The Transformation of the Kibbutzim

The article provides an overview of the changes that have taken place in the kibbutzim since 1990 and assesses their significance. Between 1995 and 2010, most kibbutzim abandoned their traditional practice of sharing income "from each according to ability, to each according to need", and began paying differential salaries to members on the basis of the market value of their work. Academics, the kibbutz movement, and the Israeli government agree that kibbutzim that pay differential salaries are still kibbutzim, but they see them as kibbutzim of a new type, the so-called "renewed" kibbutz. More than a third of kibbutz members now work outside their kibbutz, while more than half of the labor performed inside the kibbutzim is now done by nonmembers. The number of kibbutz members has stagnated for decades, while nonmembers are the only portion of the kibbutz population that shows dynamic growth. So far, these developments have strained, but not yet terminated, the historic identities of these organizations as cooperatives, as communes, and as kibbutzim. More changes, however, are on the way. Both in renewed kibbutzim and the kibbutzim that remain "collective", most members now want to become owners of their homes and of individual capital stakes in the economic ventures of their kibbutzim, and many have begun to talk about transforming their kibbutz into a moshav or a municipality.