Social policy, not socialism

The decision to recruit economists, legal scholars and sociology experts to advise the tent protest leaders is a most welcome development. Everyone in our society was astonished by the protests' fervor and strength, which turned public attention toward the distress of the middle class. The government, meanwhile, was caught unprepared.

Politicians of every stripe tend not to anticipate problematic developments, and certainly don't try to stop them before they occur. Generally, they just hope the storm arrives after they leave office. One needs luck in politics as well.

Israeli governments have failed to anticipate a long list of events, from the 1973 Yom Kippur War to the two intifadas to the 2010 Carmel forest fire and the tent protests. The test of a government's strength or weakness is in how it deals with difficult circumstances once they became an incontrovertible fact. Events like these are not static; they shift and change from the moment they burst onto the public scene.

For a month, it seemed as though the protesters were refusing to move forward. They demanded everything without being specific. Now, however, professionals have joined their leadership. Even though some of them still express themselves in an irresponsible way that could turn Israel into the next Greece or Spain, most are familiar and responsible figures.

True, they are just advisers, but there are no kibbitzers, or spectators, in politics. When negotiations enter the brass-tacks stage, these experts will percolate into the protest leadership, while Manuel Trajtenberg for his part ensures an open and responsive dialogue.

One of the goals taken for granted is not to let the tycoons get a “haircut” on their debts to the public. They need a different kind of haircut, one that will cut them down to size. They need to become more humble and less arrogant. Not that they should be expelled, perish the thought, from economic activity altogether. We need merely ensure that the rules change, so that the public can finally get some relief. Reports from the meeting between Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Eliad Shraga and other leaders of the Movement for Quality Government indicate that there are many problems to work out, but a lot of common ground as well.

“Swinish capitalism” must be eliminated from our economy, despite the fact that some commentators praise the current situation as one of proper free market competition. Israel's heritage, enlightenment and deeply held principles best suit it to a regime poised between social democracy and liberalism, free competition and protection from capitalism's excesses. The share of the middle class and poor must be augmented through housing and education budgets, while the status of women is elevated.

However, none of this can be done through exceeding the budget, as demanded on Monday by one of the protests' more radical advisers. Nor should it be done by sinking into the red world of communism and “socialism in our day.” There are enough people in Israel who remember that, notwithstanding the benefits of Solel Boneh, Tnuva, Hamashbir Latzarchan and party health funds in the period before the country's founding, they were also the foundation for lazy, dormant and corrupt management. We must never go back there, even if today's young and beautiful pioneer youth never experienced what life is like when government is a big monopolistic tycoon.

Social awareness, yes, definitely, bring it on. Socialism, no, thank you. If the protest leaders understand this, they will find Trajtenberg to be a man to their liking.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday pointed to a strategic change required in Israeli society. It is not acceptable that those who do reserve duty and also pay taxes carry the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors on their backs. Meanwhile, the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox pay almost no taxes and demand unlimited child allowances, and the latter group earns free salaries under the guise of studying in yeshivas that refuse to provide attendance records.

However, a worthy goal like this one cannot be realized without elections. The haredim and Arabs will not allow the problem to be solved now. In terms of what is possible, we must not wait with reforms that can be accomplished even before elections. We must start with what we can.

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