
sometimes a fourth assembly, were devoted to other local affairs. This
continued into the 1940s, however, it dropped to two assemblies in the
early 1950s and then to one a few years later. Assembly attendance was a
must for most members up the 1960s, and even in the 1980s, assemblies
with 150-200 members were common. This success of democracy
contrasted other successful veteran kibbutzim where attendance fell in the
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270
1930s, and in the 1940s had dropped sometimes to a few dozen, that is,
only 10-15%, as in Rama; and in Kibbutz Makom of the late 1970s, low
attendance put the very survival of the assembly in doubt.12
A major reason for high attendance was the reports of leaders
concerning hot topics on the national agenda in which they were involved.
They brought members information they could not find elsewhere, since,
until the 1980s Israeli mass media has been censored or self-censored,
allegedly for security reasons, but often serving governmental interests,
and The Movement daily which members read, did not tell the whole
truth, as leaders exposed in assemblies.13 An additional reason for
assembly attendance which diminished reversal of decisions, was leaders’
took an active part in debates, and therefore appeals were rare.14 Thus,
members were not bored by repeated discussions of an issue, as was
common in Rama and other kibbutzim.
A Lively and Critical Local Press An integral part of this democratic tradition was the local press which
criticized public neglect by officers. It was initiated in the 1920s, soon
after the kibbutz was organized, by a member who had written it
independently. In the 1930s, it became a weekly, written and edited by
talented intellectuals, would-be journalists, authors and editors. In 1934-5,
it was edited by Moshe, a university graduate and a would-be Movement
major leader. Besides depicting achievements and failures (“1000 pound
profit for this year versus 1200 pound losses last year”. 13.10.1934), it
exposed small areas of neglect which were a great nuisance for members
at the time:
“At last we have a modern W.C. with running water and all that one needs.
So far, so good. However, it is impossible to avoid a ‘but’: Why it is full of
flies? Since builders forgot that its windows require screens” (5.6.1934).
Then, under the headline “Who Attends to Paved Tracks in the Yard?”
the weekly complained that the new W.C. had no pavement and users had
12 On veteran kibbutzim: Argaman 1997: 85, 149, 190. On Makom: Liblich 1984:
16. 13 Caspi & Limor 1992: Chap. 4-6. 14 Hazorea coped with the problem by restricting the right to appeal (Shatil 1977:
108).
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
271
to go down a muddy path (24.11.1934). Each paper contained five-six
pages with twenty-thirty news items which were usually written by
Moshe, and some analyses by him and by others. Later, a humorous page
was added. Students of humor found that this was a way to criticize
without hurting its victim(s) too much.15 Kochav’s humorist criticized
institutions, not specific culprits, but in this small community his targets
and the audience alike knew quite well who the barb was meant for. For
instance, in 1936, he targeted the economists who forecasted a deficit:
“The kibbutz wanted to cover [the deficit], but did not know how. … In
the assembly it was said that we must be more productive and so I was…
This did not affect the treasury; it is steadfast in its determination that there
will be a deficit… Then came wise people and said that there were many
nights and Saturdays which could be used productively. Oh God! They
were right! For years we have been blind, look at how much we have
lost…”
In 1941, the target was the leaders’ solution of drawing lots to choose
who would join the British army. In 1954, FO organization of every aspect
of kibbutz life by seminars was criticized by proposing to organize a
‘seminar for grandfathering’. In 1956, the long speeches leaders gave at
festivities were targeted, and in 1970, the higher education revolution
(Gamson 1977; Noy 1977):
“The author will start studying ‘applied psychology for mutual attraction’”
since soon “no one will talk to me as I lack a Ph.D”. Thus “everyone who
wants to will learn”. “And who will work? asked my wife. I answered:
‘Science will solve the problem. Automation! Buttons! Just push a button
and a problem is solved… The doctors will push the buttons. …Then we
can solve all pressing social problems…’ ‘How?’ asked my wife. When I
am a doctor, I will tell you. If I knew now, why would I have to learn?”
Highly Involved High-Moral Leaders were Ascetic and Obedient
Another part of the lively democracy was the existence of committees in
which leaders were actively involved, each participating in two or three
committees. The only exception was Moshe after he had become a Cabinet
15 Emerson 1969; Handelman & Kapferer 1972.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
272
Minister. These committees mostly convened on Fridays and Saturdays.
Israel excelled, with membership in the secretariat, the economic
committee, the planning committee and a special appeals committee which
he set up and headed to deal with cases in which a member or a committee
felt that a general assembly decision was very deficient or completely
flawed and required reconsideration (see below). This minimized the
overturning of assembly decisions by interested parties mobilizing
supporters which so troubled Rama’s general assembly.
Even highly involved servant leaders, who genuinely seek wider
possible participation of followers in discussions may create animosity to
some of their policies, which are suspected by followers as being self-
serving. Thus, one of the clearest indications of preferring public interests
over their own is asceticism (Harris 1990: 350). Until FOs turned
oligarchic and Kochav’s leaders became continuous privileged pe’ilim,
they modeled clear asceticism that inspired egalitarianism. They worked
harder than most members, were separated from families for years when
serving as emissaries abroad, and for most of the week as pe’ilim. On
weekends much of their time was spent on committees and general
assembly sessions. Their fringe benefits were quite meager until the early
1940s, and even when Israel was granted a car and then also Moshe, Bilski
managed without a car, proving that asceticism was a prime principle for
him.
Later on, as continuous FO heads or national officials, their loyalists
were promoted to pe’ilut, but, unlike previous cases, they never
emasculated innovations aimed at egalitarianism. Great involvement in
deliberations made them sensitive to members’ feelings, so that even when
their views were rejected and their privileges restricted, they supported
implementation of decisions. As for car sharing, cars used by Israel and
Moshe were not shared, but this caused no grievances as their top level
jobs required them to be available even on weekends, while Bilski had no
car. Not one case of patrons unilaterally subverting a decision was known,
in sharp contrast to previous cases. Nor did any of the 123 interviewees
suspect them of hidden political deals on the inside or with outsiders, for
personal benefit. None of the few who criticized them, including ex-
members, viewed their conservatism as aimed at self interest and power
self-perpetuation. Nor did anyone suspect them of objecting to any
innovation for a personal reason, in sharp contrast with previous cases
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273
(except Carmelit’s Avraham, Sagi and Tomer). Only in some successful
kibbutzim could prime leaders be discerned whose high morality seemed
to resemble Kochav’s.16
High Morality Enhanced Trust and Creativity This high-moral, democratic tradition engendered a high-trust culture
which enhanced creativity. Kochav’s radical young officers of the 1950s-
1960s were innovative despite patrons’ opposition. This does not mean
that patrons helped radicals’ careers. As seen in previous cases and in
accord with Hirschman (1970), when they became conservative senior
pe’ilim, they did not help promotion of radicals to FO jobs, nor did they
support their re-election for kibbutz chief offices. Radicals soon returned
to minor jobs and many of them left or ‘left inward’, i.e., abstained from
offices. Unlike previous cases, however, due to the patrons’ high morality,
conservative loyalists who were promoted to chief offices usually aimed at
public good, rarely used offices for personal gain and preserved
credibility.
Loyalists and radicals alike followed in the steps of patrons’
overarching commitment to the kibbutz cause and devoted a large part of
their free time to committee sessions and the general assembly. This also
enhanced participation by the rank and file in democratic processes;
assembly decisions represented Yankelovich’s (1991) ‘public judgment’,
which unlike momentarily public opinion of previous cases were rarely
overturned, and hence, disobedience was negligible. Patrons’ conservatism
frustrated radical officers, but when well-attended assemblies approved
their innovations and patrons backed implementation, assured authority
encouraged their continued innovation. Patrons backing is explicable by
both efforts to maintain trust in them, and by their own secure highest
status which prevented their losing standing to brilliant juniors, as Dore
(1973: Chap. 9) explained regarding Hitachi.
Special Appeals Committee Enhanced Social Justice
Patrons also helped prevent the problematic status of non-members,
16 One of them was Gan Shmuel, while others were Geva, Hatzerim, Hazorea
(Shatil 1977), Beit Hashita (Liblich 1984), and Be’eri (Raz 1996; Bar-Sinay
1997).
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
274
husbands of women members, such as the seven mentioned in Rama. Such
problems were solved through the special appeals committee. Its members
were chosen on a personal basis for three year terms, and in many cases,
their terms were prolonged for over a decade (An additional proof that
high-trust culture requires continuity). Its meetings were confidential and
the general assembly could either approve its proposals or reject them, in
which case the problem was referred back to the committee which sought
a new solution. This process was aimed primarily at doing justice for
members who were victimized by public opinion and who felt that the
secretariat and general assembly had approved unjust victimization. In a
few cases, the secretariat also appealed an assembly decision perceived as
causing injustice to a member or a category of members, and in some
cases the committee supported the appeal and proposed a new solution.
The process mostly produced solutions considered as fair and just by
interviewees, and in a few cases I studied, in all but one (see next chapter),
members were more satisfied with the committee’s solution than with the
decision appealed. Thus, the committee helped to enforce problematic
decisions and enhanced trust in kibbutz leadership.
Strong Officers’ Authority and Much Discretion Pulled
Talented
Kochav’s high-trust, democratic culture enhanced creativity, since
officers’ rotatzia less hampered innovation than in other cases, as chief
officers had stronger authority. The best talents were pulled to these jobs
thanks to the discretion they were given by prime leaders which enabled
coping with problems. Their authority was secured as prime leaders
backed decision implementation and the most talented members manned
offices and faithfully served the public. Unlike Rama and Gelbard’s
(1993) kibbutz, in which talented members mostly sought outside jobs,
and unlike Dvorkind’s (1996) Hamaapil where ‘slaves became masters’,
Mati’s ever-failing protégé, Chen’s Chaya and Carmelit’s Yosef,
Kochav’s chief officers were mostly competent members who had proved
successful in minor offices, coped reasonably well with challenges,
faithfully attended to members’ interests, rarely needed camouflages, and
hence were fully trusted, in accord with literature cited in Chapter 9.
Their strong authority cannot be explained by a different demographic
composition, since officers resembled those of other kibbutzim
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demographically. They were usually middle-aged, thirty-five to fifty,
mostly male except for one of the secretaries who was female since the
mid-1960s, and they had much the same educational level. Managerial
socialization began in minor offices, such as branch managers or as heads
of secondary committees. There, grass-roots democracy taught them that
devotion to goals adopted by a branch team or by committee members
would be rewarded and dedicated work and efforts would lead to success
and promotion to chief offices. Unlike other cases, however, promotion in
Kochav was more closely associated with achievements in junior offices,
since patrons rarely pushed loyalists to chief offices. Thus, nomination
committees were trusted to find the best candidates. Only the repeated
nomination of Israel’s client as secretary after each pe’ilut, seemed to
signal patron interference, but I could not confirm this, while this client’s
talent and great esteem by members might explain his repeated
nominations with little or no such interference.
Due to minimal interference of conservative patrons in officer
nominations, many radical creatives became chief officers. Though many
of them failed to overcome patrons’ conservatism, some succeeded. These
successes encouraged others to take public offices, minimizing ‘inward
leavings’. Am’ad and Palgi (1986) found the manning of offices was less
problematic in innovative kibbutzim, and indeed, Argaman (1997) found
in most of the KM and KA kibbutzim he studied, that as early as the late
1930s, parallel to Admors growing conservatism, filling offices became a
prime issue which bothered the general assembly almost weekly for most
of the year. In contrast, in the more innovative Kochav this issue was
unproblematic up to the 1950s, offices were decided on within the first
few weeks of a new year. Hence, the assembly discussed major kibbutz
problems and their proposed solutions more thoroughly. This was another
reason for high attendance and for the belief that its decisions represented
best public judgment.
Leaders’ High Morality Explains the Curbing of Rotatzia’s
Perils Patronage and rotatzia had a conservative effect as in previous cases:
Promotion to pe’ilut and then circulation required the auspices of patrons
who became conservative while serving in continuous top FO jobs.
However, unlike previous cases, Kochav was creative from 1953 up to
mid-1970s since patrons’ opposition was restricted to democratic means.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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Their self-restriction of the uses of power accorded a solidaristic
democratic spirit beyond any formalities and proved that they could be
trusted for just, right and fair preference of public good, and this was
decisive for overcoming rotatzia’s perils. It assured officers that, even in
case of problematic, controversial decisions, there would be no use of
patrons’ power behind the scenes to obstruct implementation.
Kibbutz trust- and democracy-based culture requires secure officers’
authority and enough power to assure compliance to rules and
implementation of decisions. In usual organizations without rotatzia,
power and authority are not greatly differentiated; officers accumulate
power which protects authority. They reward conformers, punish
violators, fire them if they continue, and with the help of loyalists, they
can implement radical changes which directors have approved, even
despite much resistance, including resistance of managerial and expert
staff. Authority of rotatzia officers is shaky and depends on the backing of
patrons and power elites. These patrons tend to prefer self-serving
supremacy over radical changes and officers follow suit, opposing such
changes even when facing acute problems if they require risky and
unpopular decisions. They camouflage inaction using excuses which most
of the public knows are fabricated, as in previous cases. Members can do
little beyond critique, waiting for rotatzia and mostly getting similar
successors, since talented experienced radicals who have proven effective
leadership, prefer ‘inward leavings’ or leave the kibbutz after perceiving
little chance for successes due to patrons dominance.
This explains how Kochav remained high-trust, adaptive and creative
after prime leaders became conservative due to FO oligarchization: the
leaders’ high-morality and commitment to the kibbutz ethos and cause
encouraged the same among chief officers. Even conservative officers
faithfully tried to solve problems within extant norms, while the critically
minded and the radicals created new ones, sometimes won democratic
adoption of their proposals, and coped more or less successfully with
implementation obstacles. The behavior of all groups, however, enhanced
members’ trust: members almost always could be confident that officers
were committed public servants, using their faculties and knowledge to
solve problems in accord with the common ethos. Rarely if ever was
anyone ‘a slave turned master’, since chief officers were chosen from
among branch managers and committee heads who had proved committed
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public servants. Lively democracy and a free press assured that members
were able to bring problems to officers’ attention, and whenever their
solutions proved mistaken or seemed to require correction, democracy
ensured that members were able to stop, mend or reverse these solutions.
Thus, rarely did a member have to resort to coercive means to defend a
vital interest which had been impeded by mistaken or even self-serving
action by officers, unlike previous cases.
High-Trust Culture: Members’ Discretion Bred Creativity In accord with Stryjan (1989), without creative solutions for decisive
problems, Kochav could not have succeeded. Creativity flourishes in high-
trust cultures created by high-moral leaders. On the one hand, trust is
personal and local: a leader is trusted when perceived as caring for the
interests of followers and viewed as high-moral, a person in whose
“decisions and actions… interests of society take the degree of precedence
that is right, just and fair” over his own interests, as Hosmer (1995: 339)
put it. Public interests which s/he has to serve are defined locally by
her/his constituency, but on the other hand, ends are legitimized by
cultural contexts, by what Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) call the gravity
of the field. Kochav’s leadership actions served members’ needs and
wishes, but were legitimized by community requirements and kibbutz
movement ends. In Kochav’s high-trust culture, various components
combined to care for both private and public needs, while the latter
included both local and societal ends.
Caring rightly, justly and fairly for all of these ends was not a simple
task and it led to specialization, which bred differentiation, requiring
coordination of conflicting views and interests. This end was achieved by
committees, by the General Assembly and by dense informal networks of
a relatively small community with ample meetings, more than in Bott’s
(1957) cases, as members ate together, used common showers (up to the
late 1950s), met in provisional work assignments (next chapter), in the
Assembly and on other occasions. An additional factor was the
decentralized economy, divided into autonomous, democratic branches,
each serving a different market. This hard-to-manage structure was not
specific to Kochav, but only a high level of mutual trust between and
within its dozens of components and hundreds of actors made it work
effectively and efficiently for the common good. In a high-trust culture,
Fox pointed out (1974: 30-5), much discretion is given to actors who are
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
278
morally involved in the promotion of organizational goals and do not just
do specific tasks. Mistakes and failures are assumed to be bona fide and
efforts to control workers by foremen are minimal. Involvement of the
individual in discussions about work before decisions are made, as well as
those concerning others’ related work, meant that most coordination is
achieved without fiats of superiors, who interfere only if mutual
adaptations among co-workers and consultations among equals or adjacent
hierarchical levels have failed. Lower echelons are mostly entrusted with
finding wise solutions to problems without the help of higher-ups since
knowledge, information, ideas and proposals flow freely and sincerely.
Inevitable conflicts are mostly solved constructively, as common goals
and values enhance the search for fair and just solutions, as explained in
Chapter 9.
Simon (1957: 230) has pointed out that this is the way organizations
cope with complex, non-routine tasks, and Burns and Stalker (1961) have
found that this characterizes innovative firms. However, they missed the
fact that high-trust was the ultimate proviso for both successful coping
with non-routine tasks and innovation, as detailed organizational trust
studies cited and my previous works (1987, 1995b). Only when high-trust
climate prevails, an actor supplies others with extensive, relevant, accurate
and timely information and know-how for their problem-solving efforts, as
s/he is sure that exposure that makes him vulnerable, will not be used
against him.17 A superior can gain such a supply of information only if he
has signaled trust in subordinates by direct involvement in coping with the
hardest problems they face, exposing competencies as well as weakness
and ignorance, and proving to be good learner and helpful with tasks
(Shapira 1987).
Kochav’s much involved leaders coped with the hardest tasks, such as
the 1960s strife and special appeal committee problems. They supplied
members with a great deal of information and knowledge gained during
pe’ilut, reported on major pe’ilut events in which they were involved, and
rarely tried to limit officers’ discretion, signaling trust in them. However,
they posed a problem to democracy which Landshut (2000[1944]) has
already pointed out: Their superior knowledge and information along with
17
Roy 1952; Deutsch 1958, 1962; Guest 1962; Zand 1972; Dore 1973; Ouchi
1981.
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great involvement made them more dominant than if they had been less
involved. How did creativity not vanish after they became conservative
patrons and had continued dominance for decades?
Officers Innovated, High-Trust Democracy Kept Leaders’
Status On the one hand, they indeed curbed creativity and foiled many radicals’
new solutions (see below); but on the other, the high morality they
modeled created a high-trust culture and entrenched a democratic tradition
whose essence has continued up to the present. Their high-moral
preference of public interests over their own encouraged the same
preference among officers, including creative radicals and critical thinkers
who sometimes succeeded thanks to this preference. Patronage resembled
previous cases: radical officers were rarely promoted to pe’ilut, and the
few who were promoted soon terminated it, finding FOs’ conservatism
insurmountable. They returned to minor offices or left like Tomer and the
innovative young Kochav’s plant manager who returned it to self-work.
Moreover, after the 1960s strife, strict rotatzia was maintained; even plant
managers were replaced every three years. This exacerbated a
Hirschmanian negative effect on radical careers and innovation as they
soon returned to minor jobs, were sidetracked and/or left.
Unlike other cases, however, this negative effect was minor until the
1960s strife, since, in many offices no rotatzia predominated and many
successful officers continued like Rama’s cow barn manager. Secondly,
both Israel and Moshe remained creative relative to other FO officials.18
They became leftist only late, and even then did not try to suppress
Kochav non-leftisst radicals. This encouraged hashlama chief officers in
1953 to depart from Bilski’s conservative policy and opposition to
industrialization, but they accorded him respect and consulted him on
specific matters. As prime leaders were trusted to prefer public interest
over their own, arguing with them was mostly constructive, as it was
known that their arguments were genuine and were not raised just to
defeat opponents but relevant and could help improve solutions, they were
carefully listened to. They were educated, knew foreign languages, read
18 The details of their creativity cannot be described without exposing their
identity.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
280
foreign journals and books,19 and had much knowledge from FO jobs,
from traveling abroad, from Movement discussions and from working in
large cities where they participated in major political and cultural events.
They understood the kibbutz field phenomena and national and
international politics better than most members, so their views were worth
listening to. This also explains the high attendance at the general assembly
and the respect innovators gave them.20
High-Trust Culture: Long-Range Rewards for
Contributions According to Fox (1974: 78-9) rewards for commitment to public goals in
a high-trust culture are mainly in the long run, with clear prospects for
career advance and positive care for one’s vital interests. Kochav leaders
proved to be locally committed despite their heavy responsibility in
Movement, FOs and national offices. Their contributions to Kochav’s
decision-making were a real help to members’ efforts and brought success,
so they were rewarded by members’ long-term respect, deference and
careful attention to their status even when other leaders’ views and actions
were preferred. This meant keeping their seats in the secretariat and in the
economic committee as a matter of course, and allowing them to talk more
than once at the assembly’s major debates, while Israel was usually the
last speaker who summed up positions and proposed how to vote.
As already mentioned, unlike all other patrons, Kochav’s prime leaders
rarely interfered in officer nominations despite interest in the promotion of
loyalists, another reason for respecting them. Such interference would
have been a breach of trust in the nomination committee, curtailing some
of its discretion. Hence, they avoided interference and the committee
promoted radicals who succeeded as branch managers or committee heads
to chief offices without their unconventional views preventing their
appointment, hoping that they would repeat previous successes in chief
offices. Concurrently, such promotions rewarded innovators for their
19 The same was true of Gan Shmuel leaders; my father excelled: he was fluent in
five languages, and he understood and could read two others. 20 See likewise in Hazorea, but Shatil (1977), himself highly educated, missed it;
this explains how an impoverished kibbutz allowed psychoanalytic treatment
for so many members (p. 111-3).
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281
efforts. Refusal of this reward to a hard-working, successful branch
manager or a committee head was a negative signal for others who were
asked to fill these negatively rewarded jobs, and would deter talented
members. Rosner (1964) exposed this negative balance of rewards, but
alluded only to balance in the present, missing the fact that the promise for
future reward by promotion was integral to high-trust cultures.
Decentralization Enhanced Members’ Ingenuity and
Innovation A high-trust culture that discouraged interference by leaders in internal
promotion assured the discretion of committees and branches, which, in
accord with Chap. 9, encouraged officers’ transformational, non-
charismatic leadership, and members’ use of their own faculties to solve
problems. Due to decentralization, radicals who became chief officers
could concentrate their efforts on non-routine, long-range solutions that
required creativity, leaving most of the more routine tasks to branch
managers and committee heads, thus innovating despite short terms.
Oplatka’s (2002) creative school managers turned from management to
leadership only years after nomination, since in previous teaching jobs
they had learned little about problems managers faced, for in low-trust
bureaucracies, information and knowledge flow is restricted as these
intangible assets are used as means of control.21 Kochav chief officers, on
the other hand, even if only 32-35 years old, were quite knowledgeable
about problems facing them since they had participated in committees that
had aired these problems from their early twenties, and in the general
assembly ever since they were seventeen years old. Thus, they could
initiate radical changes soon afterward. Since they usually advanced due
to members’ trust rather than to leaders’ patronage, this trust was a
primary credit which gave them considerable leeway to promote changes.
The discretion granted to branch managers encouraged them to propose
innovations which chief officers reviewed against general Kochav
interests, and if the latter adopted an innovation, an established democratic
spirit assured the chief officers that conservatives’ opposition to it in the
economic committee and the assembly would remain democratic, making
an effort to convince others that the innovation was wrong, without any
21 Roy 1952; Dalton 1959; Blau 1963; Crozier 1964; Shapira 1987.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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use of power resources to obstruct it.
Trust Due to Cultural Creativity Enhancing Value
Consensus Kochav’s leadership system enhanced creativity for another reason:
advancing value consensus by cultural creativity. Deutsch (1969) has
pointed out that conflicts took a constructive course only if there is
minimal consensus over values, beliefs and mores. However, in the 1950-
70s, radical idealism of founders contrasted with the pragmatism of
second generation members who managed the kibbutz (Rosner et al.
1978). Moreover, Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments alluded
to the problem which Fox (1985) later dealt with: stratification causing a
moral gap between higher strata believing in high morality, while
commoners tend to adopt expediency as they see unconcern for their
interests on the part of higher-ups. How did Kochav cope with the moral
gap when prime leaders became privileged FO oligarchs and belief in
equality subsided, with many members turning to expediency?
Chapter 2 has asserted that all cultural components of kibbutz
uniqueness supported each other. Up to now, we have met with creativity
as a component which enabled kibbutzim to solve existential problems
without capitalist solutions which negated their uniqueness. For instance,
sharing the extra burden of shift-work made hired labor superfluous,
sharing of pe’ilim cars reduced inequality, etc. The case of Kochav adds
another major sector in which creativity is essential: that of cultural
production which provides aesthetic satisfaction and amusement, while
enhancing common values, beliefs and mores across strata. This enhanced
trust by creating common expectations of ethically justifiable behaviors of
both leaders and followers, in accord with Hosmer (1995). By itself, this
creativity did not assure communal success, as Knaani (1960: 45-54)
found by analyzing the relative success of religious communes, and the
Chapter 2 analysis of religious kibbutzim supported this. However,
common values, beliefs and mores tend to direct conflicts to a constructive
course, and thus, cultural creativity enhances viability of kibbutz culture.
Kochav was most creative culturally, even excelling Rama of the later
period with its authors, editors, professionals and professors. However,
contrary to Rama’s alienated Talented, Kochav’s creatives were mostly
involved members. For example, one of its artists initiated the workshop
in 1949 from which the plant emerged. One yardstick of creativity was the
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283
number of members who wrote books, plays, treatises or symphonic
music. They numbered some three dozen, and their almost two hundred
works were neatly collected in a special cabinet of Kochav’s archive,
together with dozens of others written by ex-members and offspring who
had left.22 Another yardstick was the several dozen members who were
continuously involved in all other types of cultural production, such as
painters, sculptors, theatre directors, actors, artists, musicians, dancers, etc.
More important still, it was not sheer coincidence of a gathering of
many talents in one place. Cultural creation was encouraged from the early
days, when the founders were still in a makeshift camp on the margin of a
small town and worked as manual laborers or were unemployed. They set
up a theatre group and produced several classic plays. In 1930, the
member who had directed the plays traveled to London to study theatre
with partial kibbutz support. Members developed various artistic skills
with kibbutz support in accordance with available means: minimal support
at first, much more in later years. In 1928, Moshe’s parents paid his tuition
fees at the Hebrew University, 10 Pounds Sterling per year, and Kochav
financed humble accommodations in Jerusalem even though it breached
egalitarianism, was not available to other members. Such a breach seemed
just for the noble aim of higher education for a gifted intellectual.
Contrary to the early days of Rama when there was minimal cultural
creativity and members longed for substitutes for the abandoned
traditional Jewish holidays, Kochav expended much effort on the creation
of alternative holidays suited to Zionist ideas of the renewal of Judaism.
Holiday programs, decorations and other requisites were locally made and
the programs were performed by members, by a local choir with a local
conductor, a local theatre group and a local music band.23 In addition, a
large annual Purim masquerade carnival was an opportunity for creative
amateurs, while the above-mentioned director and other local talents
produced epic dramas of Jewish history in which many members
participated. At later periods, two younger members who proved to be
talented directors were also sent abroad to study. Thus, a continuous
nurturing policy of cultural talent was maintained.
22 Numbers are inexact since the two kinds were mixed . 23 See the same in Hazorea, though Shatil (1977: 111) mentions this only very
briefly.
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Care for Needs of the Talented = No Self-Serving Power
Elite Kochav nurtured dozens of creators, but, unlike Rama, though many of
them had outside careers, they never formed a power elite that violated
egalitarianism. The main reason was that, while kibbutz officers cared for
their special needs, efforts were made to limit the freedom given to them
to develop careers that would entail advantages unavailable to other
members, allowing essential requirements for outside jobs and cultural
creativity with as few as possible inessential private benefits.
One means used was pressuring them to find jobs within the field, such
as in FOs or finding jobs on their behalf via patrons’ help. For instance,
the director who studied in New York was also a partial emissary to the
branch of the youth movement there. These jobs lessened problems of
control of their expenses and privileges. Many talented agreed with this
solution although it required some sacrifice on their part, since contrary to
Rama, where mediocre officers ignored creators’ unique needs or even
suppressed them, talented Kochav officers, some of whom were
themselves creators, cared for their needs sympathetically, so these
officers deserved reciprocation. Sympathy by officers is also explained by
the positive attitude of both leaders and commoners to the contributions
which creators made to their non-material needs and to Kochav’s prestige.
Without Creativity Officers Failed to Care for Special
Needs
Not always was this care by officers successful, since, in many cases,
creativity was required to find just and fair solutions. Some officers were
indifferent or even opposed such solutions, especially some economists
who thought that support for creators was a waste of money, and a number
of inexperienced chief officers who made mistakes by misunderstanding
the unique needs of creators. Moreover, as was seen in Rama, in an
egalitarian culture, every answer for a member’s need, raises the question
of caring equally for others. Buying a car for a creator who had an outside
career posed the question of whether it would serve other members when
he came back home. Until 1962 when Ran had introduced the car sharing
system (see below), chief officers opposed such a purchase, since a car
meant a major privilege.
One of the first members who faced this problem was John, an
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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educated young English Jew who joined Kochav in 1949 and became a
member in 1950 after he married a kibbutz offspring. He tried some of
Kochav branches but none suited him, so he found an editing job at an
English publishing house. Although it was only 70 kilometers away, using
buses meant more than two hours of travel each direction, so he asked for
a car which his sizable salary justified. Officers were opposed as it would
privilege him, but did not propose any solution, apparently fearing to
touch the sensitive issue of pe’ilim cars. With family help, John bought a
second hand car, but felt uncomfortable as the only member with a private
car. He knew members envied him and gossiped, so that when new
officers took over, he asked anew for a solution, but they too evaded the
problem. He quit his job and went abroad with his wife and three children.
After a year, the family returned except for John. In 1962, when Ran’s car
sharing system was adopted, Kochav bought a car for an inspector at the
Ministry of Education and members shared it after working hours and on
weekends. Then John returned, as his old job was vacant and buying a car
for him was no longer a problem. His return was applauded in the local
newsletter, but the reason, the legitimization of a car, was not mentioned,
unlike the inspector’s car which had been mentioned. The affair clearly
caused dissonance in Kochav, since there was no objective reason why car
sharing had not been adopted in the 1940s.
In addition to encouraging creators, outside cultural creators who
shared its values were frequently invited to Kochav, such as Histadrut’s
Ohel theatre, other kibbutz choirs, artists, painters, musicians, orchestras,
etc. A public library was established quite early, and then, also, a well-
equipped music room for music lovers, and an additional phonograph was
bought which was lent to members to listen to in their own dwellings. A
reason for the great intellectual and cultural activity was the adjacent
regional boarding high school with its many educated teachers. Some of
them were non-member residents of the kibbutz who were greatly
involved in its cultural production, participated in its choir and its music
band, and lectured and hosted academic lecturers on a variety of topics.
Creative Egalitarianism in Consumption Values, however, are shaped much more by deeds than words, writing or
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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singing.24 In its early days, Kochav was only a little more egalitarian in
consumption than previous cases. Then, in the 1950s, due to economic
success, a few officers promoted equality by creative solutions which both
caused a more egalitarian sharing of assets and allowed members to
choose among a larger variety of demands and tastes with the rising
standard of living. Conservative leaders objected, but thanks to a few
innovators, Kochav pioneered buying all members electric kettles, radios
and room heaters, equalizing them to pe’ilim. For decades, furniture was
humble and standard, and locally produced, but after some pe’ilim and
members with wealthy relatives or inheritances bought higher quality
furniture, a system was created which allowed members to choose
between locally produced furniture or purchase of more expensive, nicer
furniture, and this solution was adopted despite leaders’ objections.
In 1962, Kochav pioneered sharing of pe’ilim cars by all members on
weekends, which was later expanded to weekdays after working hours.
This eliminated some inequality, but much remained: a pa’il could use his
car for private purposes much more often than other members, and while
members had to pay for the fuel for every mile they drove, the pa’il
usually did not pay at all, or paid only partially. The instigators of the
process which resulted in car sharing, were two young members who, in
1961, decided that it was unjust on the part of the treasurer not to let
members use ‘his’ car after working hours and on some weekends. Ran,
then aged 29, was the young secretary called to solve the conflict:
“One Friday afternoon, the treasurer found his car standing on four
[wooden] boxes without wheels. Immediately we knew it was Roxy and
Missu who had more than once complained about him, but they denied it
and we did not find the wheels. I talked with them for hours, and, at last,
promised that the issue would be solved soon by new bylaws which would
oblige all car ‘owners’ to share their cars when they stood idle, and they
confessed and revealed that the wheels were in the cold storage room
under a heap of potato sacks”.
Ran initiated a discussion in the secretariat but, at first most veterans
and almost all pe’ilim resisted, saying that they could not work if they
were unsure that their car would be back on time or unharmed by
24 Geneen 1984: 148; Sieff 1988: 62; Giuliani 2002; Simons 2002.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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inexperienced or careless drivers.25 Then Gabi, a veteran pa’il, decided to
give it to other members on weekends because he felt discomfort about his
car privilege. One Friday night, the air was let out of the car wheels of
pe’ilim (except Gabi), apparently by young members who supported Ran’s
proposal, with messages left under their windshield wipers saying that
they could not use cars on weekends unless all members could. The
secretariat condemned the deed, but then Ran renewed his proposal. After
many debates, proper bylaws were ratified. Ran then negotiated with the
Movement and other FOs regarding the price Kochav would pay for car
use, found a car manager, and arranged a system of queuing members’ car
orders with due priority for specific urgent needs.26 Prime leaders did not
like sharing, but they had no personal reason to interfere: Israel and Moshe
were exempted as they needed cars constantly at their disposal, while
Bilski had no car. Car sharing was soon adopted by most kibbutzim,
including the norm initiated in Gan Shmuel by Ephraim Reiner of
members paying for fuel and a few other driving expenses.
A Creative Solution to Problematic Work Tasks Some years later, Ran also led Kochav to pioneer self-service in the dining
hall. This was an important innovation as a major unsolved problem since
early days had been assigning workers to the dining hall. The simple,
laborious work that included evening shifts and uneasy coping with
members’ desires for unique food preferences, many of which could not
be fulfilled, turned dining room work into a detested job manned by forced
terms of service by members and gar’in members or other short-timers.27
Self-service largely solved this problem, minimized dependency of
members on the goodwill of waiters for unique food preferences by
offering a wider range of salads and dishes which members served
themselves. An automatic industrial dishwasher was installed, and the
number of dining hall workers was cut by half. These innovations
proliferated to all kibbutzim, and later to most of Israel’s institutional
restaurants and cafeterias, while Kibbutz Ein Harod’s plant produced the
required equipment.
25 See the same objections in Kressel’s (1983: 127-8) Netzer Sireni. 26 See Kressel (1983: 125-7) on the importance of such care for members. 27 See the same problems in an American commune: Kinkade 1994: 32-3.
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Trust, Branch Leaders Creativity and Free Flow of Know-
How Ran’s creativity promoted egalitarianism and was a major factor in
members’ trust of leaders, while Ran’s career was sidetracked, as patrons
preferred loyalists. In Kochav branches, however, the opposite was true up
to the 1970s; managers were mostly chosen by branch teams considering
competence, initiative and dedication, and successful ones continued
without rotatzia, like some other kibbutzim (Ben-Rafael 1983). Success
was achieved as in Rama’s cow barn, while branches informally competed
for profitability.28 Managers encouraged innovation by team members,
since high-trust cultures enhanced the power and status of managers
whose branches led progress, and solutions and innovations flowed freely
among kibbutzim (Stryjan 1989). The founder of the vegetable branch
explained:
“You ask how we succeeded in agriculture? Since there were no secrets
[among kibbutzim]. I could go to whatever vegetable branch [of any
kibbutz] I heard had succeeded with a new technique, and get all his know-
how; every detail, all his records were open to me, as mine were to him. I
visited Gan Shmuel and saw that their Skinners [irrigation devices] were
lowered by half a meter without any negative effect on equality of water
dispersion while saving costs and making work much easier. I informed
my team and we immediately introduced the change”.
There were no secrets thanks to trust, as these branches did not compete
with each other for markets; all marketed cooperatively through Tnuva,
while the kibbutz movement’s common cause enhanced solidarity. Much
the same was found in Silicon Valley and German and Italian industrial
districts: high-trust was created in informal R&D networks of managers
and experts who were coping with the same obstacles, and this enhanced
information flow and innovation.29 Branch managers were motivated by a
tacit or open inter-kibbutz competition for the prestige of being the most
productive branch. This was jocularly depicted by a hit song, “Twelve
Tons”, sung by the Nachal troupe:30 a yield of twelve tons per dunam (1/4
28 See the same in successful Kibbutz Hazorea: Shatil 1977: 87. 29 Dodgson 1993; Jay 1972; Sako 1992; Saxenian 1994. 30 The Nachal was an army division of youth movement graduates, who along
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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acre, 1/10 hectare) of land of whatever crop was “the dream of every
meshek and peak vision”. Kochav’s successful branch managers were
promoted to chief offices, and in this high-trust culture when a manager
advanced, he tended to promote the most talented deputy to succeed him,
since his high status in the branch team was usually retained as a prime
expert artisan (see below. All were males, except female second secretary;
see next chapter).
This was even truer when veteran branch managers established and
managed new FOs which catered to branch requirements. The above
speaker founded the Vegetable Growers Association, and two more
associations were established by other Kochav members. These FOs
enhanced the flow of knowledge and creative solutions among kibbutzim,
sent study teams abroad to bring new technologies, enhanced agricultural
research, and encouraged innovation in other ways.
Ex-Managers Who Became Expert Artisans Enhanced
Creativity Another factor of branch success was turning ex-branch managers into
creative expert artisans. Burns and Stalker (1961) found that in an
innovative high-trust culture (which they called ‘organic’), one’s status
only partially depends on hierarchic position; no less decisive are known
contributions to the advance of common goals by the problems he has
solved due to unique expertise. In Kochav, young branch managers
usually made short-range decisions, while a veteran ex-branch manager
became an expert artisan and creatively used exclusive competencies
acquired by long experience to cope with more complicated tasks, such as
R&D activity and long-range changes.31 Much like Japanese artisans
which Kondo (1990) depicted, secure and prestigious status was achieved
by long and laborious specialization in branch skills and knowledge, so
that they were honed and matured until they became invaluable due to a
short supply of these qualities. While professionalism was a major career
ladder for many Jews in the Diaspora, when they came to Palestine and
learned of its agricultural backwardness, many kibbutz pioneers chose to
with army training, settled, guarded and initiated agriculture in new, remote
places as precursors for the establishment of kibbutzim. 31 Maletz (1983[1945]: 30, 133-8); Cohen 1983: 100.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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specialize in agriculture and became experts without formal degrees. For
example, Tzeshek Rosental of Gan Shmuel got German books from
relatives in Europe, learned fertilization and, in 1929, doubled the yield of
wheat from 75 kilogram per dunam to 150 kilogram. This was also true of
a number of Kochav artisans.32
Japanese artisans worked during high season from half past two in the
morning until late in the evening, and Thomas, during his first season in
the cotton gin plant, often worked from six in the morning until midnight.
Almost similar intensity was common in Kochav in its early days, but
even in 1986 some branch managers continued this tradition together with
other members that after long working days, they met with team members
in the evenings to discuss urgent managerial decisions and allocate the
next day’s work, as well as deciding on some other managerial chores.
Informal Artisan Leaders: Coaching New Generation
Creators Kochav veteran branch managers who became expert artisans, remained
informally a part of a branch, came to its help in the high season,
participated in deliberations and coached following generations, even after
advance to a grower association pe’ilut or an agricultural extension job.
Coaching usually commenced in high school, when the youth worked
three hours a day after school, and six hours a day during most of the
summer holidays. Hence, when one of them became branch manager in
his late twenties, he had already experienced branch functioning for over a
decade, from the age of fourteen-fifteen.33
Ran was nurtured by Gabi, Kochav’s first mechanic, whose successes
led him to become a mechanics instructor in the agricultural extension
services. This was a major reason why Gabi was the first pa’il to share his
car after Ran raised the issue in the secretariat. Ran did not advance to
pe’ilut in the Movement after his success as a secretary due to lack of
patronage, and returned to the garage. When the regional transport FO
garage manager searched for a deputy manager, Kochav’s truck drivers
32 Others studied agronomy in Europe but embarked to Palestine before
graduation, as did my father Yaakov (Kubek) Shapira who became an expert
leader of the citrus industry. 33 Two and half years were usually devoted to army service.
16. Kochav’s High-Moral Patrons Assured Creativity
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informed him of Ran’s achievements, and Ran became a pa’il in this FO
with lavish fringe benefits. Gabi, however, convinced him to return to
Kochav’s garage after a few years, since in his pe’ilut he had stopped
developing professionally. This was because truck technology was
conservative, while, in Kochav challenging state-of-the-art agricultural
machinery awaited him, as well as R&D projects with the national
Institute for Agricultural Machinery. For Ran, the return to Kochav’s small garage with three workers
instead of the dozens in the regional FO, was not a status degradation. His
expert artisan status brought him daily rewards in the form of appreciation
from agricultural branch teams for whom he solved major problems with
his innovations, and rarer, but more prestigious successes in the
development of world class machinery with the Institute. As will be seen,
this no longer satisfied him after a decade or so, and he made a radical
switch, becoming an emissary abroad. However, his case shows the
opposite of Hirschman’s (1970) effect: in a high-trust, innovative culture,
a senior veteran may seek coaching of young radicals who further
creativity, although their successes might overshadow the veteran’s
achievements. This is explicable by one remaining high-moral while
advancing professionally without being corrupted by too much power, as
was in Gabi’s case. Due to such coaching, in some radicals’ career
decisions, the seductions of privileged jobs and high managerial status
were given up for interest in the professional challenges of innovation.
Hirschman’s (1970) loyalist successors of Iron Law leaders were more
conservative than predecessors and failed due to a lack of critical thinking,
while in Kochav’s high-trust culture, coaching by high-moral expert
artisans who modeled commitment for its cause, caused radical successors
like Ran to excel. Goleman et al.’s (2002: Chap. 4, 8) findings supported
this, but although their cases indicate high morality of coaches, they did
not allude to its decisiveness.
High-trust cultures encourage radicalism as that of Ran and his like, but
in the case of Kochav, such culture suffered considerable setbacks in the
1940s-1950s, due to Admors conservative dysfunction, oligarchization,
leftism, the rise of circulative ‘parachutists’ and growing privileges of
pe’ilim. However, from 1953 with the ‘Hashlama revolution’ (see next
chapter) up to the mid-1970s, the old guard’s high morality still enabled
creativity by which high-trust was maintained despite these factors. Soon
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292
after, creativity subsided without high-moral prime leaders, no renewal of
socialist ideas after exposure of the USSR’s bluff, decline of democracy,
and Hirschmanian negative selection of innovators.
CHAPTER 17
Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Negative Impact Ruined
Creativity
“…every action theory that takes pragmatist ideas as its points of departure
must assume that creatively found solutions to the action problem will be
absorbed into new ‘beliefs’, or, more precisely, into altered routines” (Joas
1996: 197).
Democracy, better than any other leadership system, fits the creative
nature of human action which Joas (1996) highlights, but like many
sociologists, he ignores the leadership factor and the integrality of trusted
leadership for the creative democracy he prefers. In accord with the above
citation, creative leadership processes are complex since each new
solution to a problem creates new problems as a result of the beliefs and
routines it alters.
Kochav nurtured cultural creativity and officers cared for the needs of
creators, but this care was not exactly egalitarian and was, in many cases,
a function of outside support, as with Moshe’s studies due to parents’
funding. Up to the 1960s, like all kibbutzim, Kochav fully financed only
“functional studies” of would-be teachers, branch managers and experts,
chief officers, chemists and engineers, among others,1 while ‘non-
functional’ studies of history, sociology, philosophy, art, etc., were
dependent on partial outside funding and/or partial studies alongside
continued work. In 1965, when Avraham and Sagi introduced higher
education for all in Carmelit, Kochav allowed only a few middle-aged
members ‘non-functional’ studies, such as highly esteemed ex-chief
officers. The Movement financed such studies for two ex-pe’ilim, before
higher education for all was introduced gradually in the 1970s-1980s. As
Kochav’s economic development preceded Carmelit’s by decades, it was
clear that this problem of egalitarianism could have been solved dozens of
years earlier.
1 Gamson 1977; Noy 1977; Shur 1977.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
294
Consecutive Losses of Ran’s Transformational Leadership Even more problematic was the rotatzia which Kochav never solved. In
addition to above mentioned reasons for sticking to rotatzia, a major
reason was that kibbutz researchers praised rotazia as a success. Radicals
like Ran read their articles, choosing not leave Kochav although rotatzia
derailed their careers, but even if they suspected students praising and
suspected rotatzia failed their careers, they never seek solutions for its
major outcome, enhancing oligarchic conservatism whose foci was not in
Kochav but in top FO offices.
Ran, one of the most talented of Kochav’s second generation, was a
clear case of lost potential for transformational leadership due to rotatzia.
He managed the garage very successfully for a decade, and some of his
innovative machines were still used fifteen years later. They helped in the
success of agricultural branches, but Ran did not advance to the pe’ilut he
wanted, as Gabi’s successor after Gabi passed away, very likely due to a
lack of patronage. On a part-time basis throughout this decade, he led the
successful introduction of self-service in the dining hall, headed some
mid-importance committees for one-two years each, including
nominations, members’ welfare and others, and was repeatedly chosen to
the special appeals committee, signaling how much he was trusted. As he
felt that his career was faltering, he sought a change and found an
emissary position in Canada on behalf of the Jewish Agency. After some
years there, which he and his family enjoyed very much, he returned and
found a successor in his job under whom he did not want to work. The
plant manager suggested that he join a small and ailing department in
order to learn its problems and help change its failing position. Ran saw
this as a challenge and agreed. He soon proved competence and creative
leadership once again. Personally involved like Thomas, he quickly
learned the technology and the department’s problems, became its
foreman, and using original solutions which required minimal investments
and maximal use of extant equipment, production soared and with it,
profits.
He then proposed producing an important product of another
department at a much faster rate and at a lower cost using automatic
equipment of the kind his department used, instead of the semi-automatic
machines of the other department. This required considerable investment,
but it was not the main reason for its rejection, since return of investment
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
295
promised to be rapid, marketing was assured, and the new equipment was
versatile, useable for other products as well, as indeed occurred a decade
later. It was rejected at the time because the young (aged thirty) and
novice factory manager, a practical engineer by profession who liked the
idea very much, did not support it. As a short-timer, it was more important
for him to return to his expert job after finishing his term, and this might
be threatened by a major conflict with prestigious veteran experts of the
department that would have lost a main product and much prestige if
Ran’s proposal had been adopted. He preferred to yield to pressure from
these experts against Ran’s proposal.
This was not the end of the story. As the rotatzia norm prevailed, Ran
hesitated: might it be worthwhile to wait a year or so for the manager’s
succession and try his proposal again with the next one? However, if a
similar manager took the helm, the situation might repeat itself, so why
wait? Then a prospective plant manager emerged: Horev, Kochav’s chief
economic officer and ex-orchard branch manager opted for ‘parachuting’
to the office. He was known as a ‘pusher’, ‘a bulldozer’ whose
development projects had overcome much opposition and many members
working in the stagnating plant as well as some economic committee
members hoped Horev would revitalize it. Horev heard about Ran’s
intention to resign and asked him to wait until he took over, promising
implementation of the proposal. Ran, however, was not enthusiastic about
this possibility, resigned and returned to the garage. He explained why:
“I knew he was keen and would push through the project I wanted so
much, but I also knew his aggressive style, and too much involvement in
everything under his jurisdiction would not allow me enough autonomy,
and I would not have been able to develop the department in my own way,
with the help of its people, as I had hitherto done and as I had done
previously in the garage and with the introduction of self-service [in the
dining hall]. Have you visited the plant and seen his megalomaniac project
which is still not profitable after four years? I did not want to be part of
such management”.
As Thomas left the cotton gin plant despite implementation of his
invention, because he sought a trusted leader above him and enough
discretion to carry out his innovations; so did Ran. He saw no chance for
discretion, correctly predicting the coercive pushing by ‘pure parachutist’
Horev, due to over-involvement without full understanding of the plant’s
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
296
problems, ignoring the need to listen carefully to experts and managers, to
learn basics of the technology, to consider complex problems thoroughly,
and to work out solutions cooperatively with them, as did Thomas and
Guest’s (1962) new manager. Ran’s experience taught him the
decisiveness of trust and enough discretion for the success of innovative
projects. He saw little prospect for that with Horev, rightly predicted
undermined trust and cooperation, and even if his own project had
succeeded, success of further innovation would have been jeopardized.
Horev’s domineering, which resembled Gouldner’s (1954)
‘parachutist’, was no better than his predecessor’s withdrawal; both tried
to succeed in a short-term job and further their careers, and both impaired
trust and creativity without enough experience, enough knowledge of the
plant and the industry, not enough loyalists to support formal authority,
and without long time horizons for creativity and patient finding solutions
for conflicting interests and views (Jaques 1990). Rotatzia caused Ran’s
departure, and this was much more than a loss for the specific department:
Ran’s long and varied experience in many managerial jobs and proven
creative leadership made him the best prospective plant leader, only
requiring additional business education and knowledge of plant problems
which he surely would have acquired if he had not departed.
Rotatzia Ruined Trust by Elevating Immature Chief
Officers In order to fully grasp how detrimental the loss of Ran’s creative
leadership was and why there were many similar losses before and after,
one must seek the reasons why Horev was ‘parachuted’, considering that
his prior experience included leading a volleyball team, organizing
carnivals, managing the orchard branch, a pe’ilut in the Association of
Fruit Growers, and kibbutz economic management. This is related to a
prior question: Why was his predecessor nominated while so
inexperienced, just three years after finishing his practical engineering
studies and after functioning as a not-very-successful department manager,
with only a three-month course in business administration?
The reason was rotatzia, replacing officers just as they were becoming
effective, created a continual demand of new nominees. Competent
experienced talents with all qualifications, specialized knowledge and
expertise were in short supply even in Kochav, although it suffered much
less of a brain-drain than most previous cases. In theory, the demand could
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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have been filled by reinstating ex-managers once again, as, for instance,
Israel’s protégé returned six times to kibbutz secretary office, after each
pe’ilut. This was a successful career for a conservative loyalist who, by
intermittent pe’ilut and secretary jobs, advanced to the Knesset. However,
a talented officer who had successfully coped with job challenges would
rather seek career advance than return to the same job. Israel’s protégé
returned to local chief office like Mati in Olim, since this later promised
career advance on the outside. Seeking no creativity, his jobs needed no
long time horizons, in accord with Jaques (1990). Successful, innovative
leadership of both the complex plant and Kochav could not be achieved
intermittently, but required continuity to prove trustworthiness and build a
minimal consensus over aims, to shape a credible vision with sound
strategies and tactics, to muster varied contributions for creating solutions
and their implementation, to solve major problems and to allocate fairly
duties, rights, rewards and punishments.2 This was implausible without
long time horizon and job continuity. Goleman et al. (2002: Chap. 4) point
to a leader’s need to master six leadership styles and use each one at the
right time and place; this is also implausible within the short terms of
rotatzia.
Rotatzia Forestalled Trust Creation by Marring Problem-
Solving Three years were needed for an ‘impure parachuted’ manager, who had
previously been a deputy in a parallel plant of the same division of a car
maker, to cause a turnaround in Geust’s (1962) case. Though he knew a
lot more about the job waiting for him than Horev or the young practical
engineer knew about Kochav’s plant when they took charge, he still
needed years to create enough trust to cause a turnaround. Time in office
is crucial for trust, as there is a time lag until a new superior’s competence,
trustworthiness and intentions are appreciated. If he behaves like Thomas
did, making himself vulnerable by involvement in coping with main
problems together with others, they tend to react by opening their cards, he
uses their expertise to solve problems, and success enhances mutual trust.3
In an internal promotion, time may be shorter if trust on the part of
2 Geneen 1984; Bennis & Nannus 1985; Shapira 1987; Sieff 1988; Guiliani 2002. 3 Shapira 1987: Chap. 4-5; Whyte 1992: 176; Tyler & Degoey 1996: 345.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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colleagues and subordinates has been gained in former jobs where one has
already proven himself a successful effective leader, and has acquired
local knowledge that can only be obtained through life, work and coping
with problems.4 Even in this case, advance to the top gives extra power
that may corrupt a leader, thus, trustworthiness has to be proved afresh.
Moreover, he must prove competent, constructive use of this power; for
instance, giving discretion to subordinates to innovate without losing
coordination ability.
By causing advance of young talents too quickly to Kochav’s chief
offices, instead of nurturing these talents much longer in lesser offices
before giving them vast authority but little power, rotatzia drained most of
the potential trusted, creative leaders in addition to enhancing Hirschman’s
(1970) negative selection of radicals. It promoted inexperienced officers or
reinstated conservative ex-pe’ilim who did not fail much as they did not
try to cope with challenges creatively. In addition, such ones promoted
‘parachutists’ who either remained aloof like Shavit or were ‘bulldozers’
like Horev. Without legitimization to continue due to success in office,
and no power, prestige and other intangible capitals due to high-level
pe’ilut, creative radicals like Ran did not become prime leaders after the
old guard vanished, despite their successes in problem-solving. As they
were talented, they soon found other, more continuous careers to succeed
in, as did Rama’s professor, Ran in the garage and emissary abroad, and
Pinye as economic analyst (below), unlike Israel’s circulative protégé
alternating between pe’ilut and Kochav secretary. The repeated secretary
terms of the latter were encouraged by failures of greenhorn secretaries
that enhanced belief in the advantages of a talented veteran. However, the
principal reason for both conservative veterans’ and inexperienced
officers’ nominations, was the fact that trusted transformational leaders
like Ran were not allowed continuity. Scarcity of such leaders caused
anarchy in Rama, and both considerable conservatism and a mess
involving ex-transformational leader Pinye in Kochav.
Rotatzia Derailed the Career of a Transformational Leader The background for Pinye’s sad case was growing specialization due to
the success of agriculture and industry, growth of FOs and failures by
4 Geertz 1983, 1995; McCall et.al 1988; Shapira 1995b.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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‘parachuted’ pe’ilim. Many of them returned early and some became
experts in jobs which they were the ‘powers-behind-the-scenes’. Pinye
was a hashlama member who became chief economic officer in 1953, and
together with his peers in other chief offices, all in their mid-thirties, he
led the radical change known in Kochav as the ‘Hashlama Revolution’.
This was fast economic growth by turning the workshop into a plant and
making agricultural branches dynamic with heavy capital investments.
This change was essential to support Kochav’s rapid population growth at
a pace of 7-9% yearly. As a result of his success, Pinye advanced to
pe’ilut, but like Shavit and other ‘pure parachutists’, he failed on the job,
and without a patron to help mask this failure, he returned to Kochav and
filled an empty niche: cost accountant-comptroller. Due to talent,
expertise, continuity and control of vital information, he became the prime
local economic authority. However, after eighteen years on the job, he was
offered the position of head of the Regional Council by the retiring
incumbent. Apparently he wanted the job, but he brought the matter to the
secretariat, saying: “You may decide as you please”.
Pinye did not admit that he wanted the job since he had constantly
reiterated how complex his current job was, how much experience it
required, and how decisive it was for Kochav economy. These past
assertions helped the young, newcomer chief officers to object to his
release from office, and so did the secretariat and subsequently the special
appeals committee, after many discussions of the matter for almost a year.
Pinye’s 18 years in job made him quite narcissistic like continuous leaders
(Kets De Vries 1993), but without a clique of loyalists and with power
restricted to economic matters, he was wrong concerning his ability to win
over officers without publicly admitting his wish.
Pinye reacted by very conspicuous ‘internal leaving’: he stopped
participating in any of the committees of which he was a member, and
refrained from attending the General Assembly and other meetings. His
analyses became essentially worthless, as he did not check validity and
reliability of the data officers gave him, nor the estimated effects on
profitability which discussions indicated, etc. Some of Kochav’s great
losses in the mid-1980s seemed to be outcomes of mistakes made due to
his dysfunction, while markets and government policies changed rapidly,
inflation soared, banks went bankrupt and the Stock Exchange collapsed.
The chief officers who had opposed his release could not seek his
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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replacement, and their successors hesitated. Only the third generation of
chief officers nurtured a replacement and his introduction to the job also
took time. This was clearly a case of frustrated opportunity for promotion
which bred a ‘dead branch’, as it was called by organizational career
students.5
However, from the point of view of Kochav’s leadership, all of the
above was only one of the negative outcomes of a much greater loss: the
loss of a trusted, transformational leader who proved capable of
democratically promoting major and critically needed change despite
much resistance. Instead of continuing the ‘revolution’ and solving
problems which had been created, such as hired labor and oligarchic
continuity of plant managers, Pinye became an economic analyzer, while
officers’ rotatzia made him powerful: he could choose to be seen as being
involved only in the successes, thus gaining prestige and power. As power
was largely disengaged from responsibility which rested on short-term
officers, he became conservative, like continuous leaders.
Kochav’s chief officers needed a good economic analyst at their side.
This, however, should not have been a past leader who had become a
power-behind-the-scenes. The case turned into a Kafkaesque bureaucratic
maze due to the pitfalls of rotatzia: Novice officers were dependent on
Pinye and enhanced his power, but his career advance was left in the
hands of novices who were the age of his offspring, misunderstood his
intentions or understood but used his silence concerning them for their
aims, seemingly since they could not anticipate the outcome of barring a
rare promotion opportunity for a member close to retirement age. For him
it was hard to admit that he wanted to leave a post whose importance he
had stressed in the past, as he was rightly unsure novice officers could be
trusted to care for his interests. In the case of admitting it but denied
promotion, he was worse off: both contradicting his own previously
expressed opinions, and remaining in a job which he himself had
depreciated by his will to leave without proper heir.
As in Ran’s case, diminishing trust due to the disappearance of the old
guard propelled the case: Its successors, such as ‘bulldozer’ Horev and
Israel’s Knesset member protégé, could not be trusted to care for Pinye’s
5 On the impact of opportunities: Kanter 1977, Chap. 6; On ‘dead branches:’
Martin & Strauss 1959: 94-5.
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vital interests as they lacked critical thinking due to Hirschman’s (1970)
selection which aided their promotion. The Knesset member was a most
influential member of the special appeals committee that proved inept in
Pinye’s case, despite Pinye’s friends exposure of his true wishes in their
appeal. Horev was distrusted by many members who came in contact with
his coercive means. Diminishing trust also explains why Pinye did not
nurture a successor: he could not rely on novices not to dethrone him if he
had nurtured a younger, more educated heir. Moreover, Pinye’s mask of
indifference to the job offer misled officers since information flow had
dwindled with diminishing trust.
Scale Problems and Unintended Consequences of Social
Action An additional explanation for the failure to solve Pinye’s problem
creatively, was Kochav’s diminishing creativity due to growth. In the
1960s, Kochav was clearly creative with shift-work sharing, car sharing,
self-service and other innovations, while in the 1970s no similar
innovation was introduced, Ran’s innovative proposal failed and so did
others. In fact, conservatism had already obstructed major problem solving
much earlier; one such problem was egalitarian higher education and
another was egalitarian hosting of hevrot no’ar, which had been
innovatively solved in Gan Shmuel (Chap. 11). Admors’ negativism
toward Gan Shmuel’s solution only partially explains Kochav’s failure to
imitate it. In other matters, Kochav had disobeyed Admors and Movement
officials, as in the use of hired labor in the 1950s. So why was Gan
Shmuel’s solution not imitated, unlike instant adoption of Gan Shmuel’s
Skinner irrigation innovation twenty years earlier?
The answer lies in the negative impact of scale on creativity, and the
difference between technical changes and economic transactions, for
which outcomes are relatively immediate, measurable and involve few
people, and social action which is the opposite of obtaining quick and
measurable changes by a few people, especially when leadership processes
and politics are involved, as was with the large scale of kibbutzim and
FOs. Growth and diversification amplified the ubiquitous problem of the
unintended consequences of social action, a problem noted over two
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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centuries ago by Adam Smith and, later on, by sociologists.6 Adopting
Skinner devices had a known price and relatively assured revenues of
sparing work and materials with no unknown and unintended outcomes.
Equalizing the status of hevrot no’ar to that of kibbutz offspring involved
the whole economy of Kochav, requiring additional expenses to equalize
living and educational standards, as well as investments in buildings to
replace the wooden bungalows which had accommodated hevrot no’ar
hitherto and loss of income due to less work on their part.7 This also
would have involved other kibbutzim which were partners in the regional
boarding high school and whose consent would have been required for
introducing hevrot no’ar to this school, a change that threatened academic
achievement due to poor prior education of hevrot no’ar youth. Moreover,
as the other kibbutzim also hosted hevrot no’ar, Kochav’s change would
have pressured them to follow suit, and if they did not, it might have
caused their hevrot no’ar youth to feel even more like second class
citizens than they already felt.
Even more questionable were future outcomes that would have justified
the costly change. While immediate lessening of bad feelings among
hevrot no’ar youth was assured, would this effect have remained after they
intermingled with kibbutz offspring and grasped how much better
educated kibbutz youth were and what other advantages resulted from
their different upbringing? Could the change achieve a genuine equality?
Would it not enhance perceived differences, as in efforts at social
integration through joint schooling of very different populations?8 And
even if it had succeeded in the high school, what would be the long-term
outcomes? Would these young graduates join the kibbutz? Bettering
education would enhance mobility prospects of graduates and might
enhance exit. Had they exited to become the educated elites of
impoverished ma’abarot and ‘development towns’ who would lead these
communities to economic and social progress, the project would have
been worthwhile. Unfortunately, much more probable would have been
the migration of graduates to higher strata communities, as was usual
6 Merton 1957; Muller 1993; Joas 1996. 7 Gan Shmuel deferred these investments by moving its own offspring to the
wooden bungalows. 8 For instance: Ayalon 1992.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
303
among mobile immigrants, and this would not have alleviated the plight of
their native communities.9 Hence, it was not worth all the trouble involved
from a socialist perspective.
Cooperatives Tendency to Boost Failures Amplified
Unknowns More could be added to the unknowns described above, while a kibbutz as
a type of cooperative had a special Achilles heel, its tendency to turn
setbacks into failures. Hirschman (1984) found that when a cooperative
succeeds, members’ involvement in decision-making which is grasped as
successful, amplifies the positive effects of success on their motivation.
This rouses them and furthers the positive effects of retaining skilled
members whose accumulated experience help find or devise better
solutions to problems. This results in enhanced competitive prowess,
while their investments in the cooperative venture enhance solidarity and
commitment. When, however, success ends due to internal and/or external
changes, frustration turns into despair more easily than in usual
organizations as a result of the amplification effect of participation, and a
crisis becomes probable. In a capitalist firm, participant motivation is less
dependent on the firm’s degree of success and more on its salaries. In a
crisis situation, the firm’s survival and continued payment of salaries to
some participants is usually achieved by others losing their jobs. The
motivation of those remaining is only slightly hampered by the despair of
the others. Cooperatives cannot fire members, and, as a minority type
organization, members have to believe in their future success and not just
in their ability to make a living. Without faith in a brighter future, a prime
motivator is lost which may be detrimental: talented leaders like Reiner
and Tomer exit, other talents follow, and those who stay stop public
contributions, rarely seek new solutions to problems and abstain from
democratic deliberations managed by mediocre or inept officers, as
occurred in Rama and much more seriously in Ben-Horin’s (1984) cases
and Chen of the 1990s, a total collapse of communal culture.
This helps to explain why Kochav did not use Gan Shmuel’s solution
for hevrot no’ar. Positive outcomes would be seen only in the long run,
perhaps 5-8 years ahead. Keeping members’ faith in the solution during
9 Spilerman & Habib 1976; Semyonov & Kraus 1982.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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this period, while paying the extra costs, would have required highly
trusted leadership with long time horizons, a vision and firm belief in the
prospects of positive outcomes, and who would have pointed to the costs
of inequality for kibbutz culture. One man with such a vision was Gan
Shmuel’s veteran educator Benyamin (Benyo) Grinbaum. He urged the
change to egalitarian hosting and convinced other local leaders. Helping
him were three factors: 1) Earlier successful absorption of hevrot no’ar
graduates, before Gan Shmuel had it own high-school and thus, there was
no problem of inequality.10 2) Gan Shmuel had servant leaders who like
Ran, Sagi and Avraham returned from chief offices and pe’ilut to manage
branches, and they worked with hevrot no’ar youth and knew about their
bad feelings first hand. This was rare in Kochav since old guard auspices
and its prestige enabled pe’ilim to avoid returning. 3) Later, Gan Shmuel
had its own high-school, hence no other kibbutzim were involved. Without
these factors, with conservative leaders and with the many unknowns
involved, Kochav’s failure to adopt this solution was understandable.
Growth Detached Leaders from Problem-Solvers In addition, Kochav’s hashlama leaders’ main concern was economic
growth to sustain the growing population. They not only advanced to
pe’ilut and circulated, but they also rarely met hevrot no’ar youth as co-
workers. Thus, social issues did not bother them or, at least, not enough to
struggle with conservative old guard. A fuller explanation was that
Kochav’s growth enhanced hashlama leaders’ detachment from its youth
both directly due to specialization, and through enhancing FO growth
which made them circulators.
Other acute problems that were prevalent in large Kochav, for instance,
the inequality of higher education, also did not bother the prime leaders
personally. As they were little involved in ordinary members’ work and
lives, they ignored many of the perils of extant solutions. Size engendered
economies of scale, specialization and learning, but deprived leaders of
both sensitivity to the plight of ordinary members and knowing which of
them exhibited ingenuity in solving problems. Joas (1996: 81, 84) cited
eighteenth century anthropologist Johann Herder who pointed to the
10 In that period, the few Gan Shmuel offspring studied in Mishmar Ha’emek
high-school.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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prevalence of creativity beyond the confines of what he called “the
reading room”, i.e. deliberations of educated elites:
“Every man of noble and vivacious sentiments is a genius in his work, to
his destiny, and truly the best geniuses are to be found outside the reading
room”. “Whatever human nature has brought forth in genius manner, be it
science or art, an institution or action, is the work of the genius, and any
ability to awaken human gifts and encourage them to fulfill their purpose
is precisely genius” (Italics original).
In the 1920s-1930s prime leaders worked “outside the reading room”
with other members and knew about their ingenuity in problem-solving.
While Hutterite and Shaker leaders, in addition to their leadership
functions, continued partial manual work all their lives, Kochav’s leaders
became tenured pe’ilim from the early 1940s, they did periodic weekly
waiter service in the dining hall and semi-annual night guarding for a
week, but no other special work tasks (see below), nor did they return to
ordinary branch work. Like uninvolved Shavit who remained ‘half-baked
manager’, incapable of differentiating genuine experts and true problem-
solvers from fools and impostors, detached Kochav’s leaders and
circulative pe’ilim lost most of the ability to appraise members’ ingenuity
in solving problems with growth and technological sophistication of both
agriculture and industry, except for a few who were their close friends and
co-workers from the early days, and co-workers in a few periodic duties.
While leaders did not meet rank-and-file members as problem-solvers
in their work, they met them in committees and assembly discussions
where verbal abilities were most prominent. Alas, this was a ‘reading
room’ situation, hardly related to members’ many gifts and talents used
outside this ‘room’. With growth, what was said above about nomination
committee members knowing better than detached leaders who of the
branch and committee heads was worthy of promotion due to prospective
contributions, must be qualified:
1. With growth, fewer nomination committee members ever co-worked
with a candidate or were directly involved with him in other
activities that revealed his ingenuity.
2. Leaders and circulators as committee members were less capable of
appreciating a candidate’s capabilities, but more influential due to
their power and intangible capitals.
Likewise, these problems impacted deliberations by other committees
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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negatively. Thus, decentralization by setting up many committees was
only a partial solution to the problem of leaders’ and circulators’
detachment.
Specialization Furthered Leaders’ Detachment The lack of personal involvement in workers’ problem-solving efforts by
leaders, was problemtic even within large agricultural branches, as work
became specialized and branch managers were no longer co-workers of
some other workers. Branch managers often failed to appreciate efforts at
solving work problems as they specialized in leadership functions, while
most members were uninvolved in branch decision-making if its leader did
not care to create proper opportunities for involvement. This has been
exposed by Kibbutz Ein Harod’s Maletz in his excellent novel Maaglot
(1983[1945]) which KM’s publishing house refused to publish, as it
negated Tabenkin’s advocacy of an ever-growing kibbutz.11 As early as
the 1930s, the technological and organizational complexity of a large
agricultural branch with ten-fifteen permanent members, many different
crops, lands and specializations, as well as tens of provisional workers
during high seasons, was enough to divide leadership between a work
organizer who specialized in mobilizing resources for branch operation,
and an expert in its agronomy who read foreign professional literature,
consulted other kibbutzim and outside experts, and shaped professional
decisions.12 Specialization and scale erected high barriers against both
meaningful involvement of workers in branch decision-making and
leaders’ proper appreciation of workers’ ingenuity. The novel’s
protagonist was isolated, working at a solitary job in a remote plot; hence,
branch heads rarely met him working and could not appreciate his
ingenuity at work. As he came from low-status earlier jobs which
stigmatized him, no one tried to involve him in branch decision-making
either.
The problem of scale as I expose, has been ignored by kibbutz research,
and even the scale of a whole kibbutz was grasped as unproblematic.
Cohen and Rosner concluded (1988: 135) that the question of “unit size
11 It was published by Histadrut’s Am Oved which was controlled by Mapay
leaders. 12 Maletz 1983[1945]: 132-42; Shepher, I. 1983; previous chapter.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
307
and the ability to maintain direct democracy” is “only slightly relevant for
kibbutz and only for special aspects, since the size of kibbutzim is below
the critical limit beyond which the maintenance of direct democracy has
ever been seriously doubted”. As CKP users, they ignored FO impact and
missed the fact that all ethnographies, except for early days Kochav,
indicate crippled democracies.13 Niv and Bar-On (1992) grasped FOs as
the right solution for the scale problem, equating them to capitalist firm
solutions by network-type, high-trust, decentralized organizing which
enhanced innovation, asserting that FOs were just such a solution. They,
however, ignored the ample evidence cited above which proved the
opposite was largely true.
Blind to stratification and oligarchization of the field which depressed
creativity, kibbutz research also missed the impact of growth and
specialization of kibbutzim on oligarchic leaders’ growing detachment
from members’ ingenuity and problem-solving efforts. Due to scale
barriers and age differences, as early as the 1950s, Kochav’s leaders
barely knew about the ingenuity of many hashlama and kibbutz offspring,
did not trust many of their problem-solving efforts, and only partially
cared about their participation in decision-making. The superior
knowledge and information among leaders and their loyal circulators of
FOs and Kochav problems, enhanced their dominance over other members
who only partially understood them. Partial understanding impaired or
prevented the other members’ meaningful participation in decision-
making, as in other kibbutzim,14 a reason for the dwindling participation at
the General Assembly (see below), and for members’ believing in rotatzia,
missing that Ran, Pinye and their like have to continue in offices as long
as they achieved successes, rather than becoming unsuccessful circulators.
Partial Coping with Scale: Decentralized, Trust-Led, Small
Units In order to properly appraise Kochav’s coping with the problem of scale, I
allude to Harris who depicts (1990: 344-51) headmen in villages of
hunters and simple agriculturalists as highly trusted leaders, as models of
13 Fadida 1972; Kressel 1974; Topel 1979; Rayman 1981: 225; Bowes 1989;
Shapira 1990, 1992; Argaman 1997. 14 Landshut 2000[1944]: 86; Kressel 1974: 148; Ben-Horin 1984; Argaman 1997.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
308
hard work, asceticism and dedication to the public good. The only rewards
they control are words of praise, while punishment is only censure of
those who shirk their work and cutting ties with these shirkers up to the
point of ostracism.15 Jay (1972: 106) concluded that leading through trust
required the unit size of a small tribe, that is, less than 500 people, who
were known by the leader personally. From the early 1940s onwards,
Kochav leaders were far away from the kibbutz on weekdays; therefore,
they could barely be models of hard work, their privileges negated
asceticism, and Bilski’s avoidance of a car reiterated this. The kibbutz was
already larger than a ‘tribe’ in the early 1950s, and kept growing to twice
this size by 1986, while coping with size problems was only partial.
For example, as early as the 1940s, some general assembly decisions
were made by only a few voters, 10-20 out of the 150-200 members
present. Appeals which overturned such decisions led to the ruling that
after an appeal was debated, a simple majority supporting it was not
enough; only a larger number of votes than those which supported a
decision in the first debate would overturn it. On the other hand, members
participated much more often than most kibbutzim in major political
debates. Up to one hundred members spoke when proposals for the
Movement convention were discussed in the early 1940s, and up to two
hundred voted on proposals. All that changed with the success of leftism,
and more so after 1956, when the old guard refused to confess erroneous
support of leftism, evaded FO oligarchization and their own continuous
privileged pe’ilut, thus enhancing members’ deliberate evasion of FOs, as
cited in Chapter 1.
Members, however, continued local participation which remained
decentralized: Dozens of committees dealt with every aspect of life, with
some half of the members participating, and those who were not included
in any committee during one year were usually asked to join one during
the next year. However, there was clear power differentiation among the
few main committees, such as the secretariat, the economic committee,
and the special appeals committee in which prime leaders participated, and
other committees, many of whose decisions were overturned by major
committees before adoption or during implementation. For this reason, a
more important decentralization was the division of work organization
15 See also Goldschmidt 1990.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
309
into many relatively small branches, both production and services, with
larger ones divided into teams of no more than five-ten people each, so
that many members were involved in the management of their workplaces
as heads of such teams. The plant’s 120 employees were divided into
sixteen departments: seven of production, five of services, and four of
office workers. Much the same was the case in the largest service
branches, the kitchen-dining-hall and the laundry-clothing store
(communa).
This decentralization was enabled by modern, mechanized agriculture
and an automated plant which dropped products requiring large numbers
of manual workers. For instance, until the late 1960s, almond harvesting
required dozens of workers. After it was mechanized due to Ran’s and
others’ ingenuity, a small team of six was enough. A second reason was
that members sought autonomy in their work by job continuity,
specialization and division of labor. However, this created coordination
problems, curbed flexibility and prevented a more rational allocation of
workers, as Israel Shepher’s (1983) ethnography has depicted.
Creative Solutions for Flexibility Loss: Giyusim and Shibutz In the smaller Kochav up to the 1940s, it was quite easy to stop less urgent
tasks and divert members to urgent ones, but with the emergence of many
small, specialized teams and individuals doing specialized jobs without
ready substitutes, such diversion became difficult. One way of coping was
the use of giyusim (plural of giyus, literally: conscription): in kibbutz
terminology it means a person who chooses to perform an extra service or
work task for the general good. For example members volunteered to do
urgent mass work, such as weeding cotton fields, early in the morning
until breakfast, after which they returned to permanent jobs for the rest of
the day, or members gathered after the usual working day to pick fruit in
the orchard for 2.5-3 hours. Giyusim, however, did not solve manning
problems of more specialized manual work which required both a full
day’s work and continuity of more than a few times during a crop’s high
season. The plant’s shift-work sharing system solved the problem by non-
shift workers coming to an evening or night shift once a week, repeating
the same work on the same machine or line, and retaining proficiency
without too much interference with their permanent jobs.
In addition, during the same period of introducing shift-work sharing,
the problem of work on Saturdays was also solved by a system of
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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shibutzim (plural of shibutz, literally to inlay, to post someone to a work
task). Shibutz meant that each member below retirement age worked in
one of the essential services which operated on Shabat (Saturday), the rest
weekday, once every four weeks, and periodically on holidays. The
shibutz was initiated instead of the earlier solution of manning these
services by the sadran avoda’s use of various types of queues, a solution
which caused many arguments and conflicts since this work often clashed
with a member’s personal and family plans for their only free day. With
shibutz, each member was assigned to a specific job and team in either A,
B, C or D group, and consecutive Saturdays and holidays were designated
A, B, C, D, A, B…etc., and manned by these groups. As everyone knew in
advance when his turn of duty was, if s/he wanted to be free from work on
a specific Saturday in which s/he was obliged to work, s/he could find
another member assigned to the same job on another Saturday and
exchange turns with him/her. The sadran avoda had to find replacements
only for those who fell ill, who were called for army reserve duty, etc. The
system soon proliferated to all kibbutzim.
Plant Partnership Enabled Growth but Also Impaired
Democracy An additional problem for democracy resulting from scale led to another
solution for the manning of the successful plant, a partnership with a
nearby younger kibbutz which I have called Yok. This partnership was
established in 1969, similar to that of Chen and others.16 It was non-
egalitarian from a democratic point of view: a large kibbutz with an
established plant, where formal and informal power positions were
manned by its members, added a junior partner, a younger, smaller kibbutz
which lacked experts and experienced managers. Although the younger
kibbutz gained seats in the management forums proportional to its share,
as well as a few jobs of authority such as Chen’s Shaul, it rarely received
parity in member status. As far as I know, out of some thirty partnerships
only two approached parity. However, in this case, Kochav’s plant
managers made great effort to promote Yok’s talented members from line
work to technical and administrative positions; hence, Yok’s educated
members became engineers, chemists and managers. This helped generate
16 Amir et al. 1983; Niv & Bar-On 1992: 102.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
311
another major difference from Chen and most cases: after a decade a
production department was moved to Yok and used additional manpower
unable to work outside Yok, such as mothers of breast-fed babies, part-
time high-school youth, etc.17
The branch workers assembly was an effective democratic organ in
smaller branches if managers cared to encourage member participation. In
Kochav’s plant, even before the merger, it was less effective as a
democratic organ due to its size of 70-80 eligible members. However, it
disseminated information, elevated workers’ grievances to the surface, and
sometimes tapped ideas for innovations. With the establishment of Yok’s
department, this assembly declined, as Yok’s employees rarely came to
assemblies in Kochav, and without their participation, the assembly lost its
image as the highest decision-making body, ‘dried up’, and was ultimately
abandoned in the 1980s. Instead, departmental meetings became
important, but by 1986 many members did not participate in them either,
since they felt that the meetings had betrayed democracy, as formal
decisions were rarely made there. On the other hand, members who did
participate complained that there were too few meetings. Unfortunately,
both attitudes signaled the marginality of these meetings in plant decision-
making.
Finally, there was the influence of Kochav’s non-plant members on the
large plant. Many felt that they had lost control over it, although all major
decisions regarding the plant were discussed and ratified by the economic
committees of the two kibbutzim and a few prime decisions were made in
their general assemblies. However, Horev’s large project, which caused
financial distress for all members, was an example given by some as to
how they had lost control over the plant. Amir et. al (1983) found such
feelings in all five kibbutz industrial partnerships they studied. It seems to
be one of the reasons for the recent dissolution of many of these
partnerships.
Scale Defeated Democracy Due to Decline of Trust and
Creativity A simplistic conclusion may be that scale defeated democracy in every
case, but with our knowledge it is clear that the scale problem, like any
17 Shapira 1979b; Amir et al. 1983.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
312
problem of human organization, demanded creativity to solve it.
Creativity, however, had declined and almost vanished for previously
explained reasons and others explained below. Unfortunately, without
creativity one unsolved problem such as rotatzia, amplified many others,
amplification impaired their solution, and the many unsolved problems
amplified still others.
Boda, the 41-year-old Kochav offspring who was the secretary when I
discovered how much effort officers had invested in Pinye’s case to no
avail, commented: “A larger kibbutz means much bigger problems”. He
was pointing to the fact that not only was Kochav physically large, but, in
addition to size preventing officers from knowing and understanding
everyone’s interests, hopes and wishes, age gaps as well inhibited their
acquisition of this knowledge. The founders were about sixty-six years
older than youngest members and their spouses, who were either third or
fourth generation. Twenty-five years earlier, veterans had already proved
indifferent to younger members’ interests in car sharing. When Roxy and
Missu used coercion to obtain car sharing, elder secretariat members
impaired Ran’s efforts to introduce it, and only more coercion by younger
members enabled Ran to lead the change. Kochav’s veterans cared for
some interests of its youth only when coerced to do so, proving that even
in 1961 Kochav suffered insufficient trustworthiness across generations.
However, what was a problem then, became even more so as Kochav
became older, larger and more conservative in the 1980s, when an
additional generation differentiated the oldest members from the youngest.
In 1986 some branch managers were third generation, and, in 1988, the
first grandchild became a chief officer. While, in the 1960s, most offspring
remained kibbutz members, in 1986 almost half of them left. Boda said,
clearly satisfied, that “only 30% of our offspring were leaving”, since this
was lower than the Movement average exit rate (He ignored those who
had left for other kibbutzim, as Kochav attracted a similar number from
other kibbutzim).18 However, the fact remains that it was fifty per cent
higher than the 1970 rate of 20%. Moreover, after the interview, the exit
rate continued to grow up to the early 1990s when it reversed, indicating
that expediency, rather than a belief in kibbutz cause, was a major
motivation for a large portion of offspring: they exited when profitability
18 Rosner et al. 1978: 550.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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was lost and returned when it regained.
Did Patrons and Pe’ilim Genuinely Care for Members
Interests? Exit due to expediency signaled diminishing solidarity and commitment.
At the end of their work on commitment mechanisms, I. Shepher and
Shapira (1992: 55) confessed that “…a large variety of kinds and types of
members and kibbutzim created much more complicated links of members
to kibbutzim than those discussed”. Like all CKP users, however, they
ignored FOs impact and distrust of oligarchic leaders which diminished
commitment and solidarity. A Kochav member might ignore FOs
conservatism and other oligarchic negative outcomes, but not the lack of
care for his needs by pe’ilim. For instance, pe’ilim mostly conformed to
car sharing, but sometimes a pa’il said his car was needed for work on the
weekend, while, in fact, it stood idle from Friday morning to Saturday
evening when the pa’il used it; this resulted in decreased solidarity.
Another case in which some pe’ilim proved their lack of care for
ordinary members’ interests was their abstention from participation in
plant shift-work sharing. Sharing of shift-work was a vital solution for the
conscription and retention of educated members for jobs with extra
hardships and without extra rewards. Sharing both lightened the burden of
shift-work on permanent line workers who would work only one evening
shift and one night shift every week, and expressed other members’
solidarity with them. Many pe’ilim did not share this duty, and a few of
the explanations given seemed justified and not just excuses, such as
working longer than the eight hours of line workers, plus additional time
for commuting to work and back. Some also cited heavier responsibility
and a great deal of work taken home. However, they failed to mention that
they were free on Fridays, and that, in many cases, their workload was
quite light, done in pleasant clean air-conditioned offices. They also
neglected to mention being given fringe benefits and informal rewards
which were non-existent in the hard, tedious work on plant lines.
Moreover, those pe’ilim who shared shift-work seemed no less burdened
by their jobs than others who did not share the work, making it quite clear
that many of the latter did not truly care for fellow members’ hardships.
In fact, such lack of care was not new. In accord with the maxim that
low morality begins at the top (In Hebrew: “The fish stinks from the
head;” e.g., Kets De Vries 1993), even the high-moral Kochav old guard
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
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had not always been a model of such care and solidarity in the past. Prime
leaders allotted most of their weekends to committee sessions and the
General Assembly; hence, they were excused from periodic Saturday work
and special branch duties on holidays. But they also avoided giyusim,
which was less excusable when they were at home on Fridays. Another
significant fact: interviewees who mentioned shibutz, explained its
introduction by citing the shirking of Saturday work by prime leaders,
although they did not really shirk it, but rather were mostly busy at
meetings or did homework of their FO jobs. The image of shirkers was
explicable as an extension of their shirking giyusim and night guarding
duties, which was the third type of inconvenient duty that prime leaders
avoided from the late 1940s. All able males guarded for a week once every
half a year or so, while women guarded the children’s houses. When plant
shift-work sharing was introduced in 1964, veteran members were too old
to participate. Thus, a just and fair solution would have been having the
veterans relieve the younger members who helped plant shift-work from
giyusim and night guarding, because the younger members did dozens of
inconvenient shifts every year, three-four times the amount of work
members did in giyusim and night guarding taken together. This meant
that other members would have done more giyusim and night guarding. No
one proposed it, apparently because officers were unsure about whether it
would not enhance defections by pe’ilim who would follow prime leaders,
and then other members would follow; thus, the managers decided that
they could manage without this solution. Unfortunately, without
continuous egalitarian efforts, shirking these duties spread and, in 1986,
only a minority participated in giyusim and shift-work sharing.
Patrons’ Dilemma: Trusted Headmen or Coercive Chiefs? Clear memories held by members of those of the elite who had fulfilled
inconvenient duties and those who had not decades ago prove that
members were very cognizant of violations of egalitarianism. Did patrons
not grasp that such violations curbed members’ trust in them? It seems that
they did realize this, especially in the early days when they alone were
guilty of such violations, and this was quite conspicuous. Their dilemma,
however, was that they had only 24 hours each day which was not enough
to retain the trust of members by doing all duties, participating in all
important deliberations and meetings, and succeeding in their FO jobs and
in national political struggles. They led a large movement of which
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
315
Kochav was only one part among hundreds. It is no wonder that they
decided that Kochav members would have to manage without them doing
manual work, and, as is usual in social action, there was no clear price tag
for this choice. They could only hope that members who saw how busy
they were would understand that they did not have enough time to do
these manual duties.
A clear sign that Kochav’s veterans agreed with this decision was that
none of them alluded to it, and only kibbutz offspring questioned it. Fox
(1974) pointed to an inevitable choice: when there is no trust, coercion is
inevitable. People either trust a leader and follow his orders, decisions and
policies, as they are convinced he is right in principle, even when it is
unclear why exactly he decides specifically as he does, or they follow his
orders due to his might. This was cited by Harris (1990: 349) when
portraying high-trust leadership by a headman of hunters and simple
agriculturalists. Within the kibbutz ethos, Kochav’s leaders should have
used trust rather than coercion. However, as heads of a much larger
movement, they more closely resembled Harris’s tribal chiefs or even
heads of mini-states (1990: 377-96) whose powers and capitals enabled
them to inflict painful penalties on nonconformists and political rivals. An
example was the expulsion from the KA of hundreds of leftists in 1954,
some of them after ten or even fifteen years of membership, leaving them
with only minimal severance payments. Similarly powerful were
Kochav’s prime leaders, as has been depicted. With much power but little
free time, knowing that they were highly trusted by veterans and many
other members as they had led Kochav to success, at first they abstained
from some orderly duties, and later on abstained from all.
Price of Chieftainship: Missing Followers’ Beliefs, Aims,
Hopes Heading a hierarchic organization causes a leader to forego personal
contact with commoners, as this becomes the role of deputies. As
Kochav’s prime leaders abstained from inconvenient duties, they rarely
met ordinary members outside the ‘reading room’, and most information
about their attitudes, needs and wants came from loyalists, some of whom
also abstained of these duties. This was in stark contrast to leaders of
Hutterite and Shaker communes who continued manual work and
remained directly in contact with commoners in an egalitarian work
setting. Thus, they could understand their vital interests, aims and wishes
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
316
and cared for them, as well as they could conscript their ingenuity to solve
major problems. Kochav’s involved leaders who participated in all major
deliberations knew more than pe’ilim of other kibbutzim about ordinary
members’ needs and wishes, and they could rightly assert that they were
too busy to care for them, since this was the task of officers and
committees. This was true only formally; their lack of support or even
objection prevented or impaired many new solutions which officers
proposed, and deterred others from proposing such ones. Dissociated from
ordinary members, they lacked vital information, and thus, for instance, in
the 1950s, they did nothing about John’s car problem, and in 1961 the
coercive actions of young members aimed at car sharing surprised them.
Moreover, for success in leading a social movement, decisive
knowledge for shaping its long-range efforts is beliefs, hopes, motivations
and commitments of members, all of which they lost by dissociation. This,
for example, could explain why they did not contest Movement leaders
continued leaning to the USSR’s “Socialism” after 1956, although they
were not leftists and supported leftism only during its high tide, seemingly
due to expediency. If they had been in contact with ordinary members, and
especially with younger ones, they would have known that few believed
this bluff, and that by discarding it would have greatly enhanced their own
credibility. Alas, they not only failed to appreciate how decisive this was,
but also failed to estimate how a new socialist vision could renew
commitment to Movement cause. Thus, they missed a major reason for
apathy and falling General Assembly attendance by many who sharply
criticized the bluff in interviews, as well as how the lack of a new socialist
vision enhanced liberal ideology (see below).
Furthermore, in the large and prosperous Kochav of the 1960s, and
even more so in the 1970s, it was not easy to channel motivations and
commitments of members from private ends to public ones, or even to
mobilize energies for the promotion of kibbutz cause. In 1960, David
Knaani of Kibbutz Merhavia published his seminal book on communal
societies which proved that, without a social mission, communal culture is
doomed in the long run. Kochav’s leaders who certainly read it, could
have sought to promote kibbutz ethos in FO cultures, for instance,
establishing democratic and egalitarian norms in the new Reg.Ents in
which Kochav was involved (Reiner’s group of KA young leaders had
proposed such norms). A new, socialist model of democratic and
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
317
egalitarian plants could have been created (or imitated, for instance, from
Mondragon19), partially correcting the mass immigrant absorption failure.
In addition, a Reg.Ent plant could have been set up in Yok when it sought
a factory, instead of making Yok Kochav’s junior partner. In short, a new
vision of promoting kibbutz ethos and culture could have mobilized
members’ energies and enhanced commitment and solidarity. Alas,
dissociated prime leaders remained inept, like Admors.
Lack of effort to promote kibbutz values within the field, only fighting
for them in national politics while sticking to the Soviet bluff, encouraged
exit by offspring, as Sabar (1996) found in a study of kibbutz offspring
living in Los Angeles. For them
“[Kibbutz] special values such as egalitarianism and pioneering began to
be perceived as routine declarations. …much is said about high morality,
but it is not applied. High-moral education is preached in words rather than
practiced in deeds. …the failure, …to implement such basic values raises
doubts about the uniqueness of kibbutz and its virtues” (p. 119).
Democracy Declined as Trust of Leaders and Creativity
Declined Cultural changes are often slow but profound. As previously explained,
while prime leaders shirked their duty to lead creative problem-solving in
order to promote kibbutz values from the 1940s, fewer and fewer members
participated in the General Assembly which dwindled in importance. In
1954 there was a feeling of a crisis, as one member wrote in the local
newsletter:
“In the past [members] related to this institution, the highest among
kibbutz institutions, with awe… In recent years, things have changed
completely. The number of assemblies has fallen to one each week. Due to
this [relative] rareness, the decrease in number should ensure that
Assemblies are more concentrated, but the opposite has occurred: tension
is dwindling, restlessness is growing, members’ opinions often remain
unexpressed, and the subjects are frequently uninteresting”.
Later that year, a complaint by another member helped to explain what
had changed:
19 Whyte & Whyte 1988; Morrison 1991.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
318
“When in the Assembly, any principle problem, ideological or social, is
raised, it is clear to us in advance that the speaker will see the danger very
early and suffocate discussion in its infancy… in the assemblies we
continue to thrash out nominations and procedural questions”.
As early as the 1950s, Kochav’s Assembly began suffering, though in
minor ways, from the problems found in Rama, Netzer Sireni (Kressel
1983) and many other kibbutzim (Argaman 1997). In contrast to few
nomination debates, which were completed within a few weeks in the
1930s-1940s, in 1960 no less than eighteen assemblies, one third,
discussed nominations and most others were procedural. Israel and Moshe
who spoke at almost every assembly in the 1940s, rarely spoke in the
1960s, and only Bilski continued active participation, as did a few of
Israel’s veteran loyalists. However, as has been mentioned by the above
citations, chief officers and the speaker made efforts to prevent problems
of principle raised by specific cases from being aired. Israel’s veteran
loyalist preferred this policy: “[For debating] subjects of principle we must
convene separately after thorough preparation of debates”. In reality, if
there was no concrete question to which a principle was related, questions
of principle were not aired, and if a special ‘debate on principle’ was
scheduled, participation was minimal since experience taught members
that it was a waste of time and energy to discuss principles without
concrete decisions translating them into norms. The chief officers mostly
reported to the assembly without letting it discuss the obstacles and
problems they faced, and only rarely did a concrete question lead to a
debate that aired questions of principle and led to a new norm.
For example, in the 1950s Michael started working outside the kibbutz
as an interior decorator and needed a car. His salary was high, so
providing the car was economical, but, as in John’s case, without car
sharing norms such a provision caused much opposition as it would have
given him an unjustified privilege. In addition, many members opposed
outside work. After two long debates, Bilski proposed that Michael
become a pa’il in the Movement’s planning FO which would give him a
car. His proposal was adopted and thus two problems of principle which
bothered members were evaded: egalitarian use of cars and outside work
damaging the self-work principle. Extensive debate left these problems
unsolved and they soon emerged again with others whose competencies
fitted specialized outside jobs. Only the introduction of car sharing in 1962
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
319
ended such barren debates.
Moreover, in this new solution, a car manager controlled all cars; thus,
their use at work gave users no advantage after work. If an outside worker
wanted a car for non-work purposes, s/he had to put in a request like
others. This reduced the inducement for outside work on the part of
privilege seekers, so it defended the self-work principle, while it spared
the Assembly superfluous debates concerning outside work by
professionals and experts. Ran’s creative solution spared the Assembly
many pointless debates, while many more creative solutions which were
foiled by patrons and/or their loyalists resulted in additional superfluous
debates, again causing dwindling Assembly participation.
FOs’ Negative Impacts on Kochav’s Democracy However, many more meaningless discussions which debilitated the
Assembly were caused by the Movement’s and FOs’ oligarchic
conservatism and power concentration, depriving the assembly of a major
power, the election of delegates to their governing bodies to represent
kibbutz members’ views. From 1956, heated political debates in the
assembly also subsided, as it became clear that they were largely futile,
and would not influence Movement policies which stuck to partial leftism,
no admission of the Soviet bluff, and no creative new socialist vision,
while it joined Mapay governments whose policies negated kibbutz
values. Interest in leaders’ reports on political issues lessened
considerably, so Israel and Moshe rarely spoke in the assembly. This
helped make the assembly boring, losing the aura of a body where all
national secrets were exposed and decisions that affected Movement
policy and national politics were taken.
Other negative impacts of FOs on democracy have been amply
discussed above, and I add only one: FOs’ enhanced stratification reduced
the solidaristic nature of kibbutz democracy which aimed at maximal
consensus, and majority decisions used only when no consensus was
achieved, contrary to the adversarial nature of societal politics. In the
1920s-1930s, whenever Kochav leaders saw a chance for reaching
consensus by more discussion, voting was postponed. For that reason,
major problems were discussed by consecutive assemblies, and, as has
been mentioned, in one major political debate in the 1940s, more than one
hundred members spoke at a series of meetings. With FOs oligarchization
and status symbolization of continuous pe’ilim by privileges, solidaristic
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
320
democracy declined; pe’ilim’s views in the assembly held greater weight
than those of other members who lacked status symbols and prestigious
high FO offices. Larger gaps between conservative leaders and radical
members bred fruitless debates which officers preferred to shorten, thus
gaining an image of efficiency which would enhance prospects of
promotion to pe’ilut. In addition, their inexperience and sometimes lack of
critical talent that caused major failures, as in Pinye’s case, also hindered
consensus and bred such debates.
As in previous cases, FOs negatively impacted democracy by enabling
the rise to power of conservative circulators who impaired creativity and
democracy. The negative impact of circulation and ‘parachuting’ was
amplified in Kochav by strictly enforced rotatzia, every two-three years,
dating from the 1963 plant’s succession crisis. The reign of FO heads
diminished the status and power of local officers and deterred talents who
‘left inward’ instead of taking offices. Although unlike previous cases,
radicals and talents still became officers, the conservative impact of both
FOs and internal processes made filling offices problematic; some
mediocre members took charge and many assemblies discussed the
problem. Only in rare cases did refusals of able members for an office lead
to the airing of its problems which deterred them, usually to no avail. In
1960, for example, cultural activity was reviewed by three assemblies after
no member older than twenty-five agreed to serve on the culture
committee. Most members ignored the discussion without any concrete
proposal for bettering committee functioning, even though a change was
required, since new FOs such as the Kibbutz Orchestra, the Kibbutz
Theatre and the Kibbutz Choir impacted considerably local cultural
activity.
Low-Moral Oligarchic FOs Curbed Morality of Kochav’s
Officers All the above, however, only partially explains the mounting problems
facing Kochav’s chief officers due to the impact of FOs. A major factor
was the negative moral impact of FOs on officers’ morality, and through
them, on members. In contrast to Boda’s weekly participation in plant
shift-work, many other elite members abstained from it and shirked
giyusim. Declining assembly effectiveness deterred some elite members
from active participation, impaired the quality of discussions and furthered
ineffectiveness. Though FO impact on the morality of Kochav’s elite was
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
321
less than in other cases, it was still decisive. FOs elevated low-moral
loyalist circulators of the old guard, other circulators and continuous
pe’ilim into Kochav’s main power-holders after the old guard vanished.
Trust dwindled, as Pinye’s case made clear, and creativity declined as
many radicals exited, were sidetracked, like Ran, or turned to outside
careers. Only a few younger officers were radical, as preferred role models
were either loyalist pe’ilim or outside careerists, both types which boosted
self-interest considerations in officer actions. Officers’ morality did not
plummet as low as Shaul’s, Mati’s and Barak’s, apparently due to the old
guard’s high-moral tradition, but when I probed inexplicable events, self-
serving behavior was exposed.
For instance, in 1986, a Reg.Ents plant of which Kochav had been a
partner in the past, collapsed financially. Reg.Ents managers decided that
owner kibbutzim and moshavim would rescue it by giving guaranties for
bank loans. To Kochav officers’ surprise, Kochav was included in the
owners’ list although it had stopped growing the crop processed by this
plant and had cancelled ownership years ago; a formal letter had been sent
and Kochav’s officers had stopped participating in plant Board meetings
and yearly Owners’ Assemblies. The Reg.Ents managers pointed to a
bylaw requiring ratification by an Owners’ Assembly for cancelling a
partner ownership in order to finalize it. Kochav’s ex-chief economic
officer who had sent the letter of cancellation asserted that he had not
finalized the cancellation since another bylaw stipulated that a leaving
partner would remain for two additional years responsible for possible
plant losses, so he did not hurry, but he did not explain why he had not
finalized it later on. This seemed strange: He himself had initiated
Kochav’s cancellation, suspecting the plant’s financial stability. As an
experienced economist, he well knew that this might lead to collapse and
rescue efforts, so why not finalize cancellation? The only reason I could
find was possible future pe’ilut in the Reg.Ents which he might lose by
doing this, as the cancellation meant no confidence of the Reg.Ents
managers. As he had joined Kochav only a few years earlier and had few
ties in FOs, it seemed that his deed kept good relations with these
managers for a future pe’ilut.
Likewise, I found other officers behavior which seemed to maintain
public interest only until it clashed with personal interest. Within
Kochav’s egalitarian culture, personal interest in career advance was
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
322
rarely confessed to by elite members. A rare confession was given by a
female ex-secretary who stated that twenty seven years earlier, her
husband had been chief economic officer and had left the job after only
two years, although the normative period was three, since he had sought
an educational career and received a scholarship for advanced studies.
Another economist finished this job after only a year and a half, as he
found a pe’ilut, and so too did one treasurer and one committee head.
These cases seemed parallel from a moral point of view to officers’
shortening assemblies by avoiding airing aspects of principle in the cases
discussed, another deed which served personal interests: it spared officers’
time, while creating an image of managerial efficiency which was good
for promotion to an FO’s managerial job.
Other officers extended terms beyond the prescribed period. No one
confessed that this was caused by lack of a promotion outlet or at least
another managerial job. Some asserted that they had continued despite
promotion offers due to the lack of a successor. This seemed credible as
problems in manning offices abounded, but it is also clear that many
continued due to personal interest, while viewing extended terms as
normative since some predecessors had also served longer ones. As
Chapter 2 shows, only 25-33% of officers served prescribed periods, as
most officers served either less or more time than the norm. This meant
blurring the norm: Without formal succession timetable and clear
procedure, an officer could believe that s/he continued only because no
successor had been found, while others could suspect that despite
declaring a succession intention, s/he willingly continued as his/her
behavior signaled no true wish to resign at the term end. The result was
that the nomination committee channeled its efforts to other, more
pressing manning problems of offices and let him/her continue despite
succession declaration and even questionable functioning.
No Vision: Personal Aims, Officer Shortages, Imitative
Solutions In the case of Kochav, a lack of talented successors could hardly be
explained by brain-drain. Up to the 1970s, it barely suffered from it, and
even in 1986 it had many talents in addition to those mentioned. However,
as exposed, office manning became problematic from the 1950s. One
deterrent was old guard conservatism, in accord with Am’ad and Palgi
(1986) and previous cases, while another was that talented and radicals
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
323
who did not leave, also did not hurry to take on an office after being
rotated from another one. After they had expended vast energies in solving
problems of one office, instead of rewards and even promotion, they were
demoted and then called upon to take another; thus like Ran, many
preferred other careers over management. Moreover, rotatzia and
circulation due to FO growth enhanced expectations for fast advancement
which diminished public service motivations. Hashlama leaders advanced
to FOs and circulated as pe’ilim, not much bothered by the introduction of
hired labor due to their ‘revolution’. In contrast, the young radical who re-
instilled self-work by the innovation of shift-work sharing served three
years, and then found only a minor FO job; after only two years in it he
left and became an innovative moshav member, apparently for the same
reason as Tomer, the self-serving conservatism of FO heads.
To attract talented radicals and critical thinkers to local offices by
public service motivation, rotatzia had to be replaced by a true solution for
Iron Law that allowed successful officers to continue until trust in them
vanished, enhanced adoption of creative solutions, and a new socialist
vision was necessary to replace the USSR bluff. A visionary leadership
task consists of translating exhilarating ideas into concrete aims with
which members will identify and for which they will strive.20 However,
neither Kochav leaders, nor Movement heads admitted their mistaken
leftism, barring publications which exposed Stalin’s brutal regime, and
proposing no new socialist vision. Jewish sages of old said: “Without a
vision, a nation runs wild”. Without a new vision, with the Movement’s
continued coalition with Mapay despite anti-democratic and non-socialist
policies, manning a negatively rewarded local office could hardly be seen
by a radical/critical thinker as a contribution to a radical movement
struggle, as a humble price for promoting noble aims, and a reason to
postpone one’s personal interest in a hobby, in study, or in a leisure
activity. Many talented members, potential chief officers and committee
heads, turned down nominations committee requests to fill such offices,
saying that they had already contributed their due in such jobs.
Without a new socialist vision, liberal, individualistic outside ideas
proliferated. For instance, the female ex-secretary mentioned above whose
20 Bennis & Nanus 1985; DePree 1990; Graham 1991; O’Toole 1999; Oplatka
2002.
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
324
parents joined Kochav in the 1930s after some years in Tel Aviv,
explained her view:
“I am not a leadership type, and I cannot say that I led the kibbutz to a new
era. However, I am a liberal person, very influenced by Western culture.
My parents are from Warsaw and Lodz, and, as an infant, I was raised in
Tel Aviv, and when I was in [Kochav] high school I also spent summer
holidays in Tel Aviv. Personal self-actualization and achieving [the best
of] one’s capabilities in order to achieve individual satisfaction was… [a
main concern for me]. Our population is such that if we do not find
solutions [for these concerns], the kibbutz will simply not exist”.
In an extended interview with this ex-secretary who served in 1977-
1979, she did not mention any social mission beyond the confines of
Kochav. Almost all problems which bothered her were personal problems
of members, except for two public ones. First, the excessively fast rotatzia
which she defined as “lunatic” and wanted to slow down. Second, the deaf
ear the General Assembly had turned to her opposition to take on the job
of secretary, since she believed it might ruin the high school biology
laboratory she had nurtured for many years. Indeed, according to her “it
was almost ruined” without a proper replacement from among kibbutz
teachers, while hiring one was out of question due to the self-work
principle. She, however, did not know that the self-work principle had
been violated more than once in the past when a specific expertise was
required. For instance, from the late 1920s, an expert neighboring falah
(Arab farmer) had been hired for some months every summer to sift the
best wheat grains for seeds, until a sorting machine had been bought. A
continuous, highly trusted leadership could maintain a principle, even
though forsaking it for a while, by encouraging creativity which restored it
by using new solutions. But when conservatism dominated and there was
no such leadership and meager creativity, a minor infringement of a
principle by one short-term officer could lead to additional ones by
successors until the principle collapsed. Thus, norms were kept to the
letter, both self-work and ‘lunatic’ rotatzia.
In addition to such nominations which almost ruined the life project of
a talented member, Kochav paid another high price for ‘lunatic’ rotatzia:
mounting problems of filling managerial jobs. Had competent Ran
continued in office, for instance, subject to a periodic test of trust in
accord with an anti-Iron Law norm proposed in the next chapter, he might
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
325
have continued twelve years, sparing Kochav many frustrated officers like
the above secretary. There were many like her from the early 1950s, since
two members filled the job together. However, one person might have
solved problems even better if s/he had been sufficiently educated,
experienced, talented and committed while continuing due to public trust
which would gave him/her considerable discretion. This was prevented by
instituting rotatzia and adding a younger member to a veteran who filled
the job in order to overcome the generation gap. Unfortunately, the true
gap was between the conservatism of patrons and their loyalists, and the
younger members’ anticipation for new solutions. Nominating a young
member to be a second secretary was better than leaving all authority to a
conservative veteran loyalist, as Ran’s case proved, but it caused
ineptness. After the era of veterans, middle-aged women took their place,
together with men, in order to close the gender gap, since hitherto, despite
egalitarian discourse, no woman had been chosen as chief officer.
Unfortunately, two parallel secretaries and rotatzia every two years meant
that each decade some ten secretaries had to be found instead of one, if
leaders like Ran and Pinye had been re-elected like Athens’ Pericles. In
addition to secretaries each year another chief officer had to be replaced,
and many other junior officers as well, causing the nominations committee
to hold dozens of sessions, and some twenty assemblies discussed
nominations, much as in Argaman’s (1997) cases. Additional major
problem was filling the specialized jobs left vacant by talented nominees,
like the finding of a biology lab manager.
The FOs’ Role in the Continuation of Rotatzia-Driven
Problems Although many agreed that rotatzia was a problematic system, it
continued as no one sought a new solution. Rotatzia served FO head
supremacy well, and neither kibbutz students, nor successful circulators
such as Mati, Shaul and Barak, or any kibbutz thinker (except for me),
alluded to its perils. Senior kibbutz member academics did not suffer from
rotatzia, while many profited from it: they lectured each year to the
hundreds of new nominees in Movement seminars and in the Ruppin
College courses which trained the inexperienced to be minimally qualified
kibbutz officers.
Why did Kochav decision-makers fail to grasp that rotatzia was
‘lunatic’? Here again the impact of FOs was the answer: Successful
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
326
pe’ilim, both continuous ones like the three leaders and a few others, as
well as circulators, had no reason to criticize it, while the relatively strong
authority of Kochav’s officers, made its democracy a relative success,
especially at first, when its would-be patrons were still creative, trusted
leaders. When FO oligarchization made them conservative patrons, trust
dwindled only slightly due to their high morality and involvement which
prevented some costly mistakes, and power to overcame major conflicts,
boost officers’ authority, and assure members that the hidden power
structure they headed would overcome troubles and obstacles. Kochav’s
success blinded both leaders and laymen to the unreasonableness of this
structure, to its conservative nature which delayed or blocked the
possibilities of creative coping with major challenges, and to the fact that
patrons only came to the rescue when a row erupted. However, patrons
avoided radical solutions that would have prevented the row in the first
place, such as a democratic succession system which would have allowed
successful managers continuity and replaced them only when entering
dysfunction phase and loosing trust of role-partners (see next chapter).
Rotatzia did not suit managing complex Kochav, but kibbutz students
praised it as a success, FO heads and their loyalists supported it for
obvious reasons, as did many local conservative officers who sought
advance to pe’ilut, while the few officers who saw it as ‘lunatic’ like the
above secretary, had too little power and time in office for the creation and
introduction of a new major solution.
Without a new vision and not enough office continuity, Kochav’s chief
officers since the 1970s rarely tried to create radical solutions which
promoted kibbutz ethos. As Sabar (1996: 119) said:
“The failure, in the opinion of kibbutz offspring, to implement basic values
raises doubts concerning [kibbutz] uniqueness and its virtues”.
The above secretary echoed this failure, which was explicable by both
‘internal leaving’ and Hirschmanian exit of radicals and critical thinkers
who could have created, introduced and implemented new practices which
would have advanced kibbutz values. Kochav became short of capable
officers who, like Ran, dared ingenuity against conservatives’ hegemony.
A major reason was that as part of a field in which socialism stopped at
FO gates due to the personal interests of their heads and their loyalists,
Kochav’s vision, ideology and social mission had become vague from the
time leftism had taken hold sixty years ago. Without clearing and updating
17. Rotatzia, Scale and FOs’ Impact Ruined Creativity
327
them, innovators’ efforts were incoherent and inconsistent, and thus,
usually failed. In order to rescue kibbutz ethos and culture, both Kochav
and FOs required a new socialist vision and creative solutions for major
problems, but this required highly trusted transformational leadership
which neither Kochav nor FOs elevated.
CHAPTER 18
Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
“The hardest part of ethnographer’s work is to discern the context of
phenomena” (Marx 1985: 147).
Landshut (2000[1944]) and Buber (1958[1945]) pointed to the
decisiveness of FOs and kibbutz societal involvement, but the dominant
scientific coalition ignored them and used conventions of communal
studies, although the kibbutz was incomprehensible without the contexts
of FOs and the Socialist Zionist movement which it spearheaded. Contrary
to other communal societies, its culture flourished due to societal
involvement and FOs mediating societal relations. Customary kibbutz
paradigm was a fatal mistake, missing how FOs became Trojan horses of
capitalist society that encouraged low morality by their autocratic, low-
trust, market- and hierarchy-controlled cultures which associated authority
with private gain.1 The proper paradigm for the study of kibbutz resembles
Bourdieu’s (1977, 1984) paradigm of a complex stratified field, one in
which kibbutzim and FOs struggled for cultural hegemony and the latter
won after many decades. At first the federative structure, high-trust
cultures and high-moral leaders enhanced innovation and technological
advance with capital intensity that led to specialization and other
inequalities, which were curbed by creative solutions with exceptional
success. Success enhanced growth, oligarchization, conservatism and
moral decline of FO heads and staff which harmed and then ruined kibbutz
essential cultural components: creativity, egalitarianism, self-work,
solidaristic democracy and high trust relations. Alas, students evaded FOs
for non-scientific reasons (Shapira 2005; Chap. 3), leading to gross
misunderstanding.
Though Admors were among the most continuous leaders of any
known democracy, kibbutz students ignored oligarchic processes. Due to
FOs evasion, they also missed the lessons of large organization
ethnography and studies of power elites, social movements, democracy
and leadership which were decisive for exposing negative effects of
1 Triandis 1989; Chatman & Barsade 1995.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
329
oligarchization. Critical historians exposed some of these, but not their
etiology, ignoring findings of critical anthropologists and sociological
theories, while the dominant scientific coalition of sociologists and
behaviorists, in addition to FOs evasion, used only formal quantitative
methods and ignored findings of other disciplines. Critical sociologists
alluded to FOs, but failed to integrate them into analysis, ignored findings
of ethnographers, missed the simultaneous functioning of elites in the
field’s two contradicting sectors, as well as how rotatzia became
circulation, enhancing the iceberg phenomenon of power and furthered
oligarchic processes. Thus they missed the true powers which shaped
kibbutz cultures and the field’s prime change process.
Anthropologists missed the context of FOs, the field’s complexity and
its societal contexts, although pioneering Landshut pointed to Movements’
role in the shaping of kibbutz cultures. Buber (1958[1945]) also pointed,
though in academic language, to the Achilles heel of kibbutz society,
Movements’ and other FOs’ violations of its principles. However, both
points were ignored and ethnographies missed how FOs’ violations
enhanced oligarchization and accumulation of power, capitals and
privileges by their heads and a few power-holders in each kibbutz who
often became patrons of its officers and turned them into peons on their
chessboards, decided their careers, castrated democracy, and achieved
self-serving conservative hegemony for good. Though critical
anthropologists exposed local oligarchs and some of their self-serving
deeds, they missed FO contexts which elevated them and assured their
status, power, privileges and continuity; thus they missed the field’s main
etiology and the major forces that shaped its cultures.
The missing of stratification was students’ most spectacular failure,
caused by seeking it only inside kibbutzim, while it was mainly shaped
outside them in FOs and other hierarchic organizations. They viewed chief
kibbutz officers as the highest stratum, but they were really juniors, far
beneath Admors, their deputies who were Cabinet Ministers and Knesset
Members, heads of large FOs and other senior pe’ilim who, due to power
and capitals accumulation, evaded rotatzia. Pe’ilim were stratified by FO
hierarchies, degree of job continuity and size, power and prestige of their
FO or outside organization. Due to rotatzia, which mostly became
circulation, their formal roles scarcely testified to their status, power,
prestige and other intangible capitals which were accumulated along
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
330
careers in both one’s kibbutz and FOs/other organizations. Without
salaries or with uniform ones for most pe’ilim, FO fringe benefits became
main status and power symbols, explaining pe’ilim’s sticking to the
stratifying company car system, contrary to kibbutz ethos and culture.
With FOs oligarchization, power and capitals were largely gained as in
other bureaucracies by patronage and clique formation. This was another
major reason why status and power of pe’ilim, ex-pe’ilim and patrons were
less dependent on current jobs, than on their past careers and positions in
local and FOs or other external power cliques which almost all students
missed.
Circulation and Other Rotatzia’s Perils Were Missed Rotatzia created egalitarianism only in low local kibbutz offices, but from
the rank of chief kibbutz officers and upward it became circulation,
especially with the growth of FOs. Then return to the ranks became rare
and mostly short-lived, and motivated more by expediency than
egalitarianism. Circulation violated egalitarianism, but maintained rotatzia
since it assured officers of their status and power, while the return of some
pe’ilim to lower ranks kept the egalitarian image. As in all historical and
current cases of rotatzia, it enlarged continuity gaps as well as power and
capital differentials among officers, since higher-ups evaded it while most
others conformed, primarily to obtain promotion by proving conformity.
Rotatzia caused a huge waste of knowledge and expertise by ‘parachuting’
officers to jobs in which their intangible assets were useless or even
intrusive. ‘Parachutists’ opted either to detachment and hands-off
management in order to conceal ignorance and protect authority, or to
coercive strategies that used formal authority and market forces. This
caused destructive conflicts and suppression of committed-to-tasks
innovative experts and critical thinkers who were demoted, sidetracked
and exited (Hirschman 1970). Brain-drain enhanced promotion of
mediocre loyalists of conservative patrons, but, unable to promote public
aims, they shifted to personal ends (Hirschman 1982). This ruined trust,
cooperation (Axelrod 1984), creativity (Jaques 1990) and democracy,
while furthering brain-drain. Less common were involved ‘parachutists’
who became trusted transformational leaders that achieved organizational
successes, as in Guest’s (1962) case.
As in other rotatzia cases, suppressed talented innovators who did not
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
331
exit turned to other careers in which success was rewarded by job
continuity, power, capitals and promotion, furthering managerial brain-
drain. When such careerists succeeded on the outside without help of local
officers, they followed pe’ilim violations of egalitarianism, sometimes
leading to anarchy which impaired trust, democracy, public innovation
and morality. Oligarchic processes enhanced this by encouraging both
violations of egalitarianism and self-serving motivation. Very few pe’ilim
abided by rotatzia due to ideological zeal or a negative balance of
rewards, contrary to student explanations. This balance was true only of
most local kibbutz offices, but was rare among pe’ilim who usually
conformed due to either failure in jobs, and/or loss of patrons’ auspices,
and/or to keep kibbutz good-will for future pe’ilut. Rotatzia served the rule
of conservative FO heads while concealing this fact from both members
and researchers, who missed how it enhanced patronage and cliques
formation by making officers’ status vulnerable, and thus encouraged their
seeking patrons’ auspices. Even critical anthropologists who exposed
some of its perils, missed its major effects; hence, even the few
sociologists who used their insights, missed these effects.
Patronage Promoted Conservative Loyalists, Marred
Creativity Contrary to democratic ideals, with oligarchization the promotion of
officers accorded more patrons’ auspices and clique membership rather
than competence, devotion to the kibbutz cause and ingenious promotion
of public aims. Only few patrons remained high-moral, and these were
almost only within kibbutzim. These patrons, and/or influential veteran
officers or ex-officers, nurtured democracy and trust by allowing officers’
discretion and supporting creativity. Grass-roots democracy elevated
effective radicals to local chief offices, and their creative solutions to
major problems which enhanced kibbutz ethos and culture, diffused to
other kibbutzim in which patronage was weak or high-moral patrons did
not bar implementation of democratically-ratified changes which they
opposed. This high morality was explained by patrons’ involvement in
solving local problems which made them sensitive to members’ interests
and distress, and by a democratic tradition of high-trust cultures. High-
moral patrons curbed some perils of rotatzia, but even then creativity
suffered as these patrons rarely promoted creative radicals to FO jobs, in
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
332
accord with Hirschman (1970), while many such radicals who believed in
rotatzia’s positive effect, conformed to it, lost status, were sidetracked
and/or exited. Worse still, the few of them who did advance to FOs, at best
enhanced FOs functioning, but failed to cause lasting changes without
supporting cliques, in accord with Dalton (1959), and departed quite early.
In some kibbutzim, patronage was rare or weak without continuous
senior pe’ilim and/or successful circulators, who could care for clients’
circulation in managerial jobs. Clients have to be loyal to patrons and keep
positive images, rather than genuinely succeeding in jobs by trustful
relations with members (or subordinates in FOs) and solving major
problems. Students missed this and were misled by the public servant
masks of circulative patrons who came back to the ranks for short periods.
Topel (1979) detected patronage, but missed patrons’ true aims and
interests, analyzing their behavior without the context of FOs’ power and
status competition. Thus he missed the main aim of his circulative patrons,
to prove loyalty to supreme patrons, the conservative FO heads who
controlled FO jobs. Most of the negative effects of self-serving patronage
and the nurture of cliques have not been elucidated, nor has the breach of
members’ trust by patrons’ Machiavellianism, such as red tape and loyalist
nominations which obstructed implementation of democratic decisions.
Missing Unique Elite Careers and Their Grave
Consequences Without untangling true stratification, circulation and patronage, the
uniqueness of elite careers was missed. These careers have barely been
studied, contrary to Goldschmidt’s (1990) maxim that, even in the most
egalitarian societies, people seek a career which is esteemed by a
community. By studying kibbutz officers’ balance of rewards without their
careers, both the cost of status and power loss due to rotatzia was ignored,
and how rotatzia was avoided by circulation with promotion prospects,
which was often at the cost of servile loyalty to patrons’ conservatism. At
the height of kibbutz research, few chief officers returned to the ranks for
long, and they were mostly radicals and critical thinkers which many of
whom soon exited. Thus, survey researchers who studied only members
missed this loss and did not explain shortages of competent managers. Due
to CKP they missed another reason: non-egalitarian circulation by
privileged mediocre clients encouraged talents’ exits. According to
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
333
economists, such talents exited due to the fact that egalitarianism deprived
them of extra tangible rewards for extra contributions, but, as many of the
talented were critically minded and/or radicals, they were deprived even
more of intangible rewards. They suffered low and insecure status, heavy
responsibility but little power, little appreciation for successful problem
solving, unfair criticism and obstruction of innovation efforts by powerful
loyalist circulators, who even obstructed some conformist solutions,
apprehending that successes would enhance innovative officers’ power
and status.
Without a Renewed Socialist Vision, Radicals’ Incoherent
Efforts Failed Oligarchic conservatism caused no renewal of a social-democratic vision
after the leftist bluff was exposed. Admors stuck to leftist concepts,
barring renewal and the updating of movements’ vision, ideology and
tasks. Socialist and liberal ideas clashed, resulting in conflicts between
their holders while conservatives reigned, causing stagnation, apathy and
abstention from offices by talented. The inevitable manning by lesser
members, degraded office status and prestige and furthered abstentions.
Mediocre officers defended their authority by detachment, hands-off
conservatism, coercive means and suppression of innovators. This was
prevented only when high-moral leaders created a truly democratic
tradition, abiding by decisions which curtailed their own and loyalists’
privileges and refraining from interfering in grass-roots promotion of
radical officers to chief offices. Creativity by these radicals modeled
genuine care for the public good, which was imitated by other officers and
members, and led to successes.
However, without a renewed socialist vision, while the gravity of the
kibbutz field elevated to power conservative, low-moral circulators when
the high-moral old guard had vanished, even in creative kibbutzim
cultures eventually deteriorated as trust and creativity declined. Liberal
ideas encouraged critical thinkers and radicals whose managerial careers
were derailed to remain and to turn to outside, non-FO careers. However,
they became alienated when kibbutz officers did not care for their special
needs or even tried to fail them by false egalitarianism. A critical mass of
such successful careerists caused anarchy when they managed to extract
privileges and violate egalitarianism; officers could not stop them as they
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
334
imitated pe’ilim practices. Anarchy degraded officers’ status, deterred
talented members from taking office, marred creativity and curbed
democratic participation, as no one knew if decisions would be upheld or
would crumble when violated by power elites. Strong rule by conservative
patrons in other kibbutz prevented such anarchy, but at a cost of
stagnation, ineffectiveness, brain-drain, a failed economy and repeated
mass exodus crises following exits by disenchanted leaders of hashlama
groups and cohorts of offspring.
This explains some kibbutz failures and the flawed demography of
many survivors: Contrary to Rosolio’s (1999) dependency explanation, the
main reason was not officers’ complacency, but a self-enhancing cycle of
suppression of innovative young talents by conservative patrons and their
loyalists. The exit of the talented was followed by that of most of their
group; only mediocre loyalists, naive zealots and expediency seekers
remained. A new hashlama came to fill the ranks, the cycle repeated itself
and became a vicious one: residues of previous exits either backed
patrons’ suppression of innovators, or abstained from the democratic
process. Thus both ways enhanced patrons’ conservative rule and its
perils, which ruined kibbutz culture and caused further failures.
An exception that proves the rule was the case of a kibbutz with an
ultra-high exit rate which left only a small residue, enabling a coalition of
two veteran high-moral leaders and radical hashlama leaders to defeat
conservatives, initiate major creative solutions, promote kibbutz ethos,
stop brain-drain, introduce self-work factory and accomplish major
success, though only for two decades. Then a conservative patron who
kept managerial status by circulation, regained power by Machiavellian
tactics along with the repeated aid of FO heads and other outsiders, while
his radical rival leader left as he lost hope for a change of FO heads’
complacency when the system’s debt crisis ensued. Then other opponents
of the patron left as his ruling clique proved unbeaten, leading to
eradication of kibbutz culture.
Servant Leaders and High-Trust, Solidaristic Democracy
Were Rare All five cases reiterate the decisiveness of the leadership factor, but,
contrary to students’ assertion, transformational rather than charismatic
leaders explained success. Genuine solidaristic democracy was created in
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
335
only a minority of high-trust, creative kibbutzim, by ascetic, high-moral,
radical, public servant leaders committed to the kibbutz cause, who
devoted much of their meager free time to local committees and the
Assembly, even while holding high-level FO jobs. They supported
implementation of decisions which they had opposed, and this, as well as
the vast amount of information they brought and knowledge diffused by a
critical local press, enhanced participation in decision-making, made
disobedience rare, and ensured that democratic decisions were upheld in
spirit. The rarity of disobedience in the studied democratic kibbutz
stemmed in part from a creative solution which enhanced justice in
exceptional personal cases, through a special, non-rotational appeals
committee in which the leaders participated. Though leaders became
conservative patrons and frustrated radical officers of new generations, the
democratic tradition enhanced creativity for additional decades, especially
after the 1956 blow to Admors conservative leftism, despite scale curbing
trust, democracy and equality. Creative solutions by servant officers
retained self-work and egalitarianism, curbed brain-drain, bred economic
success and overcame economic setbacks. Thus, the original ethos was
largely retained despite its dereliction in most of the kibbutz field.
Students could not explain the dwindling solidaristic democracy
because they missed oligarchy, Admors’ power self-perpetuation by
autocratic means and leftism, and the negative effects of circulation,
patronage and cliques. They exposed perils, such as excessive debates
about nominations and procedural matters, various ailments of committee
work and abstention from voting, but not the deeper flaws, primarily rule
by privileged FO oligarchy and its local clients, and the disappearance of
servant, highly trusted transformational leaders. In addition to
egalitarianism, the lifeblood of solidaristic democracy was such credible,
authentic leaders to whom members listened as this helped them to
understand the fast changing reality, the movement’s mission and tasks,
and the choice between clashing ideas about how to solve problems. These
vital elements of a healthy solidaristic democracy were fatally damaged by
oligarchic rule of Admors and FO heads, leftism, suppression of the
critically minded and radicals, and dissociation of pe’ilim from members.
Democracy became adversarial as patronage, cliques, intangible capitals
and privileges made a few conservative pe’ilim, ex-pe’ilim, local plant
managers or ex-managers de-facto rulers of kibbutzim, self-servingly
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
336
suppressing the critically minded and talented radicals by Machiavellian
tactics and Iron Law means.
The grass-roots democracy of kibbutz branches and committees
continued to elevate chief officers with creative solutions that might have
renewed kibbutz cultures, but even in past creative kibbutzim, they were
too weak to solve major problems such as ‘lunatic’ rotatzia which kibbutz
students supported, and were soon replaced by loyalist circulators who
evaded problems and rendered debates futile. Hidden icebergs of
irreplaceable power elites failed efforts at influencing true decision-
makers (e.g., Freeman 1974); thus, even during eras of radical officers,
most democratic sessions were not worth participating in and solved no
major problems. Moreover, participation was an act of trust in democracy,
but this trust was undeserved as the ‘democracy’ was largely a show
orchestrated by power elites who denounced proposals by the critically
minded and radicals not because they were wrong, but since they might
elevate fresh powers.
‘Parachutings’, Imitative Hired Labor and Leaders
Detachment Contrary to Helman (1987), circulation did not preserve rare managerial
talent. My Reg.Ents findings (1987) were repeated in kibbutzim:
circulation bred detached ‘parachutists’, mismanagement, conservatism,
suppression of critically minded and radicals, brain-drain and abstention
from offices by the talented. Not all ‘parachutists’ fail; if one was talented,
chose direct involvement and became a trusted servant leader, he usually
succeeded. But even then ‘parachuting’ caused brain-drain and exits of
radicals since it damaged mid-level officers’ belief in rewarding devotion
to tasks and ingenuity in solving problems by promotion. The perils of
‘parachutings’ were ignored by evading FOs and critical ethnographies,
while missing how local ‘parachutists’ succeeded, by clique formation,
patronage and autocratic rule, helped by supreme patrons’ backing, use of
hired labor and other capitalist practices, like in FOs. As involved, high-
moral innovative leaders were purged from managerial ranks and mostly
exited, students did not meet them to learn from them how really
kibbutzim functioned under ‘parachutists’ rule.
Even if ‘parachutists’ followed Admors’ rejection of hired labor, they
were detached from members’ work, did not experience their complex
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
337
tasks, barely appreciated their efforts and ingenuity outside the ‘reading
room’ of deliberations, were deaf to their opinions and indifferent to their
plight. Trusting them little, a usual ‘parachutist’ furthered distrust by
minimizing discretion and shop-floor democracy, sought market and
hierarchy controls and self-aggrandizement by growth using hired labor,
and violated kibbutz ethos by privileges that symbolized high-status. Their
camouflages of low morality as job requirements and in other ways, were
soon exposed by members as bluffs, furthering distrust, hampering both
work motivation and problem-solving, as it impaired the free flow of
knowledge and information.
A few directly involved ‘parachutists’ made radical changes that
promoted the kibbutz ethos, such as ridding factories of hired labor by
innovation, including egalitarian work practices, but their example was
rarely followed by others, especially in Ichud kibbutzim where hired labor
was de-facto legitimate. Admors ignored or suppressed innovators, using
leftism to maintain that exploitation was the prime drawback of hired
labor. Helped by the dominant scientific coalition of kibbutz students, they
neglected the main defect of hired labor, enhancing low-trust, market and
hierarchy controlled cultures leading to oligarchic rule, as Kressel (1974,
1983) exposed. The coalition ignored Kressel and missed how other
kibbutzim barred oligarchization by dissociating the kibbutz from a mass
hired labor plant, rotating its managers and using other solutions invented
by creative kibbutzim. Nor did this coalition explain the failed
industrialization of some kibbutzim: Patrons did not allow it as they feared
the rise of competing leaders who would head mass hired labor plants as
in Kressel’s Netzer Sireni.
Ignoring Stryjan, Scale, Creativity and Democracy
Problems Kibbutz students ignored Stryjan who was right concerning the
decisiveness of creativity and federative structure, as Brumann (2000) has
proven. But like them Stryjan ignored critical ethnographies, missed
oligarchization and its perils, and the integrality of high-trust cultures and
high-moral leaders for both democracy and creativity. In a democracy
public trust decides continuity or succession of leaders, but Stryjan praises
rotatzia which negates this maxim, transferring power to self-chosen,
unaccountable patrons and power elites, while scale proved to be a more
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338
difficult problem than he had imagined. Handy (1989) pointed to the
conservatism of federative systems due to power accumulation at the
center which stifles units’ creativity. My study supported him, but in
accord with Stryjan, it pointed to creativity due to smallness and autonomy
of kibbutzim and branches, despite FO heads’ and chief officers’
conservatism. Stryjan pointed to the flow of innovations among
kibbutzim, but missed that it was limited to agriculture and consumption,
and was rare in industry where secrets were guarded against competitors,
often other kibbutzim. This could have been solved as in Mondragon
cooperative plants,2 but it would have required trusted and creative
movement leaders open to learning from other successful radical cultures.
Contrary to Stryjan and other students’ suppositions, keeping branch or
plant democracy alive was difficult even when small, due to social gaps
created by specialization, hierarchy and generational gaps. These obstacles
multiplied in FOs. However, had their heads been replaced when the
dysfunction phase commenced by transformational servant leaders, the
latter could have nurtured democracy and creativity.
The Plausibility of High-Trust, Democratic and Creative
FOs Kibbutz research ignored Michels and complementary studies, but
democracy required solutions for oligarchic tendency. Washington and
Jefferson had created the solution of limiting presidencies to eight years,
but if Admors had resigned after eight years, Tabenkin in 1931 and Yaari
in 1935, at peak effectiveness, the kibbutz movement could hardly have
succeeded. Hence, an improvement is required to allow additional terms
for such leaders, as proposed below. If this proposal had been adopted,
Admors would have been replaced in the late 1930s or early 1940s. Could
such succession have assured the viability of KM’s and KA’s democracy,
egalitarianism and creativity? There are signs that it could have.
Tabenkin became leftist in 1937 and fatally damaged KM democracy in
1939 (Naan convention). If a new leader had succeeded him in 1935 or in
1939 in accord with the proposal below and had this leader opted to renew
democracy, he certainly would have faced opposition by Tabenkin’s
2 Whyte & Whyte 1988; Morrison 1991.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
339
loyalists, but he could have overcome this opposition if he had used
almost unanimous deputies’ opposition to leftism and belief in
egalitarianism and democracy. Yaari became leftist in 1939; if Hazan had
succeeded him in 1939 or 1943 due to the proposal below, leftism could
have been suppressed, and Mishmar Ha’emek’s lively democracy
(Argaman 1997) might have been replicated by other kibbutzim and could
have influenced KA democracy, in accord with Buber’s 1945 directive.
New leaders would have replaced predecessors’ loyalists by critical
thinkers and radicals like Shenhabi, Allon, Avidan and Reiner, and would
have published critics like Maletz (1945) and KA’s partisan survivors
without censorship. The large kibbutz field also required a constitution to
balance leaders’ rights and duties with those of members, as well as a
judicial system with an appeal mechanism that would have assured justice.
Therefore, the tasks which awaited these leaders would have been quite
formidable and might not have been accomplished by them, but only by
radical successors whose elevation would have been plausible, had the
solution proposed below been adopted.
New leaders could have kept Movement headquarters and FOs inside
kibbutzim like the Palmach, staffing them by members, and gearing them
to their cultures, instead of urban locations and capitalist imitation. Barker
(1997: 352) talked about “a process of change where the ethics of
individuals are integrated into the mores of a community”; FOs could have
been integrated into kibbutz mores by the above idea and by involvement
of their pe’ilim in hosting kibbutzim, as were teachers of KA’s boarding
high school in Mishmar Ha’emek. Another great help for kibbutzim could
be establishing regional plants inside them as integral parts of their
economies, sparing them the hurdles of establishing plants aimed at
outside markets and competing with other kibbutzim. Why was this idea
not adopted? A Reg.Ents concern head reacted when I raised this idea:
“Are you crazy? Do you want me to decide which price the kibbutz [which
operates such a regional plant] will get from other kibbutzim for its
products?”
A trusted regional leader and FO executives chosen democratically by a
regional parliament of kibbutz delegates could have decided this price,
fairly balancing the interests of the plant, its host kibbutz and its client
kibbutzim. Alas, for the shaky authority of my interlocutor, a ‘parachuted’
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
340
circulator chosen by an old-boys clique of pe’ilim whose continuity
depended on power and capitals accumulation, it was a menace; such a
delicate decision would have made him vulnerable. FOs situated inside
kibbutzim would have required trusted leaders whose “ethically justifiable
behavior consists of morally correct decisions and actions, in which the
interests of society take the degree of precedence that is right, just and fair
over the interests of individuals” (Hosmer 1995: 399). Leaders’ authority
should have been assured by genuine democracy in which a relevant and
knowledgeable constituency had decided periodically by ballot to what
extent leaders were trusted, and those who did not gain enough trust were
replaced by high-moral, trusted, competent and critically minded ones
who had proven these characteristics in lower echelons. This is the
ultimate solution for high-trust, creative DWOs which are viable for long
periods, no less than bureaucracies.
Sustainable DWOs: High-Trust Cultures, High-Moral
Leaders Unlike Stryjan, high-trust cultures and high-moral leaders were found to
be more decisive than scale for creativity, and scale’s negative impact on
creativity was found largely due to curbing trust and democracy by
hierarchy, specialization and oligarchization which enhanced social gaps
and curbed solidarity. Scale increases decisiveness of leadership for
internal and external coordination and guidance of efforts by specialized
units and participants, and for shaping effective strategies and tactics, but
growing power and capitals gaps enhance suspicions and distrust that
hamper democratic leadership. They encourage a leader’s use of coercive
means, enhancing oligarchization and its perils, including elevation of
loyalists one of whom succeeds the leader and continues anachronistic
policies, but often implement them even worse, causing failures which
cause distrust and minimal conformity; s/he then uses coercive means
which further mistrust, destructive conflicts and failures (Gouldner 1954,
1955). Efforts to avert this scenario by ‘parachuting’ a talented outsider,
usually further it, as outsiders tend to use coercive means (Kipnis 1976).
Therefore, the prime step to make DWOs creative and plausible
sustainable alternatives to bureaucracies is a new succession system that
elevates critical thinkers and creative radicals to leadership, and replaces
them just as oligarchic tendencies commence.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
341
DWOs can last if they retain creativity (Stryjan 1989), and kibbutz
analysis points out that the ultimate condition for lasting creativity is high-
trust cultures led by high-moral leaders. Ample works cited support it, but
most organizational innovation and learning literature have only recently
alluded to trust decisiveness for sincere conveyance of critical knowledge
among collaborators in innovation, and even then, the pivotal role of
leaders in trust creation was mostly ignored.3 The literature pointed to
innovation flourishing in small units which collaborated within large
structures: business groups, R&D networks, strategic alliances, industrial
districts, etc.4 However, who created trust among unequal partners, and
how was the domineering tendency of stronger partners curbed? The role
of leaders in the creation of high-trust cultures in such structures has been
ignored. For instance, Powell (1990) found networks of innovative firms
were predicated on trust, but he did not explain how trust of smaller and
weaker partners was kept, and who assured them getting a fair share of the
fruits of cooperation. These structures are more egalitarian than usual
bureaucracies, but one may suppose that low-trust relations reign much of
the time in many of their parts due to the stronger partners’ dominance and
the tendency of market forces to ruin trust.5 Federalization of DWOs is a
better solution, provided federation democracy is genuine, solidaristic and
defended constitutionally against oligarchization. This will allow
discretion for DWOs innovation, as well as for their grass-roots
democracy and high-trust cultures to elevate critically minded, creative
radical officers, who, due to genuine democracy, will have a fair chance,
no less than federation officials, to be chosen federation head or
executives.
However, both the kibbutz experience and that of Semler’s (1993)
Semco show that the scale of work units which may achieve grass-roots
democracy, must be much smaller than that of a kibbutz or Jay’s (1972)
3 A few authors in Dierks et al. (2001) and Kramer & Cook (2004) discuss trust
and leadership, while authors in Huysman & Wulf (2004) barely deal with trust
and not with leadership. 4 Sako 1992; Dodgson 1993; Saxenian 1994; Its reviews: Fukuyama 1995; Powel
et al. 1996. 5 Gouldner 1955: 160-2; Shapira 1987.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
342
‘tribe’ of up to 500 people, containing no more than 10-15 people, like a
kibbutz branch and a Kochav plant department. Thus, a triple- or
quadruple-deck federative structure is required, which will enable enough
smallness within a large federation of DWOs.6 A federation’s success,
however, enhances the prestige and power of its head and may elicit
coercion efforts even during his period of effectiveness, for instance, by
limiting the discretion of units and elevating loyalists. Mitigation of such
tactics requires a parliament of delegates who are chosen personally by
members in each DWO, proportional to its size, as in the Movements’
early days, and may also be a senate of equal DWOs representation. It will
enable critically minded and creative radicals who have been negatively
selected for managerial promotion, to become delegates, allowing them
the opportunity to gain trust, power and capitals by parliamentarian
activity and the use of a free press. They would be able to use these
resources to overcome federation executives conservatism and/or enhance
creativity by replacing them.
Genuine democracy was not easy to create and sustain even in a branch
of 10-15 permanent workers and dozens of seasonal ones with kibbutz
agricultural technology of the 1930s. It succeeded only in high-trust
kibbutzim wherever talented, high-moral and competent managers trusted
workers, encouraged their involvement in branch problem-solving and
adopted their ingenious solutions, did not apprehend their success as high-
trust relations assured that members would not try to succeed them
prematurely. Premature succession in higher offices such as DWO
managers and DWO federation executives, can be mitigated by the
proposals detailed below which will slow down promotion. However,
where will successors come from? Can DWOs and their FOs use
outsiders?
Inside Successors and Grass-Roots Democracy A major reason for misconstrued failures of DWOs is the complex
etiology of organizational leadership succession and its effects on various
outcomes. It has been studied intensively since the 1960s, but with poor
6 The Shakers used this idea to maintain trust in autonomous “families”:
Latimore 1991.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
343
results; there has been no agreement on its etiology and on its outcomes.
Past findings have been recently brought into doubt or found to be correct
only in specific scenarios.7 Some found that outsider successors enhanced
innovation and performance, but Melman (1983) found that these effects
were short-lived: to get a grip on power, outsiders tend to seek instant
achievements to boost prestige at the expense of long-range aims, as
others and I have found.8 Outsiders were common in corporate US where
mostly ineffective managers won the promotion race,9 much less so in
Europe and rare in corporate Japan. After many Japanese firms succeeded
in besting US ones innovatively, interest in high-trust cultures led by
insiders has grown.10
In addition to Japan, past exceptional success of kibbutzim also support
the exclusiveness of insiders in such cultures, but no one has proven that it
assures high-trust and creativity for good. First of all, no such culture has a
succession system that suppresses leaders’ oligarchic tendency, which is
not prevented by periodic formal succession, as rotatzia analysis has
proved.11 Secondly, no any current succession system suppresses leaders’
tendency to promote loyalists and ruin trust of public servant officers
whose career suffer due to criticizing mistaken superior decisions
(Hirschman 1970). Thirdly, succession studies have suffered from the
basic flaw described above concerning rotatzia: Succession is only one
among many factors which shape leadership and are shaped by it, thus the
inside/outside succession question must be answered in the context of
these factors, but ethnographies which identify these factors, has not been
used by succession students.
The right type of succession system for lasting DWOs’ success, is that
7 Melman 1983; Chung et al. 1987; Cannella & Lubatkin 1993; Cannella & Rowe
1995; Khurana & Nhoria 1997; White et al. 1997. 8 Gabarro 1987; Gouldner 1954, 1955; Shapira 1987, 1995a, 1995b. 9 Campbell et al. (1995) found 58% outside successions. Career succes of
ineffective managers: Luthans 1988. 10 Dore 1973; Rohlen 1974; Ouchi 1981; Sieff 1988; Semler 1993; Fukuyama
1995. For other explantions of Japan’s success: Kamata 1981; Van Wolferen
1989. 11 See for instance oligarchic rule in a Japanese factory: Mehri 2005.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
344
which encourages leadership by trust and consent resulting in creativity.
Two prime leaders’ choices largely decide it: One between detachment
and involvement, and the other between conformist imitation and creative
innovation. Only the two latter choices combined can engender high-trust,
creative DWO cultures, and both choices are much depend on a leader’s
habitus. Though most Reg.Ents managers preferred detachment and
conformist imitation, Yaakov and Thomas chose the opposites, largely due
to habitus shaped for decades by a kibbutz culture which encouraged these
choices. As DWOs can only control habituses of insiders, nurturing
insiders is a main tool to assure the above choices. Insiders are integral to
DWOs minority cultures which require morally committed, servant
leaders who believe in their cause, rather than outsiders who may be
moved by expediency. Moreover, critically minded, talented insiders who
have been socialized to a DWO’s unique values and norms are better
equipped for DWOs leadership due to better knowledge of followers’
needs, aims and wishes, since they had came from their ranks. They can
also better use networks in which they are enmeshed to influence others
and introduce required radical innovations without coercion, can solve
major problems in ways that enhance mutual trust, solidaristic democracy
and egalitarianism. For instance, in corporate US most successors are
outsiders and value considerations in choosing them are minimal;
however, suitable values enhanced success: 33% of successors in whose
choice was considered suitability to extant corporate cultures clearly
succeeded; only 11% of them clearly failed (Campbell et al. 1995: 4).
Insiders are integral to high-trust DWO cultures for another major
reason: As main rewards in these cultures are received in the long-run, and
the major one is promotion, outsiders curtail this reward for devoted and
competent officers. Promotion also expresses trust, and especially so, if it
is achieved by ballot which indicates public trust, as in many DWOs.
High-trust Japanese firms use a kind of a ballot: The Ringi system, asking
the consent of prospective role-partners for an officer’s nomination, a kind
of open ballot which proves trust by the relevant constituency. In contrast,
a low-trust Japanese firm with American practices, including
‘parachuting’ outsiders, had no Ringi system (Clark 1979). This is not
incidental; a truly democratic ballot takes place when the choice is
between well-known alternatives. A ballot truly measures trust only if an
incumbent is equated with well-known candidates for succession, and not
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
345
if voters equate him with prestigious outsiders for whom the true reasons
for their successes are barely known, their mistakes and failures have been
concealed or masked in order to ‘jump’, and their competencies, beliefs,
aims, commitments and trustworthiness are largely unknown. “The
neighbor’s grass is always greener” since, due to this lack of knowledge,
an outsider’s prestige is not contaminated by his real past as that of
equally talented and competent insiders, while they possess precious local
knowledge which he lacks. Such knowledge often encourages continuing
current practices which may require radical changes, but if a DWO’s
information system joins the openness of high-trust informal information
networks in acknowledging members of candidates’ leadership qualities as
they were exposed along their career, they can choose the right insider
who will introduce the required radical changes as in many democracies.
Slow Promotion A norm of slow promotion helps to assure trustworthy creative leaders.
Even if the Iron Law of Oligarchy is solved by the proposal detailed below
and successful leaders continue only up to a dysfunction phase, Kets De
Vries’s (1993) findings point to power’s negative effects commencing
earlier, after a number of major successes, some loyalist promotions and
cementing a ruling clique. In accord with Ansell and Fish (1999) and
kibbutz findings, a leader may become indispensable by failing critical
ascenders by using his/her loyalists. However, a strong incentive against
such low morality can be a succession system that slows promotion and
immunes leaders against early loss of standing, as Dore (1973: Chap. 9)
explains. Even the semi-rotatzia of US Presidents, the two-term-only
system, speeds up promotion as it bars some of them from continuing for
their full period of effectiveness. Hambrick and Fukutomi (1991: 723)
presume that this period is up to 11 years. Vancil (1987: 83) found that US
corporations were aimed at a CEO (Chief Executive Officer) tenure of up
to 12 years, and decisive successful deeds by leaders indicate that it may
be even longer: Ben-Gurion’s most praised deed, the establishment of the
State of Israel, was taken after he had headed the Jewish community in
Palestine for 13 years, and Tabenkin set up the Palmach after 19 years of
KM leadership. However, he commenced oligarchic leftism in his 14th
year in office, and Yaari in his 12th year. Thus, allowing highly trusted
leaders 12 years in office, and a few, ultra-trusted ones even 16 years,
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
346
seems preferable as it slows down promotion by allowing full use of their
phase of effectiveness.
Slowing promotion in a DWOs’ federation requires a reward provision,
which will encourage heads of DWOs and branch/department managers to
prefer seeking additional terms over seeking promotion. A proper reward
could be formal symbolization of members’ extra trust of better leaders: If
each re-election to a managerial office requires a higher majority than the
previous term, this symbolizes extra trust, publicly proving the extra
esteem a leader enjoys. S/he will be known as an excellent leader since
only few are re-elected for a third term due to support by a majority of
more than two-thirds, and even fewer to a fourth term by a majority of
over 88% (see below). This extra esteem may be even more rewarding if it
also leads its bearers to head the federation, rather than a federation
official who had been a DWO head only one or two terms. This way,
higher trust in previous offices will become a prime yardstick for choosing
leaders, while creating a strong incentive for DWO heads to remain for
more terms, preferring to seek re-election rather than promotion to a
federation executive job.
Extant Iron Law Solutions, Their Defects and a New
Solution However, before detailing the proposal for deciding continuation or
succession of a federation head, let us look at extant Iron Law solutions.
Large American corporations try to obviate the Iron Law by a norm of
early retirement of CEOs: they are rewarded by generous severance
benefits known as ‘Golden Parachutes’. Vancil (1987: 83) found this a
success, as only 13% of CEOs stayed longer than the maximum
anticipated tenure of 12 years (p. 79). This expensive instrument, however,
has considerable negative effects: Like rotatzia it is formally unrelated to
a leader’s efforts and successes, while due to its egoistic nature, self-
serving deeds are encouraged, such as adding outsiders to the Board of
Directors who have approved generous ‘parachutes’ elsewhere (Davis
1994: 220). This solution is certainly not the right one for DWOs.
Another solution is a formal limit for re-election, as that of US
presidents. However, F.D. Roosevelt violated this limit in 1940 despite
institutionalization for 143 years, thus it pointed to vulnerability of a
formal limit, as also proved rotatzia violations by senior pe’ilim. Thus, a
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
347
more robust solution is required. Roosevelt’s violation was not just an
outcome of voters’ trust in him; quite significant seemed to be power and
capitals accumulated during eight years in office that gained him support
of influential figures, support of loyalists which he promoted, etc. Hence,
the 55% of the votes he received included a significant part of the
constituency that might not have really trusted him and would not have
voted for him without these figures’ and loyalists’ influence, and other
impacts of his power and capitals accumulation. Thus, the intruding effect
of these resources should be neutralized if trust level is to decide
continuity. Neutralization can be a threshold of higher trust, for instance,
requiring a two-thirds majority for a third term. Accordingly, re-election
for a fourth term must be conditional on an even higher majority, so that
only very few exceptional leaders who remained high-moral and creative
for 12 years will gain it. This threshold should be high enough to shatter
further continuity in accord with an aimed limit of sixteen years; thus a
fifth term threshold on the same gradient would have to be above 100%,
i.e., impossible. How much higher does each threshold have to be in order
to assure that? Must the gradient of threshold elevation be linear or is an
exponential one more proper?
Goode (1978) found leaders’ prestige tends to exponential growth with
continuity; thus, in order to neutralize its growth, exponential growth of
majority thresholds should be required. A first re-election contest is
selective even with a simple majority threshold, as indicated, for instance,
by only some half of US presidents being chosen to a second term. Hence,
higher majority thresholds are required only from a second re-election
onward, and they should be raised exponentially. Thus, if a re-election for
a third term requires, let us say, a two-thirds majority, then for the fourth
term, the threshold for re-election will have to be a 88% majority, and this
creates a built-in mechanism that bars fifth term since the same elevation
gradient means over 122% majority, i.e. impossible. This limitation will
be more robust than a formal limit of terms, if it will be applied to all
managers of branches/departments, DWOs, FOs and to federation heads,
as well as to parliament delegates and federation officials, to prevent their
oligarchization.
The idea of a higher majority threshold for political decisions of special
importance is not new in democracies, and is common in deciding
constitutional changes. It was also used at least once against Iron Law: In
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
348
1977, the Israeli Labor Party decided to refresh its Knesset representation
by asking members who wanted a third term or more to obtain approval by
a 60% majority of its Central Committee to be eligible. Many of its
Knesset members, including KM’s Galilee, failed to pass this test and
retired (Brichta 1986: 23). However, while the 60% threshold was high
enough for making a selection among Knesset members who were
secondary to party heads, it seems too low for DWO heads and calls for
manipulations which a threshold of a two-thirds may deter. Moreover, the
60% threshold is not high enough to bar a fifth term.12 Of course, only
experience will show the right thresholds for obtaining optimal leader
successions.
Constituency: Membership and Eligibility to Participate in
Voting A major question which must be answered is: Whose trust must a
candidate gain in order to be elected or a leader to be re-elected? For
branches/departments and DWOs where everyone personally knows
officers, the answer is simple: all members with a few years of seniority,
i.e., those with some knowledge of both the current head’s performance
and his prospective successors’ records are the right constituency that will
also choose federation parliament delegates. The same principle of
constituency consisting of all knowledgeable role-partners can be used to
decide continuity of federation officials, only that it is not a natural group,
but one decided upon constitutionally. There is, however, the question of
ownership equality: Is it necessary that they all equally share holding of
DWO assets as in a worker cooperative?
In accord with Fox (1974: Chap. 2), this is not essential; high-trust
relations require that everyone is considered an equal partner in decision-
making concerning his/her work, and not an employee whose fate and the
fate of his/her work unit is decided by superiors which others have chosen.
In Brazilian Semco, in which Semler (1993) and his family hold equity,
democracy and high-trust seem to prevail, as everyone votes on all major
decisions, including the choosing and replacing of unit managers and their
12 60% threshold for a third term, means 72% for a fourth term, and 87% for a
fifth term.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
349
remuneration. Ownership differences must not hamper trust and
democracy if everyone with enough seniority and proved trustworthiness
becomes an equal partner in decision-making, no more a replaceable
market commodity which is discarded in rough times or fired when
criticizing boss’s mistakes. High-trust cultures flourish by preferring
members’ and community needs over immediate profits, though long-
range profitability is essential to compete in markets. This preference does
not mean equality of ownership and salaries. As Dore (1973) and others
found, lifetime employment was integral to high-trust Japanese firms,
while its breach degraded trust (Clark 1979). Kibbutzim and Mondragon
proved that secured employment was feasible within large federations of
varied enterprises. No kibbutz ever fired superfluous members, while, in
Mondragon, during periods of economic recession or when a cooperative
collapsed, cooperators were moved to cooperatives where there was work,
and the unemployed received redundancy payments until new jobs had
been created in extant cooperatives or in a new one which the federation
established (Morrison 1991: 172-80). Thus, a large and well-led DWO
federation can assure lifetime employment for all those who proved
competence and trustworthiness.
No Bi-Partisan Politics, Parliament of Directly Chosen
Delegates
In DWO federations the question of constituencies which choose and
replace leaders is more complex and more important, as the case of
kibbutz FOs indicates. Lipset et al. (1956) studied the International
Typographical Union and concluded that only bi-party politics prevented
oligarchy in this union. According to Michels, however, political
competition enhanced parties’ oligarchization, as was true of parties in this
union; thus, it was not a solution. Moreover, Stepan-Norris (1997) found
that democracy was viable for long in a trade union federation where two
ideologies competed without organized parties. Parties are inappropriate
for deciding leadership for another reason: Thriving in competitive
markets requires the mustering of best talents and creative, critical minds
in authority jobs, while party politics curbs this, rewarding loyalty,
acumen and Machiavellianism which deters such talents and hampers
competitiveness. Bi-partisan politics in the KM, Tabnkin’s supporters
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
350
versus Ben-Gurion-Berl’s, enhanced oligarchy, leftism and brain-drain,
while such politics in Israel’s large bus cooperatives Egged and Dan, led
to incessant scandals, corruption charges and counter-charges, even some
criminal deeds and Machiavellianism: postponing elections to hold power,
co-opting the opposition and other tricks which signal the ailing
democracy of low-trust cultures (Russell 1995: Chap. 4).
Without parties who will choose federation heads, decide continuity or
succession, and how will they be chosen? A presidential-like vote by a
mass of federation members who are not role-partners of an incumbent
and his challengers is not suitable as they are not knowledgeable enough,
while his role-partners tend to include too many interested loyalists. A
parliament of delegates and a senate chosen by DWO members are better;
delegates and senators who are periodically convened to decide major
decisions are better equipped for making wise choices of federation heads
and their replacement as they are more intimately involved than ordinary
members with leaders’ behavior and can discern early moral decline and
dysfunctioning. In addition, an independent press is required, and a third
necessary provision is a continuity norm that makes delegates and senators
both powerful and knowledgeable, but bars oligarchization. The same
higher majority norm for each additional re-election, can prevent this
major defect of American presidential regimes.13
An important question is how to assure that many delegates will come
from among low officers and artisans, to curb pitfalls of patronage and
cliques among elites. There are also other constitutional questions: Who
will chose the federation’s Executive Committee, and how many delegates
and senators versus DWO heads and federation officials will it include?
Will they hold portfolios like Cabinet Ministers? Will DWOs establish
FOs in addition to the federation, like for instance the Reg.Ents? What
kind of judiciary is required? These are not easy questions since answers
determine power structures and require the balancing of rights and duties
of all concerned, while, unlike state constitutions, these answers must
assure competitiveness and suit both size and ramifications of a DWOs
system. Mondragon students alluded to the parallel governance structures
13 See Latin America’s literature cited in Chap. 1, and Drury 1959 on US
senators.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
351
of Social Councils and Managerial Councils, but ignored the problem of
oligarchic rule, though managers continued for life, as against Social
Council members’ maximum two four-year terms.14 Casmir (1996)
findings accorded Michels (1959[1915]): The latter were quite powerless
as against continuous managers, thus the same constraints on continuity
have to reign in all major offices.
Can the Proposed Solution Make DWOs Sustainable for
Decades? The last question to be answered is whether the proposed solution will
assure sustainable DWOs. Critics may be right in pointing to my own
analysis of kibbutzim and FOs, which prove that problems of retaining
genuine democracy and high-trust cultures in a large and complex modern
organizational field cannot be solved by just one measure, the institution
of a new succession system of leaders, executives, managers and
delegates. However, they have to put the proposal in context: It will not
only enhance leaders’ morality, engender high-trust cultures and creativity
by itself, but one can presume that the leaders who adopt the proposal will
also cope creatively with derivative constitutional questions and other
problems of sustaining such cultures. Their actions will surely use kibbutz
and other DWO lessons to enhance constitutional creativity in the service
of solidaristic democracy, trust and egalitarianism, as these factors are
now known to be decisive, and their etiology is much clearer. Every
history of a viable democracy has witnessed constitutional amendments,
and the same will be true of DWOs once they become sustainable by the
basic, decisive change proposed here.
This is also plausible because once the principle of a higher majority
among a relevant constituency decides officers’ continuity, a creative
leader will have a stronger incentive to promote what Yankelovich (1991)
called high quality public judgment among constituency, since, when such
judgment fully appreciates his/her achievements, it will enhance trust and
career success. This incentive is lacking in kibbutz FOs and extant DWOs;
such judgment is inconsequential where mostly Iron Law, Hirschmanian
laws, patronage and cliques prevail. High quality public judgment is
14 Whyte & Whyte 1988: 37-41, 96-102, Chap. 14; Morrison 1991: Chap. 7.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
352
feasible where information and knowledge flow freely and sincerely,
which is more plausible in high-trust cultures led by high-moral, highly
involved servant leaders. Kochav proves that such a culture has its own
self-enhancing tendencies. For instance, it breeds cultural creativity, which
enhances value consensus that enhances trust, and critical journalism
which, in turn, diffuses information and knowledge for high quality public
judgment. When the basic laws of the democratic game are changed by the
adoption of the proposal, these self-enhancing tendencies will emerge, and
ascending trust spirals due to competent, high-moral and creative leaders
will expedite the suppression, sidetracking and exiting of self-servers and
power mongers, as has occurred in creative kibbutzim in their creative
periods. These exits will curb opposition to radical new solutions, and the
enhanced creativity will enable DWOs to be victorious over bureaucratic
rivals in markets, as has been many DWOs until their oligarchic phase.15
Large, sophisticated organizations cannot succeed without a minimal
hierarchy; even a quadruple-deck federative structure is a kind of a
hierarchy which creates social gaps. Genuine democracy with trust-
dependent continuity of leaders that encourages their involvement in
solving problems shoulder-to-shoulder with lower echelons, in addition to
enhancing better, creative solutions, will minimize social gaps and
enhance solidarity. This will help leaders’ care for members’ needs,
wishes and aspirations, thus increasing commitment for their fulfillment
and encouraging transformational leadership whenever circumstances
make it essential. Hence, crises will more often be tackled effectively, and
no desperate public will remain loyal to seemingly charismatic saviors as
kibbutz members depended on Admors in the 1950s crises, and on
consultants who just sold them capitalist solutions during the current crisis
(Dloomi 2000).
The proposal can also change the fate of DWOs because it prefers
trusted, effective leaders who prove themselves for long periods in lower
echelons, over ‘high fliers’, ‘meteoric’ careerists who advance due to
seemingly outstanding performance, achieved by brilliant solutions which
are often proven to be spurious after the ‘high fliers’ are off the scene and
15 Shapira 1979a, 1980, 1990; Whyte & Whyte 1988; Morrison 1991; Heller et al.
1998; Altman 2002; Cloke & Goldsmith 2002; Sen 2003.
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
353
take no responsibility for bad long-term effects. ‘High fliers’ are part and
parcel of low-trust bureaucracies where only superiors decide on
promotion, causing a negative correlation between career advance and
officers’ effectiveness, as has been proven by students from Dalton (1959)
to Luthans (1988). The proposed solution will curb this tendency by
preferring servant trusted leaders like the many who brought about kibbutz
success, from Shenhabi, Avidan, Allon and my late father, to Reiner,
Yaakov, Ran and Thomas, because the main yardstick for promotion will
not be an officer’s few recent successes, but years of effective, creative
leadership with a long-time horizon (Jaques 1990), continued high
performance of his/her branch/DWO/FO achieved by mustering
participants’ intangible resources for optimal solutions. While some
brilliant officers will advance faster in lower echelons, less brilliant but
more effective and committed leaders who solve cardinal problems by
seeking deeper understanding and trying varied solutions, will advance
slower. However, since they will be re-elected repeatedly, they will
surpass the brilliants and will head the federation or other FOs due to the
conspicuousness of exceptional levels of trust in them. Moreover, even
many brilliant officers will seek re-elections as branch/DWO head to
prove the wide trust they enjoy. Thus, the proposal can reverse the
negative correlation between effectiveness and career success, and this
will greatly help DWOs to best bureaucracies in competitive markets.
With all due modesty required of a proposal which stems from the
work of a single student, I do not think the decisiveness of the change I
propose is very different from that provided by Washington’s and
Jefferson’s norm which spared the US many oligarchic perils that have
troubled Latin America with rotatzia of presidents. Moreover, the great
difference between US democracy and that of Latin America emerged
despite the partial nature of the US solution: On the one hand, it has
caused premature replacement of some presidents while still in their phase
of effectiveness, while on the other, it did not bar oligarchic Senators,
Congressmen and officials like J. Edgar Hoover (Drury 1959).
The decisiveness of succession timing can be seen in Ben-Gurion’s
most acclaimed decision, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948,
when Jews were only 32% of the population of Palestine and were a tiny
minority in a large, hostile Arab region. He decided it when he had headed
the Jewish Agency for 13 years and the World Zionist Organization for
18. Conclusions and Sustainable DWOs
354
about a year and half; he was very powerful while still effective. Earlier,
he might not have been strong enough to lead the state’s establishment
through all of the fateful consequences of the decision, while a year later
(September 1948), signs of his dysfunction emerged: The dismantling of
the Palmach and the sidetracking and pushing of its best commanders out,
which seriously hurt army effectiveness, enraged Admors and left him
with no alternative but a coalition with religious, anti-socialist parties,
which survived only two years due to repeated political crises. Despite his
signed promise in the Independence Declaration, no constitution was
adopted and excessive immigration caused a major economic setback,
misery for years for half a million people and malignant social conflicts
(Shitrit 2004). If Ben Gurion had been replaced before December 1946 as
head of the Jewish Agency, he would not have been chosen WZO head
and this surely would have changed history of Israel’s establishment. If he
had been replaced in 1950, after a series of grave failures, it could have
spared Israel many of the troubles of his dysfunction phase, up to 1963
and beyond.16
Timely succession of leaders is decisive, as is the choice of the right
successors. A genuine democracy which can be achieved with the above
ideas may not assure optimization of both in every case, but it can prevent
oligarchic processes in most cases, making DWOs sustainable in the long
run by the elevation of high-moral, effective and creative, servant
transformational leaders, the ultimate condition for DWOs succeeding
bureaucracies as the hegemonic organizational form of a highly
specialized and very complex working world.
16 Failures led to his resignation in late 1953, but he returned in early 1955
(Shapira 1984: 140-1). After last resignation in 1963 he impeded his successor,
Eshkol, up to 1969, both directly and through loyalists Dayan and Peres.
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NAME INDEX Abramovitz, S. 49, 95, 99, 138. Acton, Lord 15, 135, 220. Adar, B. 62, 115, 129, 206. Adar, G. 44. Adler, P.S. 14, 27. Aharoni, A. 8, 60, 69, 73, 170, 174. Alexander, E. 198. Allon, Yig’al 173, 178, 180-5, 221,
339, 353. Altman, M. 36, 352. Am’ad, Z. 9, 11, 37, 122, 201, 223,
236, 275, 322. Amir et al. 310-11. Amir, E. 187. Ansell, C.K. 182, 345. After, Yaakov 71-2, 93. Arad, N. 71, 91. Argaman, D. 7, 11, 17, 69, 71, 88, 90,
111, 143, 168, 179, 226, 270. Arieli, E. 50, 63, 91, 94. Aristophanes, Athens playwright 10,
223. Armoni, O. 60. Arnon, O. 84. Atar, A. 62, 112, 129, 206. Avidan, Shim’on 184-5, 221, 339. Avneri, A.L. 115, 160. Avraham, Carmelit’s veteran leader
218, 253, 257-60, 269, 272, 293. Avrahami, E. 45, 50-3. Ayalon, H. 302. Axelrod, R. 8, 37, 153, 222, 330. Badaracco, J.L. 147, 203. Baer-Lambach, R. 25, 37, 79. Banay, A. 102. Banfield, E.D. 12-3, 34, 103, 116, 147,
158, 198, 209, 263. Bar-El, L. 144. Bar-Gal, Y. 40, 232.
Bar-Sinay, B. 273. Barak, Carmelit’s patron 251-61, 268,
321, 325. Barak, M. 132. Baratz, Yosef, 63, 119. Barbuto, J.E., Jr. 17, 110, 143-5. Barkai, Y. 91. Barkai, H. 3, 26, 42, 167. Barker, R.L. 146-8, 333. Barley, S.R. 57, 151. Barnard, C.I. 46. Bashan, A. 5, 45, 87, 92, 94. Bass, B.M. 143. Bate, P.S. 19, 35, 151. Beilin, Y. 8, 46, 60-1, 73-4, 82, 141,
174, 182, 185. Ben-Aharon, Yitzhak 63, 71, 162, 165,
172, 176. Ben-Avram, B. 94, 119, 144, 167. Ben-David, I. 33, 100. Ben-Hilel, S. 50, 91. Ben-Horin, T. 113, 168, 188, 235, 303. Ben-Gurion, David 72, 93, 163-5, 172-
3, 176-8, 345, 350, 353. Ben-Rafael, E. 1, 5, 16, 28, 44, 47, 53,
59, 62, 66, 68, 143, 288. Bennis, W. 143, 297, 323. Bentov, Mordechay 63-4, 69, 166,
187, 190. Berge, B. 25. Berger, P.L. 72. Berl (Katzenelson), 164-5, 169. Bettelheim, B. 41. Beyer, J.M. 17, 111, 143. Bien, Y. 5, 45. Bierly III, P.E. 25. Bigley, G.A. 14, 34. Bijaoui, S.F. 171, 191. Bilski, Kochav’s veteran patron 120,
267, 272, 279, 287, 306, 318.
Name Index
385
Binenfeld, D. 45. Bird-David, N. 56, 126. Blalock, Jr., H.M. 34. Blasi, J.R. 1, 59, 63, 66, 128. Blau, P.M. 80, 281. Bloch, Z. 249. Bloomfield-Ramagem, S. 194, 233. Bobbio, N. 136, 263. Bott, E. 277. Bourdieu, P. 1, 22-4, 38, 56-9, 64-70,
112, 126, 152, 213, 277, 328. Bowes, A.M. 41, 59, 62, 66, 112, 116,
157, 234-5, 239, 245. Bowra, C.M. 10, 264. Bradach, J.L. 35. Brichta, A. 348. Brockner, J.P. 148. Br”t, Y. 30, 75, 78. Brum, Avraham 3, 6, 40, 48-9, 63, 74-
5, 81, 86, 101. Brumann, C. 4, 12, 23-6, 44, 58, 337. Bryman, A. 6, 57. Buber, M. 1, 4-5, 24, 57, 65, 124, 131,
240, 328-9, 339. Burawoy, M. 93, 148. Burn, A.R. 10, 154. Burns, J.M. 13, 143. Burns, T. 25, 45, 116, 269, 278. Campbell, R.J. 151, 343-4. Cannella, A.A. 16, 343. Cappelli, P. 20, 25. Carmel, A. 184. Caspi, D. 270. Chatman, J. 328. Chang, C.L. 10, 109, 155-6. Chizik, M. 91-2. Chow, Y.T. 10, 109, 117, 155-6. Chung, K.H. 16, 343. Clark, R. 344, 349. Cloke, K. 7, 9, 13, 18, 106, 352. Cohen, A. 3, 4, 56, 81. Cohen, E. 89, 236, 289. Cohen, M. 60, 69, 73, 178, 181, 213. Cohen, N. 7, 64, 200-2, 306.
Cohen, R. 6, 28, 101, 212. Collins, R. 17, 64, 68, 100. Comaroff, J. 56-7. Cook, K.S. 14, 35, 341. Crozier, M. 14, 35, 44, 93, 107, 281. Czarniawska-Joerges, B. 19. Dagan, S. 69, 73, 184. Dahrendorf, R. 263. Dalton, M. 12-4, 29, 103-9, 116-8,
150, 155, 209, 221-4, 281, 332, 353. Dangoor, E. 116, 123. Daniel, A. 32, 37, 169, 186. Darr, A. 6, 30. Davis, G.F. 95, 116, 346. Davis, H.E. 10, 154, 264. DePree, M. 12, 25, 143, 147, 323. Deutsch, M. 27, 35, 105, 106, 145-8,
176, 211, 278, 282. Dierkes, M. 14. DiMaggio, P.J. 21, 24, 148. Dloomi, E. 5, 45, 352. Dodgson, M. 36, 288, 341. Don, Y. 26, 42, 234. Dore, R. 6, 14, 27-9, 34-5, 44, 53, 103,
146, 151, 177, 213, 263, 273, 343-9. Downs, A. 102, 106, 150, 196. Downton, J.V. Jr. 12, 21-2. Drin-Drabkin, H. 26. Dror, Benyamin, Beit Alfa leader, 65. Dror, L. 73, 76. Dror, T. 171. Drucker, P.F. 139. Drury, A. 154, 350, 353. Dvorkind, D. 69, 210, 274. Edgerton, R.B. 106, 150, 177. Einat, Y. 11, 31, 63, 94. Emerson, J. 271. Erickson, E.H. 38. Eshkol, Levi, 63, 68, 119, 354. Estrin, S. 17, 362. Etzioni-Halevy, E. 173. Evens, T.M.S. 66.
Name Index
386
Fadida, M. 1, 7, 55, 59, 61, 63, 68, 80, 90, 101, 111, 116, 121, 157, 194, 231, 236, 241, 244, 307.
Feenberg, A. 14, 16, 363. Fishman, A. 30. Fogel- Bijaoui, S. 171. Folsom, K.E. 10, 109, 155. Fox, A. 6, 8, 29, 34, 37, 41, 53, 106,
114-5, 148-9, 260, 277, 280, 282, 315, 348.
Frank, R.H. 70 Freeman, J. 31, 58, 116, 336. Fridman, Ushi, 49, 91-5, 99, 104, 119,
152, 212. Friedman, V. 201. Fuks, A. 9, 145, 256. Fukuyama, F. 6, 14, 35, 146, 151, 263,
341, 343. Gabarro, J.J. 10, 103, 149-51, 343. Gabriel, R.A. 10, 154. Galbraith, J.K. 95-6, 108, 120. Galili, Israel, 172-3, 180-1. Gambetta, D. 12, 33, 140. Gamson, W.A. 21-2. Gamson, Z.F. 43, 258, 271, 293. Gelbard, R. 274. Geertz, C. 20, 298. Gelb, S. 4, 48, 60-3, 69, 77, 87-9, 94,
103, 191. Geneen, H. 12, 35, 106, 146, 286, 297. Gherardi, S. 5, 58, 192. Gilboa, N. 51, 60, 62. Ginat, A. 62, 91-2, , 95, 129, 206. Gini, A. 146-7, 170. Giuliani, R.W. 11, 143, 148, 203, 286. Goldenberg, M. 71, 159. Goldschmidt, W.R. 56, 100, 127, 308,
332. Goldstein, Y. 24, 63, 69, 76, 144, 167. Goleman, D.R. 143, 185, 291, 297. Goode, W.J. 347. Gorkin, M. 41, 71, 249. Gorni, Y. 21. Gouldner, A.W. 14-6, 35, 37, 93, 103,
107-9, 151, 296, 340-3. Govier, T. 14, 35, 149. Graham, J.W. 12, 18, 143, 147, 323. Gramsci, A. 56, 161. Granovetter, M. 102, 148. Greenleaf, R.K. 12, 18, 147. Grinberg, L.L. 71-2, 94. Grint, K. 146. Grosman, Avishay, 132.
Guest, R.H. 10, 12, 27, 34-5, 44, 106,
143, 278, 296, 330.
Gur, Shlomo, 161.
Gur-Gurvitch, B. 177.
Gurevitch, M. 41.
Gvirtz, Y. 60, 63, 69, 71, 76, 88, 94,
116, 159, 165, 172-3.
Hacohen, D. 186.
Hacohen, Eli’ezer, 65. Halevi, R. 44, 63, 71, 91, 94, 99, 153. Halperin, A. 6. Hambrick, D.C. 15, 23, 110, 144-7,
169, 345. Hammersley, M. 19, 57, 150. Handelman, D. 271. Handy, C. 326. Harrar, G. 36. Harris, M. 15, 20-2, 37, 56, 77, 126-7,
272, 307, 315. Hart, P. 35. Harpazi, S. 63, 91, 112, 152. Harvey-Jones, J. 13, 35, 44, 106, 146. Hawthorn, G. 19, 91, 125. Hazan, Yaakov, 8, 60, 69-73, 77, 83,
93, 97-8, 127, 132, 135, 139, 141-2, 158-9, 162-187, 221-2, 244, 327.
Heidenheimer, A.J. 11, 224. Heller, F. 7, 352. Helman, A. 7, 11, 44, 63, 89, 101, 115. Henderson, W.D. 10, 154. Hickson, D.J. 75. Hirschman, A.O. 4, 7, 8-12, 15-6, 26,
31, 37, 57, 64, 109, 113, 145-6, 169,
Name Index
387
199, 214, 220-4, 233, 239-40, 265, 273, 279, 291-2, 298, 301-3, 326, 330-2, 343.
Holzach, M. 26, 37. Hosmer, L.T. 13-4, 34, 145-7, 175,
196, 199, 220, 277, 340. Hughes, E.C. 103, 108, 150-1, 155,
172, 177, 221. Huysman, M. 70, 340. Iacocca, L. 212. Ilana & Avner. 62, 115, 129, 206. Ingram, P. 5, 6. Israel, B. 180. Israel, Kochav’s patron 120-1, 267-8,
272, 279-80, 286-7, 318-9. Izhar, U. 143, 166, 221. Jackall, R. 12, 150, 155, 209, 224. Jackson, K.T. 147. James, A. 19. Jaques, E. 8, 29, 222, 296-7, 330, 353. Jay, A. 7, 12-4, 26, 34, 37, 44, 103,
107, 116, 146, 150, 154, 221, 254, 288, 308, 341.
Joas, H. 20, 293, 302, 304. Jones, M.O. 148. Kafkafi, E. 8, 11, 46, 60-6, 73-6, 94,
119, 144, 161-5, 168-74, 182, 236. Kanari, B. 60, 73-4, 78, 80, 94, 160-7,
172-3, 176, 179-80, 189, 221. Kane, J. 148. Kanter, R.M. 21, 47, 95, 109, 226,
300. Katzir, H. 169. Kedem, A. 53, 138. Kedem-Hadad, N. 188. Keene, A.S. 44. Kendrick, J.R. 21-2. Kerem, M. 45, 49. Keshet, S. 60, 170. Kets De Vries, M.F.R. 13-5, 107, 158,
197, 212, 220, 299, 313. Khurana, R. 343, 345.
Kinkade, K. 80, 226, 287. Kipnis, D. 150, 341. Knaani, D. 2, 21, 29-32, 74, 80, 186,
282, 316. Kochan, R. 201. Korczynski, M. 13, 34. Kornai, Janos, economist 46. Kostova, T. 69. Kouzes, J.M. 12, 147, 149. Kovner, R. 264. Kramer, R.M. 13, 42, 107, 146, 150,
199, 340. Kressel, G.M. 1, 5, 18, 29, 33-4, 44-5,
56, 59, 61, 63, 68, 80, 89, 96, 99-101, 113-7, 122-4, 157, 195, 200, 204, 229-30, 234, 237, 242, 247, 256, 287, 307, 326.
Krol, Y. 5, 50. Kuhn, T. 67. Kynan, O. 8, 46, 60-1, 73, 80, 186-9,
192. Lafferty, W.M. 7. Landshut, S. 1, 2, 5, 7, 22-4, 47, 59,
61, 65, 71, 164, 167, 236, 248, 278, 307, 328.
Landesman, Itzhak, Tnuva’s head 91-4, 99, 119, 155, 207, 228.
Lane, C. 146. Lanir, Y. 52, 100, 117. Latimore, J. 27, 341. Lavon, Pinhas, 61-3, 68, 71, 117. Lazar, Y. 5, 138. Lenski, G. 9, 15, 64, 76, 81, 126, 230. Leshem, E. 7-9, 122. Leshem, S. 51. Levanon-Morduch, E. 118. Levenson, B. 102-4, 150. Levy, Y. 111, 116. Leviatan, U. 5, 7, 11, 31, 37, 43-6, 53-
4, 63, 94, 98, 113, 122, 168, 196, 229, 303.
Lewicki, R.J. 35, 146, 149. Lewin, E. 50. Lewin, K. 1, 41.
Name Index
388
Liberman, Y. 44-5. Liblich, A. 173, 265, 270, 273. Lifshitz, O. 44-5, 49-51, 62-3, 86, 91-
5, 112, 128, 134, 152, 207. Lin, Baruch, 69, 132. Linstead, S.R. 19, 56, 148. Linz, J.J. 10, 154, 264. Lipset, S.M. 349. Livenshtein, Eliezer, 165, 221. Luthans, F. 28, 94, 99, 101, 142, 331,
340. Luz, Kadish, 62, 119. Lynn, J. 150, 154. Maccoby, M. 12, 95, 102, 107-9, 151,
209, 224-6. Machiavelli, N. 7-8, 31-3, 93, 120,
161-3, 166, 185, 254, 261, 332-6, 349-50.
Mainwaring, S. 10, 153-4, 264. Maister, D.H. 13. Malchi, M. 43, 62, 81, 102. Maletz, D. 77, 153, 289, 306, 339. Maman, D. 102. Manor, H. 155. Manor, G. 60. March, J.G. 196. Maron, S. 4, 26, 45, 51. Martin, J. 19, 150. Martin, N.H. 105, 151, 300. Marx, E. 1, 6, 56-7, 69, 150, 328. Mati, Olim’s patron 119, 231-9, 297. McCall, M.W. 298. McEvily, B. 35. McGill, M.E. 146. McGregor, D. 34. Mechanic, D. 92, 104. Meged, H. 8, 11, 63, 90, 94. Me’ir, Golda, Prime Minister 180. Melman, S. 343. Melucci, A. 22. Merton, R.K. 302. Michels, R. 4, 7-8, 12, 15, 23, 64, 96,
116, 164, 221, 254, 338, 349-51. Miller, G.J. 35.
Misztal, B.A. 13, 35. Moav, cotton gin plant manager 139. Morrison, R. 7, 13, 25, 192, 317, 338,
349-52. Moshe, Kochav’s leader 120-1, 267,
270-2, 279, 283, 287, 293, 318-9. Moti, Chen’s chief economic officer
246-7, 263. Muller, J.Z. 147, 302. Near, H. 3, 16, 34-5, 56-8, 67, 71-7,
87, 112, 136, 152-8, 161-4, 169, 171, 177, 211, 234.
Niv, A. 3, 6, 15, 21, 33, 37, 76, 81, 296, 299.
Noteboom, B. 12. Noy, D. 40, 250, 263, 283. Ofaz, A. 136. Ofer, D. 152. Oplatka, I. 10, 30, 153, 281, 323. Ostrovsky, Gershon, past KM leader
165, 170, 221. O’Toole, J. 13, 143, 147, 323. Ouchi, W.G. 6, 13, 30, 34-5, 52, 146,
152, 263, 277, 343. Oved, Y. 2, 24, 26, 29, 31-2, 80, 261. Parkinson, C.N. 14, 95, 127, 125, 199,
257. Pavin, A. 1, 5, 44, 59, 191-2, 252. Pearlman, M. 33, 75, 105, 236. Pe’eri, I. 112, 114. Peleg, G. 50, 85. Peleg, S. 43. Pericles, Athens leader 11, 153, 224,
325. Perkins, K.B. 265. Perrow, C. 20. Peter, L.J. 14. Peters, T. 213. Petersburg, O. 49, 138. Pettigrew, A.M. 56, 201. Pinye, Kochav’s hashlama leader 298-
300, 307, 312, 319-321, 325.
Name Index
389
Pitzer, D.E. 2. Platt, J. 66. Porat, D. 60, 161. Powell, W.W. 22, 25, 27, 35-6, 146,
148, 288, 341. Preece, J. 13, 27. Presthus, R. 119, 152. Putnam, R.D. 13, 35, 69, 148. Rabin, A.I. 40. Ram, U. 99. Ran, Kochav’s radical leader 218, 285,
287, 290-4, 298, 311, 322, 324-5, 353.
Ravid, S. 43. Rayman, P. 8, 16, 42, 59, 62, 65, 71,
88, 94, 115, 199, 307. Raz, A. 274. Raz, R. 62, 94. Reed, M.I. 13. Reiner, Ephraim, KA’s radical leader
162, 171-2, 175, 182, 184, 261. Rifkin, G. 35. Riftin, Yaakov, KA’s leftist leader
162, 172-3, 176, 182, 184, 261. Riker, W.H. 34. Ring, P.S. 36, 146. Ringel-Hofman, A. 62. Rohlen, T.P. 34, 146, 151, 263, 343. Ron, Y. 6-7. Rosenfeld, E. 1, 7, 59, 61, 64-7, 75. Rosenhak, D. 62, 66. Rosolio, D. 3, 6-8, 16, 42, 46-51, 55,
59, 61, 64-5, 72, 82, 87, 91, 116, 143, 231, 243, 248, 334.
Rosner, M. 1, 5-7, 24-7, 32-3, 35-8, 42-3, 45, 59, 64, 71-2, 103, 146, 168, 186, 196, 200, 202, 244, 281-2, 306.
Roy, D. 14, 277, 281. Russell, R. 5, 7, 24, 71. Sabar, N. 45, 72, 113, 316, 325. Sack, Y. 62, 75, 81, 83, 92, 167. Sagi, Carmelit’s radical 218, 253, 257,
258, 260, 268, 272, 291, 303. Sako, M. 146, 263, 335. Sanders, S. 11, 153, 265. Sasson-Levy, O. 57, 116, 226, 249. Satt, E. 195. Saxenian, A. 27, 37, 146, 288, 340. Scharfstein, B-A. 12, 146, 224. Schwartz, M. 42, 116-7, 128, 194, 252,
260. Schwartz, R.D. 59, 61, 65. Segal, D.R. 11, 153, 227. Segev, T. 172. Seligman, A.B.13, 35, 147. Selznick, P. 14. Semler, R. 4, 13, 25-6, 35, 44, 107,
146, 192, 341-2, 348. Semyonov, M. 191, 302. Sen, A. 7, 13, 352. Sergiovanni, T.J. 12, 143, 146-8. Shalem, E. 42, 47-50. Shapira, A. 180-1, 184. Shapira, R. 1, 3, 6-7, 12-6, 18, 22-35,
53, 69, 88, 99-104, 108-12, 119, 137, 159, 167, 175-7, 186, 191, 199, 202, 210, 268, 312, 327, 337.
Shapira, Y. 71, 163, 172. Shatil, Y. 199, 235, 244, 271-3, 280,
283, 288. Shaul, Chen’s patron 241-2, 246-9,
311, 321, 325. Shavit, M. 61, 73, 178. Shavit, cotton gin plant manager 106-
110, 118, 134, 139, 176, 183, 213, 224, 236.
Shavit, Y. 115. Sheaffer, Z. 44, 115. Shem-Tov, V. 73, 81, 174, 176-7, 221. Shenhabi, Mordechay, KA’s radical
leader 167, 169, 183-4, 218, 222, 339, 353.
Shepher, I. 1, 22-4, 47, 62, 65-8, 211, 228, 306, 307, 312.
Shepher, Y. 1, 33, 40, 59, 89, 99, 244. Shimony, U. 33, 37, 42, 231, 242-3. Shitrit, S.S. 353.
Name Index
390
Shlonski, Avraham, literary leader 86, 159.
Shortell, S.M. 226. Shtanger, S. 102. Shteinberg, D. 83, 128. Shur, S. 1, 59, 65, 258, 293. Shure, H. 9, 12, 60, 81, 119, 169, 174,
178, 218, 221. Sieff, M. 34, 44. Simons, Tal 4-5. Simons, Tony 286. Simon, H. 51, 277. Sitkin, S.B. 158. Smith, P.H. 186. Snow, D.A. 186. Sobel, L.A. 97. Solomon, R.C. 148. Soros, G. 66. Spilerman, S. 191, 302. Spiro, M.E. 1-3, 23, 59, 65, 80, 89,
121. Staber, U. 18. Stalin, J.V. 29, 143, 160-5, 170-5, 182,
186, 323. See also: USSR. Stein, H.F. 35. Stern, R.N. 9, 150, 252. Stepan-Norris, J. 349. Stryjan, Y. 3-7, 13-4, 18-9, 20-5, 33,
36, 53, 57, 98, 186, 213, 234, 260-1, 277, 288, 338-41.
Suttles, G.D. 148. Swidler, A. 23, 153, 196. Tabenkin, Itzhak, KM’s Admor 46,
60, 62, 67, 75, 92, 114, 138-43, 159-186, 189, 222, 235, 305, 339, 346.
Talmi, M. 5. Talmon, S. 60, 65. Talmon, Y. 1, 9, 59, 234. Terry, R.W. 12, 147-50, 203. Teveth, S. 72. Thomas, cotton gin plant’s technical
manager 106-109, 128-9, 132-3, 137-9, 182, 190, 198, 224, 226, 267, 292-5, 344, 353.
Thomas, R.J. 107, 138. Tidhar, D. 71-4. Tomer, Carmelit’s radical leader 213,
252-5, 259, 267-9, 279, 302. Topel, M. 9, 11, 30, 55, 60, 62, 66, 68,
116-23, 128-9, 136, 153, 157, 194, 200, 203, 228-30, 234, 237-9, 244, 306, 332.
Triandis, H.C. 328. Tucker, R.H. 110, 143. Turner, R.H. 22, 157. Tyler, T. 107, 148-9, 200, 297. Tzachor, Z. 3, 60, 69, 74-78, 81-3,
130, 158-62, 166-8, 169-79, 182, 221.
Tzimchi, N. 62, 68, 83, 101. Tzur, E. 172. Tzur, W. 60, 65, 68, 81, 83. Tzur, Y. 62, 129, 154, 266. Tzur, Z. 72, 75, 169, 180. Vald, E. 11, 101, 114, 153, 180. Vallier, I. 59, 61. Van den Berge, P.L. 25. Van Maanen, J. 57, 151. Van Wolferen, K. 263-4. Vancil, R.F. 15, 91, 345-6. Vaughan, D. 21. Veblen, T. 126. Velasquez, F. 264. Verlinski, Nahum, Tnuva’s head 72,
92, 119. Vilan, Y. 9, 11, 60-3, 71, 82-3, 98,
105, 129-30, 174. Vogel, E.F. 263. Wacquant, L.J.D. 22-3, 55, 66-7, 152,
277. Wallerstein, I. 11, 18, 56. Warhurst, C. 253, 260, 268. Washington, George, 97, 111, 223,
325, 338. Watt, J.R. 11, 109, 153-4. Webb, J. 35, 147, 226. Weber, M. 63, 143.
Name Index
391
Westphal, J.D. 148. White, M.C. 343. Whyte, W.F. 9, 13, 25-6, 38, 40, 57,
67, 150, 192, 297, 316, 338, 350. Willner, D. 25, 42, 71. Wolf, E.R. 169. Woolcock, M. 69. Yaakov, cotton gin plant’s deputy
manager 108-9, 128, 131, 132, 137, 200, 267, 353.
Yaar, E. 3, 25, 59, 61, 68-9, 172-3, 191-2.
Yaari, Meir, 46, 60, 66, 68, 73-4, 92-3, 99, 114, 133, 135, 138-141, 144, 157-62, 166-76, 221-2, 250, 339, 346.
Yadlin, A. 50, 62, 84, 129, 135, 139,
181. Yahel, R. 44, 93. Yanai, N. 62. Yankelovich, D. 65, 199, 226, 273,
351. Zait, D. 161-2, 165-6, 172, 176, 183. Zamir, D. 32-3, 38, 50, 186, 196, 203,
238. Zamir, Eli, TKM’s general secretary
50. Zand, D.E. 27, 35, 102, 105, 146, 149,
176, 278. Zelikovich, Mishkay Hamerkaz’s head
90-2, 107-109, 118, 128, 139, 177, 236, 257.
Zertal, M. 162.
SUBJECT INDEX
Admors (prime leaders) conservative dysfunction 28, 73-75, 80, 108, 132, 143, 164-69, 171, 181-91, 291, 300, 337; assumed charisma 109, 144, 181-5, 353; criticized 140-2, 152, 183-5, 213, 222, 300; deputies of 63, 110, 119, 172, 176; detached 177-192, 220; initial high morality 143, 158-61; kibbutzim of 60, 78, 110, 168, 179-80; leftism 143, 161-4, 169-74, 181-3, 213, 333-5; low-moral 29, 73, 109, 157, 162-92; patronage 99, 141, 175, 180-3; power 61, 68, 89-91, 114, 119, 134-6, 142, 143, 168, 170-90, 335; privileges 73, 128-33; tenure 5, 60, 92, 111, 152, 264, 328.
Athens 9-11, 31, 154, 224, 250, 264. Anarchy 43, 194-229, 298, 331-3. Beit Alfa 65, 159, 174, 183, 205,
218. Brain-drain 9, 24, 26-8, 37, 44, 52,
56, 89, 115, 153, 195, 214, 224-6, 232, 235, 240, 243, 249, 297, 322, 343-6, 349.
Cabinet Ministers 7-8, 60, 62-3, 66-
8, 79, 82, 91, 119, 132, 172, 177-80, 184, 271, 283, 329, 349.
Capitalist culture 56, 83, 132, 140; firms 4, 14, 18, 127, 158, 191, 206, 209, 228, 252, 257, 259, 302; gravity 34, 152, 225, 231, 252; owners 136, 147, 191; society 6-7, 27, 43-5, 133, 162, 204, 328.
Careers 7, 9, 11, 24-6, 29, 31, 37, 40-2, 56, 61, 66, 73-5, 87-91, 99, 107-112, 115, 121-3, 133, 137,
174, 183, 194, 201, 204, 209, 213, 215, 217, 221-5, 228, 236-9, 257, 272, 280, 284, 288, 291, 294, 297, 299, 321, 329, 332 (Also: Pe’ilim circulation).
Carmelit 26, 28, 34, 54, 111, 113, 122, 194, 204, 212, 219, 231, 235, 241, 244, 249-61, 268, 283.
Chen 81, 111, 122, 194-5, 212, 231, 240-51, 257-8, 264, 303, 309-310.
CKP (Customary kibbutz paradigm) 6-7, 22-4, 35, 39, 56, 67, 70, 76, 88, 100, 112, 115, 118, 123, 157, 231, 239, 306, 313, 332.
Cliques 19, 33, 59, 97, 108, 115, 117-24, 204, 208, 231, 252-62, 299, 330-32, 334-6, 340, 345, 350.
Collectivism 9, 25, 39, 42, 46, 53, 75, 126, 132, 187, 208, 210, 213, 216, 250.
Cooperation 37, 187, 199, 288, 294. Cooperatives 15-17, 25-6, 36, 42,
71, 84, 86, 192, 302, 337, 349. Communal societies 1-6, 21-27, 30,
33, 37, 45, 56, 64, 66, 71-3, 76-8, 157, 186, 226, 260, 282, 287, 315, 328; isolationism 3, 22, 37.
Conservatism 4, 8-10, 14, 16, 23-6, 28-32, 37, 43-56, 73, 75, 80, 107, 112, 119, 122, 124, 132, 142-5, 154, 157, 168, 171, 175, 177, 181, 185, 187, 190-2, 194, 199, 204, 211-4, 217-27, 234, 240, 247-9, 252, 254, 259-61, 265, 268, 273-6, 279-82, 286, 290, 293, 296, 298, 300, 303, 312, 320, 322-37, 341.
Corruption of officers 10-11, 103, 132, 137, 146, 174, 210, 221,
Subject Index
393
224, 242, 265, 291, 297, 349. Creativity 4, 7, 9, 14-18, 20, 22-48,
52, 54, 73, 104, 109, 114, 119, 123, 125, 132, 144, 153, 155, 159, 168, 173, 183-6, 191, 194, 204-6, 212, 218-20, 222, 224, 235, 249, 257-61, 263, 265, 268, 272-82, 294, 298, 300, 304-6, 308, 311, 316, 319-21, 323, 326, 328-30, 333-5, 337-9, 349, 351-4.
Democracy 3-4, 7-9, 11-18, 21-33,
39, 45, 55, 67, 74, 80, 93, 95, 108-14, 116, 120, 123, 126, 131, 135-42, 144, 152, 154, 157, 161, 163, 167-70, 172, 176, 181-5, 191, 299, 203, 209, 212-4, 216, 221, 226, 235, 238, 248, 251-4, 257, 261, 266-291, 303, 306, 309, 316-8, 323, 326, 328-44, 349-54.
DWOs (Democratic work organizations) 13-19, 25, 339-53. Also: cooperatives, kibbutz, moshav.
Egalitarianism 1-4, 7-9, 17, 22-5,
27-36, 39, 44, 46, 54, 56, 59, 67, 76-9, 92, 96, 100, 103, 109-15, 117, 127, 130-6, 142, 145, 151, 157, 160, 164, 168, 170, 173, 187, 193, 204-6, 209, 213, 216, 218-20, 226, 230, 235, 247, 250, 253, 268-72, 282-7, 292, 301, 303, 309, 314-8, 322, 330-5, 337, 341-3, 351.
Ein Hamifratz 129, 132. Ein Harod 78, 153, 165, 168, 180,
222, 286, 304. Field theory 1, 39, 57, 66, 152, 276. FOs (Federative organizations) 1-
194, 198, 204, 214, 219, 225, 229, 235, 240, 251, 257, 259, 263-5, 271, 283, 286, 296, 305, 318-20, 323, 325-31, 336, 338,
342, 346, 349-51, 353 (Also: Hever Hakvutzot, Ichud, KA, KM, Reg.Ents, TKM, Tnuva); capitalist-like cultures 3, 9, 23-5, 32, 39, 123, 167, 191 (Also: Autocracy, Conservatism, Hired labor, Leadership low-moral); capitalist Trojan Horses 9, 167, 328.
Gan Shmuel 33, 42, 51, 125, 130,
183-4, 186-7, 212, 235-6, 261, 267, 272, 279, 286-7, 299, 303.
Gesher Haziv 51. Geva 33, 29-30, 250. Givat Brenner 111, 204. ‘Golden Parachutes’ 16, 19, 92, 346. Hatzerim 33, 42, 235, 249. Hachof 90. Hazorea 244, 271-3, 280, 283, 288. Hever Hakvutzot 61-2, 67, 71, 79,
92, 119, 144, 164. Hulda 61. Hired labor 4, 18, 26, 31-38, 43, 54,
75, 88, 94, 98, 114, 124, 128, 130, 134, 168, 182, 185, 190, 194, 198, 203, 224, 230, 235, 237, 252, 254, 267, 282, 300, 321, 336.
Histadrut (Federation of socialist movements & labor unions) 60-2, 66, 71, 83, 92, 120, 133, 135, 144, 163, 167, 184, 285, 305.
Ichud (Hakibbutzim Vehakvotzut)
Movement 8, 60, 63, 81, 85, 92, 120, 123, 141, 185, 230, 232, 237-9, 242-4, 249, 337.
Imperial China 9-10, 109, 154. International Communal Studies
Association 22. Israeli: academy 57, 65-7, 98, 109;
armed forces 9, 69, 102, 109, 114, 173, 233, 287, 309 (Also:
Subject Index
394
Palmach); culture 152; economy 42, 82-7, 90, 105, 137, 180, 196, 252, 266, 287; mass media 271; politics 49, 62, 72, 226, 347 (Also: Socialist parties); population 44, 185, 353; society 3, 43, 47, 55, 57, 61, 74, 102, 113, 134, 172, 179, 190, 210, 212, 221; state 3, 62, 73, 120, 236, 347, 353.
Japan 14, 146, 150, 213, 263, 288,
342. Jewish Agency & subsidiaries 9, 50,
60, 63, 72, 75, 81-3, 120, 159, 163, 187, 218, 243, 294, 353.
Jewish Brigade 28, 167. Jewish Diaspora 28, 83. Kibbutz agriculture 34, 37, 42, 47,
75, 81-4, 92, 104, 118, 125, 141, 152, 166, 185, 189, 194, 202, 224, 232, 241, 250, 267; boundaries of 1; branch managers 31, 43, 59, 101, 120, 139, 194, 213, 266, 276, 280-1, 287-91, 304, 310; capitalist-like cultures 195, 213, 231, 240, 265, 339 (Also: Carmelit, FOs, Hired labor, Netzer Sireni); capitalist practices 7, 29, 33, 36-7, 46, 54, 79, 118, 158, 168, 184, 196, 213, 218, 252-4, 256, 258, 268, 281, 306, 336, 352; capitalist symbols 56, 83, 133, 140; chief officers 7, 30, 33, 44, 51, 59-62, 81, 88-99, 110, 118, 122, 136, 194, 198, 202, 205, 209, 212, 225, 230, 240, 243, 247, 255-9, 266, 273, 276, 279-83, 294, 297, 317, 320, 323, 326, 330, 333, 336, 339; culture 9, 19-38, 51-5, 79, 82, 98, 109, 125, 128, 133, 143, 151, 157, 170, 189, 219, 227, 231, 236, 251-3, 256, 261, 282, 303,
328, 334, 344; culture incoherence 20-22, 152, 326, 333; field 1, 6-8, 11, 17, 22, 26-8, 39, 44, 49, 55-7, 66-8, 73, 88-90, 93, 96, 100, 104, 108, 113, 117-24, 132, 135, 146, 154, 165, 191, 203, 212, 229, 261-3, 279, 283, 306, 316, 326-8, 333-4, 338; industry 9, 29, 32-3, 39, 42, 48, 79-82, 86, 95, 101, 169, 189, 194, 232-5, 241, 255-9, 266-8, 292, 320, 337; intangible capitals 2, 4, 9, 14, 23, 57, 63, 68, 89, 99, 106, 116, 120, 123, 137, 153, 193, 204-6, 216, 229, 240, 267, 297, 328-31; ‘internal leaving’ 6, 11, 36, 88, 222, 251, 297, 326, 333, 336. movement strategies 3, 39, 145, 184, 295, 341; population 2-3, 17, 22, 44, 50, 60, 166, 186, 192, 241, 244, 257, 265-6, 296, 303, 314, 324; power elites 1, 9, 12, 55-7, 66-8, 116, 153, 157, 174, 198, 200-211, 221-3, 225-7, 263, 275, 283, 333, 336; prestige 2, 5, 7, 9, 14-6, 53, 61-4, 69, 88, 94, 97, 102-4, 122, 127, 137, 196, 212, 215, 224, 231, 237, 249, 253-5, 257, 260, 284, 288, 294, 297; researchers 3-11, 15, 18, 22, 27-9, 31, 33-5, 37-40, 45, 55-7, 59, 61, 65, 69, 72-5, 79, 83-5, 96, 109, 113, 143-6, 153, 167, 173, 181, 191, 223, 226, 242, 293, 324, 328-31, 334-7, 344; resurrection 15-17, 74-7, 224, 253, 257-9, 264-90; socialist ideas 3, 71, 95, 113, 190, 247, 290, 315, 319, 321, 326, 333; socialist practices 24, 37, 133, 212, 252, 316 (Also: collectivism, egalitarianism, solidarity); socialist symbols 231.
Kibbutz Artzi Movement (KA) 7, 50, 60, 68, 72, 78-85, 91, 131-5,
Subject Index
395
149, 152, 159, 166-72, 177-83, 189-94, 217, 282, 324, 327, 349.
Kibbutz Meuchad Movement (KM) 60-6, 64, 71, 79, 81-5, 92, 142-4, 159-66, 169, 191-7, 179-3, 185, 188, 234-6, 274, 338, 346, 350.
Kiriat Anavim 9, 144. Knesset (Parliament) 7-8, 60, 62-3,
66-8, 76, 82, 89, 91-4, 120-1, 132, 171-3, 176, 178-81, 186, 235, 295, 300, 329, 348.
Kochav 3, 16, 26-8, 33, 50, 53, 76, 89, 95, 112, 120, 124, 129, 132, 152, 193, 204, 208, 218, 229, 235, 241, 263-326, 342, 352.
Latin America 9-10, 153, 233, 236,
241, 264, 350, 353. Leadership, autocratic 4, 7-8, 13-14,
23, 52, 55, 61, 79, 98, 108, 117, 120, 123-5, 127, 133, 142, 144-5, 157-191, 240, 247, 251-4, 264, 327, 335-6; charismatic 16, 109, 143-4, 157-8, 160, 181, 281, 334, 352; detached 105, 149, 170-191, 198-202, 220-2, 254, 302-5, 330, 336, 344; dysfunctional 15-7, 49-53, 80-1, 94-5, 108, 125, 144, 166-9, 174-6, 180, 202, 221, 251, 257, 266, 291, 298, 325, 338, 345, 350, 353; high-moral, servant 7, 11-3, 16-8, 28, 31, 34-6, 73, 94, 120, 124, 134, 144, 148, 153, 157, 173, 190, 208, 224, 229, 234, 250, 261, 265, 268, 271, 275, 281, 290, 302, 313, 321, 331-2, 347, 352-4; low-moral 7, 11, 12, 16, 28, 33, 73, 143, 150, 153, 157, 196, 204, 208-11, 215, 219, 229-61, 313, 320-25, 328-37, 345; much involved 105-8, 141, 214, 221, 247, 258, 267, 271, 277, 282, 292-5, 315, 326, 331, 336, 343; old guard 16, 204, 218, 225, 245,
248, 268, 291, 297, 300, 303, 307, 313, 321, 333; succession 11-2, 14, 18, 31, 91, 96, 103, 108, 119, 144, 152-4, 175, 223-6, 254, 267, 294, 322, 337-52; radical, transformational 12, 16, 31, 55, 124, 142-5, 157-73, 180-3, 219, 253, 261, 267-91, 297, 326, 330, 334-7, 350-3.
Maagan Michael 167, 235. Machiavellianism 7, 31-3, 92, 120,
161, 165, 184, 253, 261, 332-4. Makom 263, 269. Mashbir Merkazi, see: Tnuva Mishmar Ha’emek 68, 72, 78, 127,
133, 158, 167, 178, 182, 186, 261, 302, 339.
Mizra 51. Moshavim 25, 42, 71, 75, 82-5, 86-
7, 90, 130, 159, 167, 224, 320-2. Netzer Sireni 31-3, 98, 114, 122,
130, 195, 203, 225, 230-5, 240, 249, 287, 317, 338.
Oligarchy 4-9, 13-5, 18, 23, 26, 28-
33, 37-9, 45, 53, 59, 61-3, 73-5, 88, 93, 96, 100, 108, 113, 123, 133, 142, 146, 151, 153, 158, 167, 170, 179, 183, 193, 203, 213, 221, 226, 229, 254, 259, 264, 271, 276, 281, 290, 299, 305, 312, 318, 326-8, 333-5, 338, 342, 346, 349.
Olim 119, 193, 229-41, 244, 248, 257.
Palestinian Arabs 159, 162, 164-6,
171, 180, 183, 185, 353. Palmach 28, 39, 79, 124, 132, 136,
159-60, 163, 167, 171, 177, 179, 181-3, 240, 258, 339, 346, 353.
‘Parachuting’ of officers 11, 88, 101-4, 107, 113, 150, 167, 190,
Subject Index
396
199, 213, 217, 231, 294, 319, 330, 336, 341.
Patronage 9, 11, 16, 18, 29-33, 54, 61, 96-8, 103, 106, 110, 113, 116-26, 129, 142, 153, 174, 180-4, 202, 212, 215, 219, 222, 227, 229-34, 236-8, 240, 252-4, 257, 259, 261, 263, 272-5, 278, 283, 287, 289, 292, 296, 312, 319, 325, 329-34, 350.
Pe’ilim (FO functionaries) 7-12, 17-18, 30-37, 43, 48, 59-112, 117-142, 157-9, 166, 169, 176, 181, 187, 196, 201-9, 212, 215-21, 225, 229-32, 237-9, 242, 252, 261, 265, 268, 271, 281, 284, 290, 296, 303, 312, 320, 322, 325; circulation 7-8, 11, 61, 65, 89-92, 99-102, 108-14, 117-23, 131, 139, 151-3, 167, 189, 205, 215-7, 222, 225, 242, 251, 268, 275, 319, 323, 329-36. ex-pe’ilim 11, 18, 60, 75, 122, 139, 193, 199-201, 211, 239, 291, 296, 330, 335; privileges 2, 4-9, 14, 17, 23, 28, 37, 53, 62-66, 73, 76-9, 87, 94-7, 103, 110-3, 120, 126-38, 151, 168, 176, 193, 203-6, 211, 215, 221-6, 250-5, 271, 281-6, 307, 317-9, 329, 333-5.
Rama 26, 34, 44, 51, 68, 79, 193-
230, 233-5, 240, 248, 250, 255, 259, 265, 269, 273, 278, 287, 298, 303.
Religious kibbutzim 30. Reg.Ents (Regional Enterprises) 4,
42-4, 48, 52, 78, 81, 84-7, 98, 100-3, 107-10, 116, 126-9, 136-40, 176, 189, 197, 202, 209, 229, 237, 253, 259, 316, 321, 336, 340, 343-4; Milu’ot 50, 90-2, 98, 104, 119, 139, 151, 212; Mishkay Hamerkaz 31, 78, 89-94, 98, 106, 118, 126-30, 134-41, 176, 237.
Rotatzia 7-12, 15, 23, 29-31, 35, 60, 62, 65, 73, 87-104, 107-13, 117, 120-4, 132, 137, 139, 149-54, 180, 199, 212, 215, 220-6, 231, 240, 249, 254, 263-7, 273-5, 278, 281, 291-8, 307, 311, 320, 323, 336, 343-7, 352. Procrustean bed 11, 29, 223 (Also: Kibbutz careers, Pe’ilim).
Sa’ad 80. Scale 4, 14, 23, 25-7, 39, 45, 54, 69,
89, 138, 224, 291, 299-301, 304-9, 311, 333, 338, 341-2.
Self-work 24-6, 31-34, 37-9, 54, 88, 123, 173, 180, 208, 230, 235, 249, 254, 258, 267, 318, 321, 328, 334.
Silicon Valley 285, 341. Social movements 1-3, 6, 12, 22, 31,
36, 55, 66, 71, 77, 157, 160, 181, 315, 328.
Social research: ethnographers 6-7, 9-11, 18-9, 33, 50, 52, 56, 64-9, 87, 94, 97, 100, 108, 111, 116, 121, 142, 150, 157, 167, 170, 180, 193, 222, 226, 230, 251, 253, 259, 263, 306, 308, 328, 336, 343; DWO students 9, 12-17, 25, 105, 351-3; historians 46, 52, 55, 60, 64, 72, 75, 109, 144, 171, 328; political scientists 117, 263; divisions of 11, 18, 22, 55, 150; scientific coalitions 16, 33, 37, 68, 99, 111, 116, 264, 328, 338; sociologists 11, 19, 25, 34, 38, 40, 50, 54-6, 61, 64-8, 99, 116, 150, 167, 202, 220, 230, 244, 263, 291, 301, 328, 332.
Socialist parties: Ahdut Ha’avoda 73; Le’ahdut Ha’avoda 164; Mapay 72-3, 82, 119, 144, 160-5, 170-5, 183, 203, 305, 318, 323; Mapam 63, 73, 81, 85, 97, 157, 160, 171-2, 175-7, 181; Socialist
Subject Index
397
League 165. Solidarity 9, 11-18, 22, 24, 27, 30,
32, 36-8, 158, 162, 173, 190, 225, 253, 256, 259, 275, 287-302, 312, 316, 319-20, 328, 340, 344, 352.
‘Stockade and Tower’ 158, 165. Stratification 1, 9, 18, 22, 36, 56-69,
76, 79, 98, 109, 111, 119, 126, 128, 132, 135, 142, 148, 190, 222, 230-1, 240, 281, 306, 318, 328, 332, 341 (Also: Oligarchy).
TKM (Tnuaa Kibbutzit Meuchedet)
movement 44, 48-51, 82, 85, 91, 123, 135, 241, 246, 251, 253, 260.
Tnuva & Mashbir Merkazi 72, 82, 90-2, 99, 119, 135, 139, 154, 167, 206, 229, 287.
Trust 9-18, 27-30, 41, 44, 53, 56, 73, 94, 100-5, 124, 132, 135-7, 141-54, 158, 171-6, 180, 185, 190, 193, 198, 202, 206, 211, 214-9, 221-6, 229, 233, 240, 248, 251, 253, 261, 267, 272-81, 287, 291-9, 303, 306, 313, 320, 323-6, 330-53; distrust 9, 14, 31, 34-6, 44, 105, 137-40, 146, 148-51, 171, 196, 199-202, 208-11, 214, 223-7, 299, 312, 336, 341; low-trust 7, 14, 34, 83, 142, 146, 150, 154, 158, 190, 199, 202, 213, 219, 264, 280, 328, 338, 341, 344, 350, 353; high-trust 6-7, 9, 12, 17, 24, 26, 32, 35-7, 41, 51, 54, 112, 123, 144-6, 148-51, 174, 191, 202, 221, 225, 265, 268, 272, 276-9, 287-90, 306, 314, 328, 331, 334, 337-40, 348-9; trustworthiness 144, 149, 177, 240, 269, 297, 311, 344, 349.
US agricultural experts 166; army 9-
10, 25; corporations 15, 34, 100, 106-8, 150, 229, 342-3; officials
11, 223, 226; presidents’ semi-rotatzia 96, 110, 153, 222, 338, 344-6, 353.
USSR 83, 96, 109, 143, 160-5, 169-74, 176, 178, 181, 184, 212, 236, 290, 315, 323 (Also: Stalin, J.V.).
Yishuv (Jewish Palestine
community) 2, 93, 157-9, 163, 165-7, 171, 177.
Zionist movement 2, 72, 81, 93,
130, 133, 135, 144, 234, 282, 328; JNF (Jewish National Fund) 83, 159; socialists 2, 60, 71, 328 (Also: Ahdut Havoda, Hever Hakvutzot, Histadrut, Ichud, KA, KM, TKM, Mapay, Mapam); United Jewish Appeal 59; WZO (World Zionist Organization) 2, 71, 92, 353 (Also: Jewish Agency).