Zionist Cooperative Settlements
History
On the role of Franz Oppenheimer
Stephen I. Ternyik:
“His first publication on communal settlements (Oppenheimer 1896) for poverty alleviation formed the foundation of his sociological ambition which is marked by the methodical application of natural science, i.e. the circumspection or caution of a careful physician. The nucleus of this study project contains Oppenheimer’s transformation law for cooperative human communities, most probably based on the Prussian colonial experiments with village-like settlements in the Eastern territories which worked well for centuries, until the dawn of industrial capitalism.
Around the years of 1900, Oppenheimer developed a significant empirical and historical influence on Theodor Herzl who immediately realized the immense scientific input for Zionist practice; Oppenheimer used all available public Zionist channels, private enterprises like the ‘Jüdische Orient-Kolonisations gesellschaft / Shaare Zion’ (Jewish Society for the Colonization of the Orient) and profound interpersonal communications with Zionist leaders to further his cooperative ideas about communal settlements to alleviate poverty and misery. Oppenheimer viewed communal settlements and working cooperatives as an effective tool to better the living conditions for a mass of people, under the economic conditions of earning wages in the capitalist monetary system. “ (https://economicsociology.org/2019/12/11/franz-oppenheimer-the-law-of-transformation-and-social-market-economy/?)