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In-n-out Burger has a secret menu.

Today I was biking home on the Venice boardwalk, after having a delicious meal with a delicious friend who grew up in Portland and went to school on the east coast. I couldn’t help but grin.

Now, in a surprising third act, the kibbutzim are again thriving. Only in 2007 they are less about pure socialism than a kind of suburbanized version of it.

On most kibbutzim, food and laundry services are now privatized; on many, houses may be transferred to individual members, and newcomers can buy in. While the major assets of the kibbutzim are still collectively owned, the communities are now largely run by professional managers rather than by popular vote. And, most important, not everyone is paid the same.

Once again, people are lining up to get in.

This is a perfect example of bicoastalism. Neither pure market nor pure socialist (or “altruist”) forms are nearly as appealing as some combination of the two. As one resident explained it, ”Everyone does what they want, we have our independence, but without the kind of competition you find outside.”

Richard Posner and Gary Becker both miss the point of it all. Becker gives the most simplistic spin on the article, describing the new kibbutzim as if they have completely embraced capitalism, when the article makes clear that this is not the case. In the bicoastal kibbutzim the major assets are collectively owned, and residents are taxed quite heavily to support the less able. Becker’s view seems to be based mainly on a visit he had to a kibbutz decades ago, where he stayed with a disaffected friend. Becker concludes that the kibbutzim “ignored the evidence of history that self interest and family orientation is not the product of capitalism, but is human nature due to selection from evolutionary pressure over billions of years.”

Posner has a more balanced view, concluding that “[p]robably, then, human beings have both collectivism and individualism in the genes, enabling us to adapt both to environments in which collectivism is welfare-promoting and environments in which individualism is welfare-promoting.” The bicoastal kibbutzim may just show that our particular configuration of culture and economy–torn between the incredible wealth and pervasive disaffection generated by modern markets–is amenable to a hybrid.

Neither Posner nor Becker address what may be the most interesting observation in the article, that many of the old style kibbutzim are flourishing. The article suggests, but doesn’t say clearly, that the flourishing of the more communal forms of organization may have something to do with the success of the hybrids. It may be that the hybrids are a thin wedge into more communal forms, as they reintroduce hyper-marketized societies to the benefits of cooperation. Or, the popularity of the hybrids may just make more people aware of opportunities to live on the more communal kibbutzim–people who would have joined the groups anyway had they otherwise been aware of them.

Washington Post article on irresponsible site run by Jarret Cohen and Anthony Ciolli

Brittan Heller — The Pocket Part

Brittan Heller — SMJ

Brittan Heller — Teen Jeopardy!

New Leaders Initiative — Heide Iravani

Health Fellowship — Heide Iravani

Earth Island Fellowship — Heide Iravani

Brower Youth — Heide Iravani

Chancellor’s award — Heide Iravani

Free the World — Heide Iravani

(Thanks to Grumblez for the links.)

- At the Bar: The Lawyer Who Helped Set the Flag Debate Aflame Calmly Prepares to Go On, New York Times, June 22, 1990, at B5

I walked into a Swatch store the other day, but promptly walked out when I realized I had absolutely no use for a watch. When I was a kid I loved to buy and wear cool watches, but ever since I got a cell phone I haven’t needed one. Apparently I’m not alone, as a friend tipped me off to a story in Slate on the declining sales of watches.

Although my watch usage is related to the development of new technologies that happen to give the time, like computers and cell phones, I actually took off my watch for the first time in college when a friend, who was a math major who wore shorts and sandals in the winter, explained that she didn’t wear a watch because it freed her from the habit of worrying about time when she didn’t need to.

The time is irrelevant most of the time: it only really matters when you need to be somewhere or meet a deadline. And when you really need to know, there’s almost always a clock within sight. Not having a watch actually makes you more efficient, because you don’t waste time looking at the wrist or worrying about the passing seconds. And, it’s more relaxing because you’re not looking at your wrist or worrrying about the passing seconds.

This, I think, is a particularly west coast approach to a productive life.

And, it’s doubly appropriate because my sandal/short wearing math major friend who discovered this paradox grew up in Pittsburgh, and later moved to Palo Alto.