Abstract

The kibbutz is a modern democratic and egalitarian community that has successfully responded to the difficulties that egalitarian arrangements face in industrial society. Its principles regarding group ownership and democratic participation in economic and political decisions have significant salience for other situations. The movement presents eighty years of experience. The kibbutz combines equality, individual freedom, and economic efficiency. Most instructive has been its ability, despite losses, to maintain its basic structures and values while undergoing industrialization and decline in the historical ideology of the movement.