PRODUCTIVE CLERKS - WHITE-COLLAR PRODUCTIVISM AND STATE-BUILDING IN PALESTINE JEWISH-COMMUNITY, 1920-1950

Jewish clerks during the Zionist state-building period were intensivel y engaged in the social construction of productivity, and in turning t he latter into a mechanism of social restraint. The clerks' productivi sm and concern with social utility was manifested in the reproduction of accepted Zionist physiocratic and constructivist notions of product ivity, as a strategy in the politics of status; in the modernist trans formation of the understanding of productivity to suit their own occup ational terminology; in the prescription of the necessary qualities of the productive clerk; and in realization of these discursive campaign s in the practice of labor relations. These manifestations challenge a simplistic approach to the dissemination of the language of productiv ity as either a one-sided nationalist socialization, or a straightforw ard managerial strategy of control. Based on primary archival sources of the clerks and their union this paper argues instead that they refl ected the intertwining of national attitudes with from-below advanceme nt of group interests.