Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY IN THE KIBBUTZ 347
sentatives, leaders, were needed in all spheres of life and work. But the
mutual envy which they had sought to banish in perpetuity by compulsory
equality, had, in fact, never been eradicated. Though prepared to
elect people to positions of authority, a strict watch is kept over them
from the beginning, with an intense and anxious mistrust, their every
visible exercise of authority being regarded as suspect. Those who are
chosen both know and feel this all too plainly. And after a few years, the
community finds itself in a state of crisis, because, to use the words of
one writer, a 'refusal pattern' has arisen: all seek to evade nomination or
acceptance whenever anyone has to be chosen for necessary office. 6
If a polity rewards its elected higher public servants adequately or
more than adequately, the electors are not compelled constantly to ask
themselves whether the holder of the office assumed it in order to exploit
his position to the detriment of the community. However, should the
legislators be unable to see their (envious) way, out of consideration for
'healthy' (envious) popular opinion, to grant appropriate remuneration
for leading officials, democratic envy shows a different face, and people
ask: 'If this man was doing so well in business or in his profession, why
should he want to govern? In what way does he differ from us ordinary
mortals? Is he dangerously ambitious? Is he seeking government office
so as to exploit it for illicit financial gain?' This attitude is revealed in the
United States in the restrictions set upon, and demanded of, leading
public servants in the Federal Government by Congress (but which do
not apply to members of Congress themselves).
In a society economically stratified in accordance with income,
however, there are a number of possible ways to compromise, of making
public office sufficiently attractive financially, that is, to allow candidacy
to appear reasonably expedient and legitimate without arousing too
much the envy of the elected. But if a polity such as the kibbutzim, on
principle and without exception, refuses payment to its members while
demanding, in the spirit of Karl Marx, of each according to his ability
and allotting to each a share according to his needs, as an equal among
equals, the egalitarian's dilemma is harshly revealed. Anyone assuming a
leading role in a kibbutz has less time for his family and for his hobby,
6 I. Vallier, • Structural Differentiation, Production Imperatives and Communal
Norms. The Kibbutz in Crisis,' in Social Forces, Vol. 40, 1962, pp. 233-42.