Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
specifi cally. For example, in the area of agriculture, the problem was how to grow crops where
water was very scarce. A wide variety of techniques were deployed
—
drip irrigation, plastic
coverings for fi elds, greenhouses, hybridization of plants, and so on
—
to boost productivity.
Markets were found in Europe for fruits and vegetables grown in wintertime. A light and con-
sumer goods industry was created on the same basis.
Democratic socialism was a practical choice given the lack of capital. In the USSR, where
there was a form of socialism but no democracy, industrialization was achieved fast but at the
cost of millions of deaths and massive waste. As a result, that country still lags behind despite
the abandonment of Communism.
In Israel, a largely but not fully socialist approach was required in the early years since
what had to be done economically would bring no immediate profi t. To create jobs and lay
a foundation for a nation often required incurring fi nancial losses or at least unacceptable
risks for private business. Thus, a wide range of para-state or cooperative institutions were
established.
Eventually, however, the times changed precisely because of Israel's successes, and the
country outgrew those institutions. In Western states, interest groups, trade unions, those
receiving entitlements, political parties, and sheer inertia can be powerful forces blocking
needed change. But in the 1980s, Israel began a shift to privatization with remarkable po-
litical ease and a minimum of social costs. The spirit of entrepreneurship was also nurtured.
Characteristics developed as early as the Yishuv era
—
innovation, individual initiative, a sense
of mission, adaptability
—
proved extremely useful in the new economic, technological, and
global environment.
An example of this process is the health-care system, an institution that has bedeviled many
other countries. In earlier years, almost everyone had health insurance through the Histadrut
trade union federation, which linked them to the Labor Party. A small percentage of people
opted for a fund associated with the conservative Herut Party.
With revisions of the law, two other, private health funds were able to develop that provided
good, relatively effi cient services at costs far lower than in Europe or North America. And Is-
rael has established a pharmaceutical industry that supplies high-quality drugs more cheaply
than elsewhere. Thus, a unique hybrid between privatized and socialized medicine has evolved
that certainly has problems but works comparably better than those in wealthier and more
resource-gifted places.
Today people in Israel commonly bemoan the costs of these social and economic changes.
They enumerate among the things lost from the pioneering era a declining sense of commu-
nity, growing devotion to individual interests, corruption, cynicism, and greater income dif-
ferentials. These are trends in all Western countries, but they have happened to a lesser degree
in Israel, where they signal the institutionalization of nationhood. Still, elements of its “heroic”
stage remain inculcated in the social fabric.
Innovation and improvisation have been key forces in the continuing development strategy,
as they are in the national security strategy. There has been a strong focus on science, medicine,
technology, security, agricultural equipment, and, more broadly, sheer entrepreneurial inven-
tiveness through research and development, including start-up companies. Israelis have pro-
