The Management of Production and the Changing Character of the Kibbutz as a Mode of Production

Abstract

During the 1980s, the Israeli economy suffered near financial collapse and the kibbutz movement and its industry became heavily debt bound. As a result, significant changes in the social and economic organization of the kibbutz were implemented. It is argued here that the changes in economic organization are the more significant. Industry is the critical point of articulation between the kibbutz and the market economy. Ensuring commensurability between market exigencies and the organization and control of the kibbutz labour process is an imperative and yet few substantive data have emerged examining the transformation of the kibbutz labour process. Drawing upon data from a longitudinal, qualitative analysis of a case study kibbutz plant, as well as other secondary material, this paper examines the changes in the management of production, suggesting a formal managerial appropriation of a previously socialized kibbutz labour process with a complementary (quasi-) commodification of labour. Such changes facilitate greater market commensurability but also, importantly, have serious consequences for the reproduction of the kibbutz as a mode of production.