Kibbutz & currency

A kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ, קִבּוּץ, lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural kibbutzim) is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises.^[1] Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism. In recent decades, some kibbutzim have been privatized and changes have been made in the communal lifestyle. A member of a kibbutz is called a kibbutznik (Hebrew: קִבּוּצְנִיק‎‎).

In 2010, there were 270 kibbutzim in Israel.

The greater issue with Communism is making it enforced on those who do not necessarily have the same values as the "Collective"

"Kibbutz members were not classic Marxists though their system partially resembled Communism."

Collectivism on a large scale creates a system which tends to be authoritarian or totalitarian in nature.

"In Communist systems collectivist economics are carried to their furthest extreme, with a minimum of private ownership and a maximum of planned economy."^[4]"

The question is should we force people to be part of "society"?

"George Orwell, a dedicated democratic socialist,^[28] believed that collectivism resulted in the empowerment of a minority of individuals that led to further oppression of the majority of the population in the name of some ideal such as freedom.

It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of.^[29]

Yet in the subsequent sentence he also warns of the tyranny of private ownership over the means of production:

... that a return to 'free' competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the state.^[29]

Marxists criticize this use of the term "collectivism," on the grounds that all societies are based on class interests and therefore all societies could be considered "collectivist." The liberal ideal of the free individual is seen from a Marxist perspective as a smokescreen for the collective interests of the capitalist class.^{[citation needed]} Social anarchists argue that "individualism" is a front for the interests of the upper class. As anarchist Emma Goldman wrote:

'rugged individualism'... is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the [ruling] classes by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit ... That corrupt and perverse 'individualism' is the straitjacket of individuality. ... [It] has inevitably resulted in the greatest modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions driving millions to the breadline. 'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen.' ... Their 'rugged individualism' is simply one of the many pretenses the ruling class makes to mask unbridled business and political extortion.^[30]

In response to criticism made by various pro-capitalist groups that claim that public ownership or common ownership of the means of production is a form of collectivism, socialists maintain that common ownership over productive assets does not infringe upon the individual, but is instead a liberating force that transcends the false dichotomy of individualism and collectivism.^[31] Socialists maintain that these critiques conflate the concept of private property in the means of production with personal possessions and individual production."

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Whatever the system, there will always be those that abuse the power granted to them by the system. What we do know is that communism has moved beyond the scope of Marx, the worst parts of Capitalism and Communism are being fused, that relatively new form is communitarianism.

Here is what Marx.org has to say about communitarianism.

"Communitarianism

Communitarianism is the social/political current which emphasises the strengthening and importance of community or neighbourhood — a kind of property-owners’ collectivism.

In bourgeois society, the values of Liberalism, are the dominant values: individualism (autonomy) and democracy (bourgeois right). Liberalism is by no means the only ethical system of bourgeois society however, and communitarianism, whose central values are community and social equality, is an important counter to liberalism.

Although communitarianism de-emphasises social class as a potentially divisive factor in building community, where it takes root in working-class neighbourhoods, communitarianism is an important ally of socialism. The neighbourhood movements of the 1960s/70s in the US, the Reclaim the Streets movements of the 1980/90s, and the Save Our Suburbs movement in Australia are examples of communitarianism."

Ultimately all of this boils down to economics. Economics is the method of enslavement, It acts as the chains that bind individuals to society and society to the state. The sound of the word itself is slavish. ECHO-nomics.

echo

noun

1. Repetition of sound via reflection from a surface: repercussion, reverberation. See sounds
2. Imitative reproduction, as of the style of another: imitation, reflection, reflex, repetition. See same
3. One who mindlessly imitates another: imitator, mimic, parrot. See same

And like Hitler, Marx believed in a "New Man"