Re: [WDDM] Regarding the social network site

[Georges Metanomski <zgmet(at)yahoo.com>]

--- Bruce Eggum <bruceeggum(at)gmail.com> wrote:

> It is really how the community "decides" to do
> things which is "direct
> democracy".
>
> WDDM can offer examples and information about all
> these different ways, but
> the community must choose it's way which may be a
> combination of these or
> none of the above. We are not to decide this is THE
> way, simply exemplify
> these are some ways which are being used. Georges
> model lacks the initial
> steps to accomplish his suggested way.
===============
G:
The only detail I disagree with in your excellent
post.
My "Shadow Parliament" is NOT a model, but precisely
a suggestion of, IMO inescapable, initial steps
leading to DD, viz.
1.Getting a Shadow Parliament within the Particracy.
2.Establish a logistic 3 Functions support.
3.Propound Sincerity, which appears to be the
critical condition of DD.
A particular model will be conceived, debated and
implemented by the community, once it arrives at
the DD, if ever.
Each Kibbutz has its own model, usually different
from other ones.
My suggested way boils down to creating kibbutz-like
small communities and extend them progressively to
the national scope.

This being said, I thank you for your excellent post,
from which I learned a lot, as it gives mainly the
external view and I was concerned mostly with Kibbutz
internals and their external impact. Let me just
mention two issues: 1.self-fulfillment,
2.unselfishness.

Self-fulfillment.
Job may be a constraint, even if in a kibbutz you
can largely choose it and get one corresponding to
your personality. However, once your daily job
finished, you are free to self-fulfill yourself to
a degree unimaginable for outsiders. You never get
a bill, if your roof leaks it's repaired without
you being bothered in any way and, in general, you
don't have any problems else than existential ones.
You may get sick and will eventually die. However,
even that will be for your children only a personal
blow, but will in no way impair their future, which
is taken care of by the kibbutz. In Bruce's post
the concert halls and swimming pools looked a bit
like luxuries offered for passive enjoyment.
Actually, they are mainly used by internal musicians
and training sportsmen. There are more intellectuals,
artists and hobbyist per head in kibbutzim, than
anywhere else. Just one example of self-fulfillment:
3-5% of kibbutz population provides 90% of fighter
pilots. Now, the selection of Israeli fighter pilots
is by far the toughest in the world both physically
and psychically.

Unselfishness.
Bruce's post concentrates mainly on getting (the
quality of life, enjoyment and even luxury).
Actually, in the kibbutzim Give outweighs by far the
Get. By jobs distribution the motivation is mainly
"what can I best contribute", much before "what I
would enjoy". The kibutznik's abnegation of personal
well-being
and even life created Israel and keeps it afloat.
A single Kibbutz Yad Mordechai stopped the whole
Egyptian army in 1948.
Many kibutzniks work outside, like about 30% of my
colleagues teaching at the Haifa Uni. Their salaries,
royalties, etc. go to kibbutz, which provides them
with modest flats and what nots necessary to carry out
the job. As curiosity I'll mention the event of having

been served in a canteen of a Neguev kibbutz by Golda
Meir, then Israeli Prime Minister. Member of the
Kibutz, she spent her leisure time at home, taking in
turn such tasks as were available for intermittent
presence. Her PM pay and extras went to the Kibbutz,
which provided her with a two room flat in a social
house and the smallest Renault car. She was of course
occasionally picked up with government's limousines,
but her private life ran along the lines of an elderly
single woman of the people.
Whatever DD may be, we will never IMO get there,
before we all, including the highest appointed
responsibles, get that mentality.

To finish, I hate ad personam addressing, whether
negative, or positive, endeavoring to comment
assertions. I shall contradict this principle by
telling you, Bruce, ad personam, that it's more
gratifying to disagree with you than to agree with
many others.

Georges.
==================
> RE Kibbutz, they are "evolving" and followed what we
> knew as "tribal ways"
> many many years ago. They too will "evolve" perhaps
> discarding some of the
> good ways as we did.
>
> There are some aspects which could be utilized such
> as cooperatives.
> However, the dynamics of decision making leaves the
> same old problems of
> power. "Group" or large family's may control
> decisions. The psychological
> damage is unnecessary. Than too, Kibbutz are moving
> toward capitalistic ways
> unfortunately, as a more social method could be
> better. Bruce
>
> Children were brought up communally in age groups,
> away from their parents.
> One age group would progress from creche to nursery
> to school and so on,
> living together during the week and seeing their
> parents, and perhaps living
> with them, only at weekends.
>
> This may have freed both parents for work and
> defence in the initial
> struggle for survival. But the practice was
> continued when successful,
> possibly to free women for work and so increase
> production. But it was done
> at the expense of the family.
>
> Of any group in the country, the kibbutz children
> consequently showed the
> highest incidence of mental problems. The kibbutzim
> have had to backtrack
> and now give their children a more normal and
> strengthening family-life
> experience with their parents.
>
>
> Kibbutzim now own and operate factories, hotels and
> restaurants, and much
> else. Degania, for example, has a factory with an
> annual turnover of about
> USD 15 million which provides roughly 75 per cent of
> its income. {KIB 02}
>
> And kibbutzim are successful. Three per cent of
> Israel's population, about
> 125,000 people, live in 270 kibbutzim ranging in
> size from say 200 to 2,000
> members. They produce something like 50 per cent of
> Israel's agricultural
> produce and about 9 per cent of its industrial
> goods.
>
>
> ORGANISATION AND DECISION-TAKING
>
> All are equal regardless of the work done and all
> share equally in the work
> to be done, the available services and the
> democratic management of the
> kibbutz.
>
> Decisions are made jointly by the General Assembly
> of all kibbutz members.
> The General Assembly decides policy and allocates
> responsibilities (work) to
> individual members by electing managers and
> assigning work.
>
> One member could, for example, be given
> responsibility for work scheduling
> and for allocating work to individual members. Such
> work in larger kibbutzim
> could also be handled by committees whose members
> are also elected by the
> General Assembly, the chairperson often doing this
> work full time.
>
> Members occupy their role for a limited period, say
> one or two years, often
> full time in larger kibbutzim, and jobs (roles) are
> rotated.
>
> The functions covered in such ways are the usual
> ones found in any
> enterprise or community and can vary from kibbutz to
> kibbutz. Finance,
> transport, health, short-term and long-term
> planning, social and cultural
> activities, communal dining, laundry, creche
> facilities, and so on.
>
>
> Decision-taking by the General Assembly can involve
> heated argument,
> infighting between factions and marshalling of
> support. Suppose money is
> limited, a tractor has to be bought and only one
> child can be sent to study
> at university, both fees and maintenance being
> required. One child out of
> two and your child is one of the two. Such problems
> can prove very divisive
> within such a close community.
>
>
> SUCCESS AND WEALTH
>
> The success of the kibbutzim became a byword in
> Israel. Agriculture in
> Israel was more capital intensive than in the USA.
> While urban life was
> tough and insecure in a taxing climate, kibbutz
> members had a secure and
> high standard of living and a good quality of life.
>
> Life on a prosperous kibbutz includes its cultural
> centre or concert hall,
> use of swimming pool and tennis courts, film shows,
> lectures and concerts.
> <2>
>
> As an open-air swimming pool was replaced by an even
> bigger one, as a new
> concert hall was built, as factories were started
> and outside labour was
> employed, the rest of Israel saw them as living in a
> 'paradise on earth', as
> a 'community of millionaires'. And there are many
> struggling Israelis who
> see kibbutz wealth and life-style as the result of
> state handouts.
>
>
> How come? And what does the future hold? So let us
> look in a little more
> detail at what actually happened.
>
> The kibbutzim were backed and supported by
> world-wide Jewish communities.
> Much if not most of the money was channelled through
> the Jewish Agency
> (Sochnut) which financed, or else provided, water
> supplies, electric power,
> roads and capital for land (when required), housing,
> equipment, machinery,
> livestock.
>
> Here are some simple figures {KIB 04}:
>
> Take agriculture. Take the year 1975. In that year
> alone farmers received
> USD 130 million <3> in unlinked loans, about 83 per
> cent of the total
> investment in agriculture. 'A good part of these
> loans were given by the
> Jewish Agency, for the traditional 50 years at 2 per
> cent, unlinked of
> course, and with a grace period <4> of 20 years'.
>
> At Israeli inflation rates of about 40 per cent each
> year all the loans
> mentioned are practically wiped out in seven years,
> never mind 50 years. The
> loans were, for all practical purposes, free gifts
> to agricultural
> settlements <5>.
>
> Kibbutzim received unlinked fifty-year loans with
> repayment starting after
> ten or twenty years. At interest rates far below
> rate of inflation, the
> amounts being paid back to the Sochnut were
> negligible compared with the
> loans received, in effect a free gift.
>
> The success and wealth of kibbutzim resulted from
> large capital sums
> provided without strings by world-wide Jewish
> communities at considerable
> hardship to the communities.
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