Saturday 9 March 2019

Who should we vote for? (part 2)


I concluded the last post with the claim that the government have no business interfering with how we educate our children and that therefore schools should be privately run. The question that remained was how schools should be funded, as if this was also entirely private some would not be able to afford to pay for the education of their children.

This question is in fact only a (significant) part of a more general issue that needs to be dealt with. As well as education, if all were left to their own devices the poor would struggle to pay for healthcare, housing, food and basic services. I already wrote about the obligation of the individual to give tzedaka in Tzedaka- Who gets what?, as well as pointing out that communal funds are also necessary. However, so far I only dealt with funds collected voluntarily. What happens if people are unwilling to give what is required of them, leaving the poor without basic needs?

Forcing to give tzedaka

The gemara tells us that one who can afford to give tzedaka can be forced to do so if he refuses to donate willingly.[1] However, it is not completely clear from the gemara who exactly has the authority to adjudicate when this is necessary and to enforce it in practice. Theoretically there are two possibilities – if tzedaka is equivalent to a community tax, it should be the responsibility of the local council (שבעה טובי העיר).[2] If, on the other hand, tzedaka is primarily a religious obligation, this would fall into the jurisdiction of Beis Din.[3]

The Rambam writes explicitly that it is Beis Din who does the forcing,[4] and this is also clear in the gemara.[5] Thus ideally, this whole area should not be within the jurisdiction of the government, either local or national. However, the prophecy of "I will restore your judges to their original state"[6] has not yet been fulfilled, and Batei Din do not have this power.

In this situation, we might ask whether it would be better for no-one to force to give tzedaka. Even if we assume that we cannot forgo the enforcement of tzedaka entirely, it should be clear that enforcement should be primarily in the domain of the local authorities. Practically, local entities are better placed to be able to make decision about the needs of families and individuals in the community, especially when social norms vary from place to place. I believe this is also at least part of the reason behind the rule that "the poor of your city come before other poor people."[7]

The only reason for any intervention on a national level (ideally by the Sanhedrin or far from ideally by the government) is if the inhabitants of a city have a surplus, i.e. the total amount of tzedaka that we can expect them to give is more than enough for poor of that city. If the inhabitants of another city do not have the ability to provide for their own poor, the wealthier city would be expected to support the poorer one. Thus there may be need for the Ministry of Welfare, albeit with a far more limited role.

Who gets what?

Although there will always be a need for some form of tzedaka enforcement, we need to clarify what the extent of this is.

In Tzedaka- Who gets what?, we concluded that we cannot exempt ourselves from giving someone tzedaka just because we suspect that he is able to work and support himself, without first offering him assistance in finding a job. On a communal level, this means that public employment centres are necessary (once again, it would usually be more productive if they were local rather than national[8]). When it is clear that a person cannot provide for himself he must be provided for by the community, when it is not clear there can be no justification for taxing others in order to support him.

Who pays what?

It should be clear that the total amount of tax collected by the government should ideally be equal to the total amount needed for the expenses we have mentioned.[9] An important question that remains is how to decide who pays what proportion of this tax, or in other words whether we should be capitalist, socialist or somewhere in between.

Unlike most of the questions we have dealt with here, the gemara deals explicitly with the question of how to divide tax collections. The gemara deals with collections for the city wall, which was necessary for security. There are three possible factors that influence how much each family pays:

1) The number of people in the family.
2) The amount of money that they have.
3) Their proximity to the wall.

The rishonim explain that all of these factors are measurements of how much each family needs the wall. The larger the family, the more people are who need protection. Those who have more money have more to lose if the city remains unguarded. Those who live closer to the edge of the city will be more likely to be affected by invasions. How exactly to combine all of these considerations is a practical issue, but the principle is clear.

Nowadays, one can argue that all three of the above considerations have little relevance. Although it is still true that larger families have more people who need protection, demographically larger families contribute greatly towards our future security. Those with more money tend to pay for higher levels of private security and may well have less to worry about if communal security is insufficient. Although cities on the national border often do suffer more from enemy attacks, their existence helps to protect those who live further away.

It would be extremely complicated to try to calculate accurately what each family's relative need is and to tax them accordingly. I believe that the two practical models that could give the best approximation would be payment per person or payment per area of living quarters (the model currently used for municipal taxes, albeit with deductions based on other factors).

The almost universally accepted method of taxing according to income does not fit into the model of the gemara. It seems to be based purely on a philosophy of (indirect) tzedaka enforcement on a national level, which as we have written is hard to justify morally. In addition, it can only limit productivity, as people know that large chunks of what they earn do not ever enter their own pockets.[10]

Other Ministries

From what I have written so far, it should be possible to extrapolate to almost all the other areas currently controlled by the government. For example, health is very similar to education when it comes to government – any subsidies should only be necessary for those unable to afford standard healthcare (or health insurance) and should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Welfare.[11]

In other areas, government intervention should only be necessary when national networks are involved. For example, the Ministry of Transport is needed to ensure that services join up and to administer the allocation of public land.[12]

Religious Affairs

In the previous post, I explained why religious affairs are not supposed to be the primary responsibility of the government. I would like to elaborate on this here, explaining how issues such as marriage and kashrus should be administered.

I have never understood any reason to set up national bodies to deal with these issues, in the same way that I favour privatisation in other areas. Kashrus is inherently something private, with one religious Jew being sufficient to testify that something is kosher.[13] Although bigger food companies usually require larger organisations to supervise them, why make these organisations larger than they need to be?[14]

The same thing is true for marriage (and even for divorce). In principle, two people can marry or divorce and all they need is two kosher witnesses. Although there was a later institution that a rabbi should supervise marriage and divorce, why increase this to a country-wide system? There is no precedent for this in Jewish history, not even when we were all living on our land during the times of the first Beis HaMikdash.[15]

The one issue for which I am convinced of the need of national administration is geirus. Although technically even conversion to Judaism only requires a private court of three, how to decide which court is acceptable is a national issue. As any Jew has the right to Israeli citizenship, there is a need for a national definition of who is a Jew. Ironically, specifically in this area the Rabbinate does not currently have full control.[16]


[1] Bava Basra 8b
[2] See Choshen Mishpat siman 2.
[3] The example of Rava in the gemara is inconclusive – he could have acted as a dayan or as the city's 'important person' who must ratify monetary legislation (see Ibid. 9a).
[4] Hilchos Matnos Aniyim 7:10
[5] In Kesuvos 48a the gemara tells us that Beis Din collect tzedaka from the property of one who became mentally disabled (if he has the means to give) but not from the property of an absentee. See Ktzos HaChoshen 39:1 who explains that since the obligation to give tzedaka is religious in nature, forcing a person to give is only possible when he is present. Although he concludes that the obligation to give tzedaka also creates a lien on the property of one who is supposed to give and that the only reason an absentee cannot be forced is because he could be fulfilling the mitzvah elsewhere, the religious nature of the mitzvah is not questioned.
[6] Yeshaya 1:26
[7] Sifrei, parshas Re'eh section 116. See Tzedaka- Who gets what?, footnote 10.
[8] Although some kind of national overseeing is necessary to ensure that these centres do what is expected of them and that they are funded adequately, meaning that the Ministry of Economy (Trade & Industry) is a necessity. In the modern world of international trade it is also necessary for other reasons, although I suspect that this department could also be cut back significantly, leaving the bulk of trade in the private domain. Tariffs on imports limit competition and tend to be a negative influence on the economy, although my knowledge of economics is not sufficient to make any definite judgments.
[9] Obviously it is not possible to make this exact. In addition, for economic reasons it may be necessary for governments to borrow money intentionally, and I do not mean to pass any judgment on this (except that this should be done only for economic reasons and not for political gain).
[10] This is exacerbated by higher rates of tax for those on higher incomes.
[11] Although lives could be saved by subsidies of expensive treatment not included in standard insurance policies, it is not practical for our taxes to pay for this for everyone who needs it. On the contrary, private insurance usually covers more than national healthcare.
[12] Here too, where possible privatisation will be more efficient and there should usually be no need to subsidise services. However, sometimes for security reasons it is necessary to provide easily affordable transport to areas that may otherwise be left uninhabited. Decisions here should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence.
[14] Many argue that when it comes to kashrus, competition is counter-productive because for most people the priority is low costs and not high standards of kashrus. This may be true, but if so I do not believe that is practical for the minority to enforce their standards on the majority. Those interested in higher standards will always provide their own market for different hechsherim to compete over.
[15] As with all other issues, the justice system will sometimes have to decide when something has been misrepresented. If someone has sold food which he claims is kosher, or a 'rabbi' claims to have overseen a marriage according to halacha but this is questioned, national law must have a way to rule. It may well be necessary to have a national rabbinate even it was just for these issues, although its size would be limited.
[16] The law gives the right of return to anyone with a Jewish grandparent, contrary to halacha.

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