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Yet even such "extravagances" as these are still the exception, rather than the rule.The General Assembly regularly votes to allocate a significant portion of Plasson's profits for kibbutz services. In addition, Ma'agan Michael performs an ongoing service to the kibbutz movement as a whole by passing on lines of production (and sometimes machinery) that no longer fit in with Plasson's business strategy but still have plenty of commercial life in them. These are given, at no cost, to other kibbutzin, so that they too may grow by developing their own industries.

Meanwhile, the remainder of Plasson's profits are plowed back into the company -- and rightly so, says Kantor. For Ma'agan Michael, money is not a means of exchange between consumers; it is rather, in the Marxist sense of the phrase, "a means of production." In Kantor's mind at least, it is especially a means of agricultural production -- "a tractor."

"Of course it's not all idyllic around here," says Yossi Cohen."Kibbutzniks aren't angels. We're flesh and blood like anybody else. But our system makes it possible for social tensions, the ordinary tensions of daily life, to be dealt with in ways the city doesn't allow. And that gets reflected in the way people work here. They are committed to the kibbutz and, therefore, to the job."

The primacy of work shows up in any number of ways. Nobody ever gets fired at Ma'agan Michael, and codes of behavior permit personal eccentricities that many Western enterprises would frown upon. (One grandmother at the factory, for example, comes to work at two o'clock in the morning, puts in her six hours, returns home for a nap, then spends the rest of the day with her grandchildren.) On the other hand, with respect to work, to pulling one's own weight, the social and moral pressure can be as firm and uncompromising as any "capitalist boss." Idlers don't belong.

From the business point of view, however, perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this "workers' capitalism" is something else. Jack Dubrovsky describes it as confidence. "They've got this incredible confidence in the value of their products," he says. He attributes the confidence to experience. The factory, in a way, is just a service for the kibbutz farm, where its products are tested and retested by the people -- friends, fellow workers, fellow investors, farmers -- whom it was set up to serve. If the products prove good for the farmers of Ma'agan Michael, then, and only then, will they be marketed to the other farmers of the world.

And there is another aspect of this confidence -- the trust that the workers/stockholders/neighbors give to Itzik Kantor or whoever else happens to be circulating around the globe as international sales coordinator. It is a job that brings with it a terrible responsibility. Decisions must be made that risk the wealth of his neighbors and friends, his entire community -- often under circumstances that don't permit calling a meeting of the General Assembly. Trust is the key factor in this arrangement. "Itzik can travel and make decisions," says Boaz Tamir, the young management student, "decisions that involve many millions of dollars. He can do that because he knows that the kibbutz is behind him, is ready to accept his decisions." And Itzik, for his part, is conscious of this trust every moment that he is abroad. "Of course, I'm aware of the fact that this isn's my own money," he says. "It's the whole kibbutz's money that we're dealing with here. That's a huge responsibility, and it sometimes frightens me. But that's why I work so hard."

But, naturally, there is trust on his side as well. Many times, having just clinched a big, unexpected order, Kantor will call back to Plasson to order what is known at Ma'agan Michael as a "mobilization." With that one word, posted on the bulletin board, he can summon volunteers from all over the kibbutz to work the machines of the factory. They will work on Saturdays, their only day off, giving up drives into the Galilee or picnics on the beach; everybody will -- teenagers and grandparents, agricultural workers and engineers at the research and development facilities, everybody. And the only "overtime" they will be paid is in gallons of free ice cream.

In Israel, "mobilization" is a military term; and if Itzik Kantor can trust his community to come through in an emergency, part of the reason is surely that Israeli society is in a condition of semipermanent mobilization. Military service, universal in Israel, is even a kind of rite of passenge at a kibbutz: Only after having served does one become a member. Much of what American businesspeople would call Plasson's corporate culture can be explained by such circumstances. When a Ma'agan Michael worker sees himself or herself as laboring "under the gun" to meet a production demand, or as being "on the front line" of Israel's struggle to earn foreign currency, these cliches come close to describing an actual state of affairs. Last December, the entire kibbutz of 1,200, including all of the children, mobilized to put in a day's work -- and profits -- to aid the famine-stricken people of Ethiopia.

Yet societies and individuals may respond in all sorts of ways to emergencies -- selfishly as well as altruistically, by hunkering down and by opening up. Military metaphors can't explain all of Plasson's high morale. There is also the kibbutz ideals -- and maybe, too, little details like having a factory where small boys can go visit their grandparents.

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