The Politics of the Manufacturers’ Association in the 1930s: The Efforts to Block the Income Tax Initiative and to Promote Local Products

Abstract

The political historiography of the yishuv has commonly pointed to the failure of the Jewish ‘civil circles’ to turn their economic resources into political power. This article examines this conventional wisdom as it refers to the Jewish Manufacturers Association. It primarily documents and analyzes political efforts by the Association, directed mainly towards the Mandatory-State arena, to block the income tax initiative of the government during the 1930s and to affect the tax structure after it was finally implemented in 1941. This account uncovers an important, but hitherto understudied, chapter in the political economy of Mandatory Palestine. For comparative purposes, the article also relates to the campaign to promote the sale of locally (i.e., Jewish) produced goods. It is shown that despite the short-term political success of the Association on the income tax front during the first half of the 1930s and in leading the struggle for local production, it did not translate into long-term political empowerment. The article identifies the underlying factors responsible for this outcome, including the selfproclaimed identification of the Association’s interests with Zionist objectives, which may have inhibited the effectiveness of its collective action.