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Marx is the most mentioned, the least read and 
the most misunderstood of philosophers.
His, most human since Christ, ideology has been
turned into Gulag Inquisition by Engels with
his idiotic Hegelian absolute Materialistic
Dialectics.
The concepts of Comunism and Socialism are
corrupted through their abuse by all sorts of
dictatorial Gulags. 
(Nazis called themselves Socialists: "National 
Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeitspartei").
They trigger gut reactions and emotional
quarrels.
Let us try to look at them rationally for
a change.
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COMMUNISM
"Communism" denotes a social system where
"Everyone contributes according to his
possibilities and everybody gets according to 
his needs". 
Kind of similar to Christian Talents and 
Charity, isn't it?
Thus in a Communist system a sick fellow will
not contribute at all, but get more than 
anybody else because the artificial lung he
needs costs millions.
Now, let's clearly distinguish between 
Communism and "Communist" Gulags abusing of the
idea of which they are diametrical opposition
and which we shall not discuss here.
Back to the genuine Communism, you may argue
that it is a nice idealistic Utopia contradicting
human nature and thus impossible to be realized
in practice.
Not quite. There is one (and only one) example 
of Communist collectivities: Israeli Kibbuzim 
Shomer ha Tsair. 
Several of my colleagues, Profs at the Haifa Uni 
were Kibbuznikim. They did not own anything 
besides personal things. Their salary was payed 
to the Kibbuz, which supplied them with what 
they needed as Profs in Haifa: a modest room or 
flat if married, a cheap car, etc., but 
sometimes most expensive trips to the States etc. 
Kibbuzim represent 10% of the population but
supply 90% of fighter pilots who go through
the toughest selection I heard about and to
succeed must be free of any mean egoistic 
motivation.
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SOCIALISM
Again, we shall ban from this discussion all
systems abusing of the name Socialism like
the Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany,etc.
"Socialism" denotes a social system where
"Everyone contributes according to his
possibilities and everybody gets according to
his merits".
Now, look at it any way you want, it is nothing 
else but the first basic principle of the total
Free World.  Does it mean that we are all 
Socialists? Strictly speaking, in this general
connotation of "Socialism", yes. If Marx woke
up today, he would find the USA closer to his 
idea of Socialism than his most audacious 
dreams. 
Still, such general "Socialist" bag into which 
we would damp all free countries would be 
useless for our discussion. We want to determine 
differences among free countries, we want to 
classify them and for this purpose we shall 
need a narrower definition of "Socialism". 
Prior to formulate it we have to introduce 
a few intermediary concepts.
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THE CAKE
Our systems are governed by economy and economy 
boils down to two most general and fundamental 
problems:
1.Make the biggest possible cake.
2.Split the cake.
and to the unique task: find the optimum 
solution of both of them.
Optimum, because they are contradictory:
Concentrate exclusively on 1 would result in 
splitting favoring only the top makers and
disregarding the masses. But poor masses would
not buy and thus kill the makers and the cake.
Concentrating exclusively on 2. would result
in just and equal splitting, but the cake would
shrink so that all will die of hunger.
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LEFT AND RIGHT
All governments and parties of the free world
are mainly busy with this task of search of
optimum, under different names and, of course,
with thousands of details, which we cannot
mention here.
LEFT programs put more stress on 2,
RIGHT programs put more stress on 1,
but all of them recognize and consider the
counterparts.
Left programs are often called "Socialist" but
I don't find it proper and propose to reserve 
this term to the case introduced in the next 
section.
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SOCIALISM in narrow meaning.
I propose to call "Socialist" a country which
has found and realized in practice a reasonable
approximation of our optimum.
Other countries of the Free World I propose to
call "Capitalist" with Left or Right shades.
(Let me stress that Socialism has nothing to do
with nationalization, which is proper of
dictatorship and is sometimes used as local
measure by LEFT oriented Capitalist regimes.)
In that sense the only Socialist country in the
history was Sweden. Let's look at the Swedish
experience with respect to the principle of
Socialism.
A.EVERYONE CONTRIBUTES ACCORDING TO HIS
POSSIBILITIES.
It's much more complex than it looks. One has
first to have the possibility, but an 
unemployed, a sick an uneducated does not have 
it.
A. implies no unemployment, universal medical 
care and an equal chance education. Sweden 
succeeded to have 0 unemployment, a free 
universal medical care and everybody, regardless 
of age and past history was accepted as student
upon a successful entrance examination with
a room and a modest scholarship. Father of a
good friend of mine was a successful physician.
At the age of 55 he came to the conclusion that 
taking care of the body was not sufficient and
registered as Theology student refusing the 
room and scholarship which he got 
automatically. In his late sixties he became
a famous preacher. 
B.EVERYBODY GETS ACCORDING TO HIS MERITS.
There was absolutely no nationalization and
the range of income was 1/10. Somehow it was
enough to motivate the entrepreneurs who were
getting all quality of life benefits 
compensating the money fortunes. Anyway, it was
the period of peak development of Swedish 
industry which became one of - if not the first
per capita in the world, without talking about
its quality. Volvo, Saab, Erickson, SKF, Steel
industry, IKEA, Wood industry etc. were example 
to the whole world.
Sweden produced one of the biggest cakes per
capita and split it better than anybody else
with free medical care, equal opportunity
education and the whole welfare kabudel.
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FAQ ABOUT KIBBUZIM
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HOW DOES LIFE IN A KIBBUZ LOOK?
A friend of mine, Baruch, lived in the most
advanced Kibbuz in the Negev desert mainly busy
with the legendary task of transforming desert to
orchards. He was one of the best blues saxos I ever
heard, 5th Dan of Karate and Zen addict. I visited
him often to play together, to have one or two
kumites and to learn how to listen to the singing
silence of the desert. His job was maintenance of
watering installation, rather tough, walking miles
and miles along the narrow pipes in 40-50 C,
fetching heavy tools from his jeep and repairing any
discovered failure, often accompanied by his
Beduin friends who initiated him into the mysteries
of the desert. Due to the heat he started at 5 and
at 1 pm was free. Free in a way you cannot imagine.
Free from stress, worry, anguish or trouble which fill
up our life. He could not get any bill, was
never bullied by a boss nor worried about being
fired. He did not have any money, any savings, nor
needed any. He did not have any insurance, nor needed
any: if one day he needed exceptional heart
surgery the Kibbuz would send him to South Africa, to
Barnard, whatever the costs involved. If
something got wrong in his house, it would be
repaired usually during his working hours, without
him noticing it. And back from work he found his
kids and could play with them, take care of their
real personal problems without worrying about|
their food, dressing, education and future. When
he, or his wife were mobilized, the family
separated with worry about a dear person but free
of worries about the future of the kids.
An American wrote a dramatic letter about his Father
killed in WW2 and the trouble his widowed Mother
had to bring him up. If Baruch were killed
it would be a personal tragedy for his family,
but would in no other way influence their life.
His kids supported by the Kibbuz would get the
best possible education, neither better nor worse
than if he were alive.|
He organized a blues trio and had to travel a lot
to play with the other guys and to give concerts,
but also to attend ones of good visiting bands.
When he had to go to a Tel Aviv concert, he
prevented a secretary who reserved the tickets,
a hotel room, a car and provided required pocket
money.                                                                 
On one of my visits we had together a dinner in
Kibbuz's restaurant and were served by Golda Meir,
the Prime Minister at this time. She was member
of this Kibbuz and, spending there a week-end, took
the service duty in her turn. Otherwise she lived
in a 2 room flat rented by the Kibbuz in a modest
house near her office and had a smallest Renault
car belonging to the Kibbuz for her personal use.
Her Prime Minister wages were payed to the Kibbuz. 
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WHY ONLY 10% ISRAELIS LIVE IN KIBBUZIM?
While Kibbuz experience shows that the Communist
principle is not an Utopia incompatible with human
nature, it is nevertheless difficult to accept by
somebody brought up in the context of our
establishment. First, one has to give up several
individualistic habits and replace them with ones
decided by the collectivity.
An example:
All Kibbuzim share some general principles, like
the Communist one, but most of details are decided
locally by directly democratic vote. One of such
details is the children dormitory. Some Kibbuzim
decided that children sleep with parents, but
other ones prefer children dormitories, arguing
that they consolidate group consciousness and
prepare children to face the society. You may want
your kids permanently in your house, but if the
majority votes for dormitory, you would have to
accept their decision.
But the most difficult would be to give up your
dreams. Who of us has not dreamt about being reach
enough to have bigger car than the neighbor and to
enjoy the envy in his eyes. To have a big house
with butlers and things and to enjoy the envy in
the eyes of our guests. To afford a famous fashion
model, to enter with her to Maxim's, to see all
heads turn towards us and to enjoy the envy in all
eyes. And to scrap her in a week and replace her
with a newer model. A man's dream, of course, and
I was never a woman, but women seem still more catty
with respect to one another, still more snobbish
and jewelery and pen-and-ink obsessed.
Now, choosing to join a Kibbuz you would have to
give up those dreams and it's very difficult.
Impossible for most.                       
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