Tikkun Magazine, May/June 2008

The Abandonment of Socialist Ideals 

by Sander Gilman

ONE OF THE MOST UNDER-DISCUSSED aspects of the history of the State of Israel is the gradual abandonment of the socialist ideals of its founders and its political implications for the twenty-first century. In spite of Zeev Sternhell's view that Israel was never truly socialist (what country was?), Israeli politics had in many ways anticipated the pathway taken by the Left in the West. From Tony Blair's New Labour in the United Kingdom to the Clinton Democrats in the United States and beyond, old "Left" politics were abandoned for a philosophy of political expediency. Now one could ask whether this is a negative or a positive development: just as it is asked today about India, the world's largest democracy, which has moved along a similar path in the past decade.

In Israel the iconic kibbutz movement, which imagined an ideal of human interaction beyond the normative patterns of ownership and true alternatives to the nuclear family, has been transformed into for-profit economic units and tourist attractions. Parallel to this transformation have been radical changes in the very meaning attached to Israeli identity and political experience. Now (again) one could ask whether this is good or bad, whether these changes were mandated by alterations in the real political situation, or simply a "natural" movement away from a collective identity towards the open market of ideas and actions? But that these changes have happened is without a doubt true. At this moment, in its sixtieth year, Israel has become what Chaim Weizmann truly desired: a normal state among the nations. And that—like it or not—is something to ponder.

Sander L. Gilman is a Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of psychiatry at Emory University, where he is the Director of the Program in Psychoanalysis and the Health Sciences Humanities Initiative.

Gilman, Sander. 2008. The abandonment of socialist ideals. Tikkun. 23(3):42.