Hi Ben
I read with interest your message and I dare to jump in because I leave in
a society that is conducted in a way Similar to the way you talk about, at
least in the problem of power that the members of this society have on
decision making and controlling the organization. The society I am talking
about is the Kibbutz, which is a unique way of living in Israel. You
probably know what a kibbutz is but I'll try to give you a short
definition of the concept the kibbutz is built on.
A kibbutz is a productive organization that is based on equality and
cooperation.
You probably ask yourself by now how is all this connected to the problem
you talked about. The connection is in the way people in the kibbutz
decide the rules that make this community work, and changing them if
necessary and staying true to its fundamental concept.
Our kibbutz is "run" by 2 committees Community Committee and Economy
Committee. Decisions made in those Committees are reported to the
community, every member can appeal and the final decision is made in the
members gathering or by vote. Every member can bring up toppings to the
Community Committee or review it's work. The same applies to the Economy
Committee. All kibbutzim in Israel are going through tremendous changes
now, some of them went so far that their kibbutz is no longer a kibbutz,
I'll try to explain how it's done in my kibbutz (Tel-Katzir) in order to
save our concept. As I said before every thing in the kibbutz belongs to
it's members, the changes we are talking about is privatization of some
elements of our kibbutz. We built a special committee to examine which
elements could be changed without loosing our identity as a kibbutz.
After finishing it's work all the material they gathered will be brought
to the "members meeting" which is the highest authority in the kibbutz
and after discussion in the meeting it is voted on in the kibbutz polls.
I hope you found it interesting and I will be happy to answer any question
if you have any. I also apologize if I have some mistakes in English.
Bye, Dorit
--dorit <dorit@kinneret.co.il>
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