Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
What is kibbutzim
Historically it is from Israel Kibbutzim is mainly agricultural cooperative communities. There is no private wealth and members transfer all their assets to the community when joining. Children are largely brought up by the community.
Cont
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.
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 The kibbutzim were backed and supported by world-wide Jewish communities. Much if not most of the money was channeled through the Jewish Agency which financed, or else provided, water supplies, electric power, roads and capital for land (when required), housing, equipment, machinery, livestock. Riches and success of the kibbutzim has become byword in Israel. Living a good life in paradise on earth, that is how the rest of Israel saw them
Benefits
These include a socialization system that promotes group values Organization of work to emphasize
Problems- Kibbutzim
Kibbutzim now own and operate factories, hotels and restaurant etc In kibbutz all are equal, all share to the same extent. Some are more able than others, some do more than others, but all are paid the same. Earnings are pooled and divided equally.
Kolkhoz
KOLKHOZ
By Stalin in Soviet Union during 1920s. Collective farms conglomeration of smaller farms; Peasants given a share of the surplus production after state had taken its share.
What benefits did Stalin think the Kolkhoz would bring to the Soviet economy?
Economies of scale cheaper and increased output following from increased efficiency and specialisation of labour and products therefore cheaper prices.
What benefits did he claim the Kolkhoz would bring to the peasants?
Sold their grain off cheaply, slaughtered their animals, destroyed their tools and burned down their own houses. Livestock levels were not to recover to 1928 levels until 1953!
He decided to Liquidate the Kulaks as a class in January 1930 (i.e. only a month after the programme started!).
There are several serious faults with the system, but the key feature that led to them being seen as failures was the inbuilt inflexibility of the planning system. 1) They tie the workers to the farm - a modern form of feudalism. The Soviets did this by keeping wages low and by use of the internal passport system. This led to rural poverty, compared to the towns, and lowering peasant spending power, thus reducing the demand for the manufactured goods that industry was producing.
2) The lack of ownership of the land, coupled with the rigid wage structure, that did not adapt in times of glut or drought, meant that there was n incentive to the workers to improve the land, to increase yields or to experiment with new crops.
3) The centralised state planning did not give any flexibility to the farm managers, they were told what to grow, and how much to produce. This leads to poor quality control and endemic corruption, as farm managers found ways to cheap the plan if they could not produce as much, and ways to barter any surpluses they may generate keeping any profits for themselves.
4) The Kolkhoz was not allowed to buy and sell land, it had to work with what it was given. This means that a successful kolkhoz could not expand, swallowing up the surrounding farms, leading to greater efficiencies.
Kolkhoz as a pseudo-cooperative
It speaks of the kolkhoz as a form of agricultural production cooperative of peasants that voluntarily unite for the purpose of joint agricultural production based on ... collective labor. It asserts that the kolkhoz is managed according to the principles of socialist self-management, democracy, and openness, with active participation of the members in decisions concerning all aspects of internal life
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the former Soviet republics became independent states that pursued, with varying degrees of vigor and resolve, a general policy of transition from the Soviet centrally planned economy to a market economy. Farm restructuring was one of the components of the transition agenda in the New Independent States, all of which adopted laws (typically called "Law on Enterprises and Entrepreneurship" in the various native languages) that allowed new corporate forms of farming to emerge (in addition to family farms.
These corporate farms could organize as partnerships, limited-liability companies, joint-stock societies, or agricultural cooperatives, and the traditional kolkhoz collective and state farms were generally required to re-register in one of the new corporate forms as chosen by the general assembly of their members or workers. This legal requirement led to massive "external restructuring" of kolkhoz through re-registration in new corporate forms. The number of kolkhoz declined rapidly after 1992, while other corporate forms gained in prominence.