The most equal society in the world

Today is Blog Action Day and the subject this year is inequality.  Which has led me to think about its opposite, equality.  And having lived for many years in what was one of the most equal societies the world has ever known, I thought I’d share something of the experience.

I lived in a place where everyone worked, but no one was paid for their work.

All the essentials of life were free — housing, health care, education, food, travel.  Even daily newspapers, televisions and radios, even a kettle for making tea.

For the things that were not free, there were individual budgets specifically for things like holidays and clothing.

Where I lived, people worked in all types of jobs — in industry, agriculture and services.   But it didn’t matter what you did, no one had more than anyone else.

When luxuries of different kinds became available, such as newer housing, or larger refrigerators, or colour televisions, they were allocated according to a system we all agreed was just — usually based on seniority.

The unpleasant but essential jobs were shared as well, so on weekends everyone had to be ready about once a month to do something different just to keep the place running.  For example, every fourth Saturday, I milked cows, though my day job was to work as a computer programmer.  (Cows don’t have weekends, and need to be milked every day.)

We raised our children together, from birth, in children’s houses.  They spent their days there and their nights too, coming home to visit their parents from 16:00 to around 20:00 every day.  To most parents, that time was devoted to their kids, so everyone left work in time to get their children home and maximize those four hours together.

We ate together in a common dining room, and food like everything else was provided without money — everyone took what they needed.  We had a shared laundry too, and our clothes were washed and mended for us without charge, every day of the week.

I’ve never forgotten a conversation I had with the man who was, at the time, the elected head of the factory.  When I asked him about being a manager he corrected me and said he was just a “coordinator”; we didn’t believe in managers.  His office was one of the only places in the factory that had air conditioning, so on hot summer days he’d leave the door open so that everyone could see he wasn’t using it.

It was not a perfect society, and over the years many of its values eroded and were eventually lost.

But equality was at its core.

And not only equality, because there are societies in which there is a certain degree of that, but they’re not places you’d ever want to live.  Another key value without which we’d have found this unbearable was democracy.

We voted on everything.  We rotated managers (or “coordinators”) regularly, so no one stayed in a position of power for very long.  We had weekly meetings of the entire community at which all important issues were settled.  We had more than 50 committees which regulated every aspect of our common lives, including culture, health, education, political activity, running our local economy, and so on.

That unique combination of rather extreme forms of equality and democracy created the kind of society that Karl Marx once described with the phrase “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

Though that phrase from The Communist Manifesto hardly described the societies which in the 20th century would call themselves communist, which were totalitarian hells, it very accurately described the place I lived.

So where was this egalitarian Utopia?  A figment of my imagination?  A dream?

No, it was very real and it was located in the shadow of Mount Tabor, in the lower Galilee region of Israel.  The name of the community was Kibbutz Ein Dor, and for nearly 50 years, the description above fairly accurately describes how we lived there.

Ein Dor was part of a broader movement of more than 250 such communal settlements, all of which attempted to live according to these highly egalitarian and democratic values, with varying degrees of success, and for over 100 years.  The kibbutz experiment was one of the longest and most successful attempts ever at the creation of a truly equal, socialist society.

Much of that is now gone, as the egalitarian and democratic values that underpinned the kibbutz model fell victim to a wave of “reforms” which have turned most of the kibbutzim into more ordinary, less equal villages.

But during their heyday, when I had the privilege of living there, there was no place in the world that was more equal.

 

 

12 Comments on "The most equal society in the world"

  1. Thank you for taking Vee and me to Ein Dor and for giving us the opportunity to meet some of your friends at this remarkable community even if, by then, the “reforms” had largely taken place.

  2. David Shai | 16/10/2014 at 09:09 |

    Thanks for writing this. There’s still a little bit left.

  3. Your description did sound like a piece of fiction! You are truly privileged for having lived in Kibbutz Ein Dor.
    As you have correctly stated, it was the combination of equality and democracy that made this system a success.
    I have a couple of questions:
    1. Was there gender equality in the kibbutz?
    2. Was there complete freedom of religion? For example, could a person choose to be atheist?

  4. Michael Chai | 16/10/2014 at 10:31 |

    You said it all

  5. Michael Chai | 16/10/2014 at 14:15 |

    Most people were atheists. Many women were elected kibbutz secretary. The most influential and responsible position in the community. It is true that most women were expected to work in education and services..Reforms my butt. They are regressions. Neo capitalism reigns

  6. Very interesting society. I had never heard of it. It’s awesome that that was able to exist for so long. I think eventually greed and selfishness come into play; but if you could be taught to share everything from birth, perhaps things would be different. Someone has to set the rules when there is a disagreement or break a tie, and I think that it ultimately the failure of ‘utopias’ sometimes. But, it’s nice to know that this existed and if it has happened before, perhaps it is able to be replicated.

  7. Inger Österberg | 16/10/2014 at 16:00 |

    You described Ein-Dor as it was at that time. Very nicely as well. I was only a summer student staying for a couple of months in 1963. I enjoyed working together in the fields, cleaning after the chickens, having meals together and to have a nice swim in the pool. Among other things. To meet with all kinds of people, discuss, sing and dance. Such wonderful time. Being Christian, I never ever had a bad feeling of being met with antagonism from anyone.

  8. Moshe Chertoff | 16/10/2014 at 16:48 |

    Excellent article! Eric covered it well. I do need to make a couple of comments, still living on a kibbutz in the Western Galilee.
    1st, cows DO have weekends; they just don’t make them different from other days. 🙂
    Then, to state that this or that was “free” is inaccurate. Nothing was free. But you didn’t earn anything according to the value of your labor/sales/production. Each person (including kids in junior high and through to octogenarians) contributed their share to the society and got everything they needed that the kibbutz decided it could afford. For example, I needed to visit my parents and brother in the USA, but the kibbutz didn’t find that a need that it could provide. I felt a bit deprived that at age 40 or 50, I couldn’t visit them although I worked 9 – 13-hour days. But, I decided that the good outweighed the bad and remain a member.
    Also, to say that no one had more than anyone else is inaccurate, because we didn’t appraise value only in money. My kibbutz had the highest percentage of Holocaust survivors of any community in the world. They might have had a color TV before me, but I still had parents, grandparents, cousins, and the rest. They had no one. Who had more? I had a great Nikon, but someone else had a beautiful painting. Who had more?
    The time dedicated to being with our kids every afternoon & evening was perhaps the greatest benefit. But it also afforded us evenings free from 8 pm to study, folk dance, sit together with friends, and anything else we wanted to do. We weren’t taking care of our kids by that hour. So, I studied video at the Technion technical university in Haifa, went folk dancing, and the rest.
    Proactive Indian, to answer your questions:
    1. There was gender equality in principle. That is, I had a rough time being accepted as a caretaker in children’s houses when others might have expected me to do more for the profitability of the kibbutz. A woman had to struggle to get to work on tractors in the fields or on a truck; but it could be done.
    2. Each kibbutz had/has its own character and rules, although they could be categorized by the movements that started them (Hashomer Hatzair on the “aetheistic” left, Kibbutz HaMeuchad still left, Ichud HaKibbutzim more central, the Religious Kibbutz Movement who are modern orthodox, and a few ultra-orthodox kibbutzim). So, my Hashomer kibbutz, as is Eric’s, had no synagogue and would refuse to build one if someone even donated it today. It’s against my “religion.” That’s one reason I came to live here. It’s the only type of community in the world where I don’t have to explain why I don’t believe in god or justify my Israeli existence. Other kibbutzim start every day in their synagogues and would have it no other way.

  9. Uzi Ran | 18/10/2014 at 05:51 |

    Excellent article Eric !!! Maybe you should write about “The rise and fall” of the “Kibbutz” in Eretz Israel for those who are interested.
    Good comments from all Moshe Chertoff is very exact and realistic as a still member of Ein Dor !!!
    GREAT s usual Eric!
    LOVE Uzi

  10. michal | 19/10/2014 at 22:21 |

    eric shalom,
    I too lived on a kibbutz in the years when it was “the most equal society”. and I’ve lived in israel during the years the kibbutz was voting itself out of that status. today I still know some kibbutzniks who were part of that process. the fact that they chose to close down the experiment, the experiment you describe w/ justifiable pride, has always been a mystery to me.
    you gloss over this subject, but I feel that today, it’s the more relevant question. what made the members of the huge majority of kibbutzim turn their backs on equality and communal strength in favor of living in “ordinary, less equal villages”? they didn’t “fall victim” – they voted for a different idea. they freely chose to exchange collective power for home ownership. this process famously included, in some cases, the neglect of the older generation. from outside, it looked as if the main motivation for the abandonment of the experiment was mostly the desire to leave collective child raising behind. but, why throw out the collective economic model as well?
    I’d be interested to read your take on this and wonder if, in your opinion, most kibbutznikim are satisfied w/ the transition they chose.

  11. As I left kibbutz before the changes came in, I’m not qualified to write about them. I wrote about what I knew and experienced, for a global audience many of whom have never heard of the kibbutz. I think that the values of the kibbutz movement remain valid, the experiment remains an important one, and the one observation I might make about the collapse of those values is this one: I’m surprised it took so long, considering that the rest of the socialist Left had been in decline for decades both in Israel and around the world. Kibbutz as an island of democratic socialism was never going to work — the kibbutz movement was born a century ago as part of a strong, growing Left, and the fate of the Left and the kibbutz were intertwined and inseparable.

  12. Deet Lewis | 20/10/2014 at 15:32 |

    I, too, loved living on kibbutz …. several times. I, too, left the kibbutz to raise my own child (her comments, written in her home in Israel, above) in the USA. The equality was fine, and those of us who had a baby there were given such wonderful care … that only rich women could have afforded. Those who still live on kibbutz, even though they’re not nearly as communal, have benefited from the time when it WAS communal; the nice homes, the high standard of culture and education, etc. Y’chi haydad for kibbutzim, as they were … and as they continue to be.

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