The Guardian reports that Israel’s oldest kibbutz, Degania, has voted, 85% in favour, to abolish the traditional method of contributing all your earnings into a community fund and to replace it with a capitalist model whereby you keep your earnings but pay for services and pay taxes to contribute to those who are in need.
I don’t see this as a tragedy, or a victory. That is because of the almost unique nature of the kibbutz movement. They are purely voluntary. You don’t have to live there, you can opt to leave. That is the fundamental difference between the collectivist state and the kibbutz, the latter is voluntary for all concerned. So long as the kibbutz was founded legally (ie not on stolen land), which I believe is the case for most, if not all, and there’s no coercion involved in the decision to live there then liberals should celebrate them as people choosing to live as they wish, harming no one else.
The decision to abandon the common fund was taken democratically, but was part of a trend, electricity was already privately purchased (to cut costs- when you pay directly you use a resource more carefully) and communal meals had declined. This change however need not remove the sense of community which is central to the kibbutz, that can and probably will remain.
