Libertarian socialism

Main article: Community

Libertarian Socialism, Chomsky, and the Kibbutz Movement

Communities will be able to adopt any ideology they want. However if libertarianism and egalitarianism is our goal, the ideological approach would roughly correspond to an established concept, libertarian socialism (LS). This is essentially the same approach used by Twin Oaks although libertarian socialists tend to focus on the means of production while communes tend to share those plus many personal items. For example, in LS the lathe in the factory belongs to the workers but the shirt you wear belongs to you. It should be noted that LS was the predominant economic system in traditional societies. The Iroquois Confederacy was probably the best known North American example.

In modern times, Libertarian socialism (LS) has only been tried under limited conditions. Hippy communes are one example. The Kibbutzim in Israel are another example, and more well established with about 125,000 total members or 2.8% of Israel’s population. But both of these exist at the village level, with about 270 Kibbutzim scattered throughout Israel. It is notable that most Kibbutzniks don’t live under communal economics anymore and, instead, have regular capitalist jobs and keep their income (discussed more below). At the nation state level, Yugoslavia attempted it from 1950 to 1990, just before the country was broken up. It had better success than the centralized Soviet model, from which it broke, and for many years achieved a level of growth on par with South Korea. A recent autonomous state in Northern Syria, Rajova, has adopted LS but it is too recent to rate its success.

As with all capitalist-alternative models, it is unclear how successful they can be in a world where capitalism is equated with democracy and defended by hegemonic powers, ie the US with its Western allies. As we saw last time, countries in the western orbit that try to deviate from liberal economics, such as Chile in the 1970’s, are quickly put in their place. It would seem that transforming the most powerful countries to alternative models is a prerequisite for the success of such models.

Probably the most well known thinker of this philosophy is Noam Chomsky. He is also associated with a closely related concept known as anarcho-syndicalism (AS). AS and LS are very similar but differ in emphasis. AS emphasizes worker participation and decision making through syndicates (ie unions). LS permits more central planning in the economy but also advocates worker control over the means of production. Both AS and LS are strongly anti-authoritarian and champion individual autonomy within a context of communal economic arrangements.

Although Chomsky’s ideas have been hugely influential the world over, they have been relegated to the fringe in the US. Indeed the American propaganda machine, of which Chomsky writes about at length (Manufacturing Consent), has seen to that. For those who don’t believe in such a machine, Chomsky himself has some advice for Americans: try dissenting and see what happens to you. You probably won’t go to jail (if you are peaceful) or get killed (as you might in some countries), but the results won’t be pleasant. Dissenter’s are harassed, lose their jobs, are suspected as security threats, etc. Our institutional media has traditionally worked to define a narrow range of acceptable ideologies, left to right, all of which meet the approval of moneyed interests. Interestingly, this range has moved right in recent years as Democrats have become more business friendly and Republicans have shifted further to the cultural right with Trump. There is some intellectual ferment within MAGA that might evolve into worker-friendly and redistributionist policies, a leftward shift if you will, but this is not imminent. Needless to say, Chomsky’s ideas, and Libertarian Socialism in particular, are as irrelevant as ever in the conventional mind.

We’ve discussed how a ratings system needs to guard itself against forcing a kind of groupthink and, instead, encouraging dissenters. Again, we stress that dissent can be handled as hypothesis. We hypothesize and then test. The dissenter can advance an opinion which is not shared by the group, make an argument, and suggest tests that might confirm or deny it. By reducing opinion to testable propositions, we reduce the rancor associated with political debate and advance the notion of optimal outcomes as the basis for societal organization.

The Evolution of the Kibbutz Movement and Libertarian Socialism

As noted above, most Kibbutzniks are no longer strictly living according to a communal economic model. They have jobs, either inside or outside their Kibbutz and they are allowed to keep the money they earn. They own property and their children are raised by their parents (kids were communally raised originally). This evolution away from an LS model to a traditional capitalist one occured for many reasons:

• Younger generations have been less attracted to the ideology of socialism. No doubt the influence of mass media and technology has played into this. The Kibbutz movement was founded by strong adherents of communal socialism and played an important role in the foundation of Israel itself. Needless to say, their kids were less fervent.
• Kibbutz industry has had to compete in a more globalized market which increased pressure on it to improve productivity by adding individual incentives. It should be noted that Kibbutzim are not just agricultural cooperatives. They also have modern industrial production facilities.
• Workers became demotivated because everyone received the same reward, regardless of how productive they were. This problem also occurs in large corporate organizations where a variety of talent and energy is displayed but most workers, however, receiving roughly similar compensation. The incentives for the highly creative worker are small, if they exist at all.
• Desire for more material goods beyond what the communal system offered. It is difficult to maintain a relatively spartan communal lifestyle while surrounded by a society devoted to pursuing luxuries.

Just as we’ve seen with socialism, the problem of motivating work in a shared economy is central to its evolution. The Kibbutz movement has responded to this by being flexible and allowing members to remain on the Kibbutz but opt out of the socialist economics. In the US communal system (like Twin Oaks) members simply leave and, as we noted last time, Twin Oaks has a 20% turnover rate. This means that it is difficult to maintain communal economic arrangements for a long time with a large group of people. And, as Lem pointed out, we’d be starting with a capitalist system and trying to lure people the “other” way, toward a shared economy.

We would note here that our ratings system does not dictate LS as the economic system. People can choose freely the community and economics they like best. But it does mean that without further design (or tinkering) the LS model is unlikely to succeed. It is possible that the ratings system itself provides the key to resolving this problem. I certainly hope so but we won’t know until we try.

Here are a few links about the Kibbutz movement:

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/12/1205284601/what-is-a-kibbutz-the-roots-of-israels-communal-villages-where-violence-raged#:~:text=The%20word%20itself%20means%20%22gathering,historically%20centered%20around%20collective%20farms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-kibbutz-movement