As a kibbutz volunteer in the early 80s, I enjoyed this article highlighting Israel’s oldest kibbutz, Deganya Alef.  This statement in particular caught my attention:

Out of 256 kibbutzim, the 74 that still have an entirely communal system and no individual salaries are also the wealthiest, Getz says.

I’d really like to understand what the reasons are behind that.

The article also mentioned how the iconic status of Israel’s kibbutzim began changing after the ascendance of Likud in the late 1970s.

But although kibbutzim today are turning a profit, their members have lost the influence they once had on Israeli society.

“Kibbutzniks” who used to be disproportionately represented in Israel’s military and political leadership in the first three decades of the Jewish state’s existence have now been pushed to the sidelines of public life.

The popularity of the kibbutz plummeted after the nationalist Likud party was elected in 1977 following nearly 40 years of hegemony by the socialist Mapai, which was reluctant to reform financially ailing kibbutzim, Getz says.

If I had to position myself within Zionism, I would consider myself more of a Revisionist than a socialist.  I do think it’s sad, though, that socialist Zionism’s bequest to the nation in the form of the kibbutzim was allowed to fall into disrepair in the hands of Begin and his successor in Likud.  While disparaging vintage Zionist institutions such as the kibbutz, they offered little worthwhile in its place (unless one counts unleashing the Haredi Golem on Israeli society, by allowing them into successive coalition governments and extending exemptions from military service to all yeshiva students).