Power Elites’ Interests and Biased Social Science: 64 Years of Telling Kibbutz Half Truth

תקציר

Critics find that many social scientists comply with domination by power elites. The kibbutz movement led major changes of the Jewish community in Palestine and the Israeli state, but its prime leaders became early conservative self-perpetuators and suppressed critical social research which could have advanced the movement’s aims. This facilitated hegemony of functionalists, who helped leaders conceal pernicious autocratic conservative rule by a fake image of democracy and egalitarianism, evading the contrary reality in leaders-headed inter-kibbutz organizations. In return, the leaders helped functionalists’ academic success. The academic-supported oligarchic rule eventually led to the demise of kibbutz radicalism, a failure that functionalists have failed to explain and have not admitted helping. The findings support critics of this conformist tendency, pointing to the need for measures that will minimize self-serving selectiveness of survey researchers and chances of co-optation, as well as measures that will maximize chances for exposing such scientific failures.