Utopia Inc.

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In effect, the kibbutzniks of Ma'agan Michael practice a form of socialism in one company -- and it is a highly entrepreneurial, innovative, and profitable company at that. All of which leaves the capitalists with whom they do business a little bewildered. "I wouldn't call them Communists," says Jack Dubrovsky, a partner in Diversified Imports, D.I.V. Co., of Lakewood, N.J., Plasson's exclusive import agents for the United States and Canada. "It's a large democracy they've got there. But you'd have to call it a social democracy. It's more like a big family.You have the feeling you're doing business with a family. There's a lot of concern, a lot of pride, all the good things you've got in a family. And the guy you're dealing with, he's tough. But you're not dealing with someone who stands personally to make a profit. Mr. Kantor is different from some John Doe who's just making a buck out of all this."

Mr. Kantor is Yitzhak Kantor, or Itzik, as everyone calls him. He is in charge of developing all of Plasson's export markets, and he is the closest thing to a founder that the company has. Almost 25 years ago, the kibbutz sent him out to find a factory of some sort. What he came back with was a proposal for the plastics factory that eventually became Plasson. Since then, he has continued to play a key role in the company.

"He's impossible, an impossible person," says Dubrovsky, by which he means that Kantor is almost impossible to locate these days. "He's in Brazil. He's in Holland. He's in Italy. Then the phone rings, and he's right here in New York."

Four or five years ago, it wasn't so hard to reach Kantor. Back then, he could usually be found in the factory or elsewhere on the kibbutz; he might even have been on kitchen duty. Dubrovsky, who goes to Ma'agan Michael at least once a year, was once briefly disconcerted to hear of Kantor doing his turn at the washing machines. But wherever he was, the telex between the kibbutz and Diversified would have gotten the message to him, and sooner rather than later. Now, however, Kantor is international sales coordinator, doing business all over the globe.

Job rotation has been part of kibbutz ideology for generations. Four years ago, for example, Eli Zamir, a kibbutznik, left his post as general manager of Plasson, which he had held for five years, to become general secretary of the Israeli kibbutz movement. His place was taken by Ilan Tassler. Job rotation serves the ideal of social equality by undermining occupational specializations. The assumption is that by diversifying each individual's work throughout the enterprise, indeed throughout the kibbutz, cliques will be broken up, incipient hierarchies will be flattened, and everyone will gain a good deal of common experience with everyone else. But at Plasson, job rotation has another point as well, a business point as tough-minded as any American could wish for. Movements like Kantor's, from this job to that, ensure a constant circulation of fresh ideas and enriched experience through every workstation in production and sales.

Seeing Itzik Kantor at Ma'agan Michael, it is difficult to imagine him as a globe-trotting businessman. Easy-going, clad in typical kibbutz attire (blue shorts, blue shirt, sandals), as accessible to a younger man with domestic troubles as he is to an engineer with a new design on his CAD/CAM system, Kantor looks as though he would be uncomfortable anywhere else. Especially, perhaps, cutting tough deals in the capitalist world.

"Look," he said last summer, "a long time ago I thought about this matter. And I decided that basically if one is honest and has a good product, even a socialist can be a good salesman. Honesty is the basis of all good sales. Because if you're honest, the customer will come back for more. On the other hand, when I go abroad, I'm a businessman. I'm not extravagant, but I stay at a businessman's hotel instead of looking for a cheaper deal. I don't try to force my kibbutz ways on my customers or business colleagues."

Of course, in 1961, when the kibbutz sent him on his first venture into the capitalist world, Kantor didn't have any customers or business colleagues, let alone products to sell. He was 35 years old, working as a sort of master mechanic, assigned to keep the farm's machinery in good repair. His other qualifications to lead the kibbutz into business were no more impressive -- or wouldn't have been, say, to a typical venture capitalist. "What can I say?" one of Kantor's friends offered. "He was a garagenik."

On the other hand, Itzik Kantor didn't need venture capital. He had that already. It was in Ma'agan Michael's treasury, the collective savings of his fellow kibbutzniks, and, if necessary, additional funds that would be supplied by kibbutzim of the same ideological bent. He also had a fairly clear mandate as to the sort of factory he should be looking for. The machinery had to be safe, clean, and physically easy to use; this for the elderly, of course. It also had to conform to the principle that the means of production, the machinery, should be as much as possible like hand tools, which can be picked up or laid down at the will of the worker, not at the dictates of an assembly line.

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