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Notwopeople, much less all the members of a community, have the exact same background, tastes, interest, priorities, will invariably lead people to respond to new situations in different ways. No matter how homogenous a society may seem, eventually differences will emerge and grow. The speed with which this process occurs will depend on many factors, from how large and complex the society is to the degree of its exposure to outside influences, but differences in opinion are certain.

The question then becomes how the hypothetical society will respond to these inevitable differences in opinion. Will it allow them to be expressed publically? Will it allow those who want to change the prevailing order to try to do so through democratic means? If the answer is yes, then the society will remain free, but it will also change.

The early kibbutzim, the farming settlements that were established in Israel and became a model of socialist living throughout the world, are a case in point. The kibbutzim were marked by an intense ideological commitment to collectivist values. In contrast to the collectivism of the Soviet Union, which the state imposed by force, the Kibbutz way of life was voluntary. There were no laws preventing people from expressing their views and everything was decided by majority rule. The system appeared remarkably stable. The test for the kibbutzim came when its ideological values, embraced so completely at the beginning, were challenged. Differences began to emerge. Successive generations did not always share their parents’ ideological fervor.

Excerpted from ‘The case for Democracy’ by Natan Sharansky