Summary
Israeli sociologist whose elitist critique of Labor Zionism (Shapiro 1977) provided the initial insight for Lev Grinberg’s research project on politics and turning points; Shapiro was Grinberg’s teacher and friend, and supervised his PhD thesis The Crisis of Full Employment (Grinberg 1991b) (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.15).
Details
- Shapiro criticized functionalist interpretations of Zionist Labor using elitist theories of power (Michels 1915; Mills 1959 [as printed]), arguing that Labor institutions were not designed to build an egalitarian or socialist society, as their ideology claimed, but that ideology was used manipulatively to legitimize and conceal the extent of their power (PDF p.15).
- According to Shapiro, the structure and goal of political institutions was to empower the dominant elites and maintain them, effectively subordinating Jewish civil society — not only workers, but also the middle classes and big capital; Israeli democracy was only formal, and the ruling party controlled all centers of power, effectively preventing the opposition from challenging and replacing it (Shapiro 1977) (PDF p.15).
- His theory of a non-democratic Labor superpower was published the same year the Labor Party lost the elections and its hegemonic position after dominating Zionism and the State of Israel since 1933 (PDF p.15).
- Grinberg started with Shapiro’s critique of the Zionist Labor institutional design built to control civil society, markets and politics, aiming to explain the failure of democratization within the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, and its further colonial expansion to maintain its power (PDF p.15).
Related pages
Lev Grinberg, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Histadrut, Vicious Institutional Triangle, Moments of Resistance