In spite of its considerable achievements, the labor economy in Israel has become a subject of contention and one that poses many challenges for the student and for the researcher who attempts to trace the obvious and the concealed mechanisms that function within it. The big problem-one that transcends nation and party-is can socialist enterprise and democratic politics coexist?

The labor enterprises of Israel are divided in these two volumes into cooperative societies and administrative enterprises. The structure of the cooperative enterprises is presented in volume one; while the second volume focuses entirely on problems of the institutional economy within Hevrat Ovdim, the economic arm of the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor). In a world seeking real answers to labor-management strife and more meaningful attitudes toward work, these volumes are essential.