Libertarianism in the Mishneh Torah

Recently, I was involved in a strange case of applied halacha. Lay acquaintances had found a large sum of cash, and wanted to know from me how they should proceed according to halacha. I explained to them that such finds often have simanim, indicia, and that it was their responsibility to make a public announcement of the find, but with as vague a description as possible, so that claimants could approach them and honestly and accurately describe the indicia that only the true owners would know about. We agreed that it would be best for me, as the agent of the local rabbinate, to take the find into my official care, and that I should publicize the find and vet any claimants.

Shortly thereafter, a number of claimants did come forward, but none of their descriptions remotely matched what we had before us. However, one claimant did not accept my estimation; a large sum of money had just been stolen from her personal workplace, and right after she reported it to the police, my neighbors had made their find, and a local police woman, who had knowledge of the report of the theft, made the brilliant, or in her words, “obvious,” determination that the large sum reported stolen was that which was just found. This was all the more brilliant when one considers that the sum that was found was 2.7 times the amount reported stolen, among other glaring differences. The police woman, who was off duty at the time, told the claimant that she was certain that her property was now in my hands, and that she could come and receive it at her leisure. I refused to do anything of the sort, and there was a stalemate as I continued to vet other claimants, who, by the way, were at least offering descriptions of the find that were closer to this stubborn claimant.

However, a few days later the police intervened, and demanded the money. The local constable lady (constablix perhaps?) declared that the find belonged to the claimant, on the basis that one of her officers who had been familiar with the initial theft report had already determined that the find was that which was stolen. I could have expected such thorough detective work and care for due process from Chief Wiggum himself, and along with my neighbors, I was rightfully outraged, but then again I had no interest in this case save for trying to make sure that the poor soul or souls who lost their money had it returned to them. Now, a thief has gotten away, and someone else is left holding the bag, all while we were just trying to follow the halacha as described in the Torah and Talmud.

As part of the process, this previous Sabbath we reviewed Maimonides’s Laws of Robbery and Lost Property, and it was very interesting to note that at the conclusion of the section directly relating to robbery, chapter 5, Maimonides writes about the legality of governmentally sanctioned robbery:

The general principle is: Any law that a king decrees to be universally applicable, and not merely to one person, is not considered robbery. But whenever he takes from one person alone in a manner that does not conform to a known law, but rather seizes the property from the person arbitrarily, it is considered to be robbery… When a king cuts down trees belonging to private people and uses them for a bridge, one is permitted to cross over it. Similarly, if he destroys houses in order to build a road or a wall, it is permitted to benefit from it. The same principle applies in all analogous situations, because a kings laws are binding. When does the above apply? When the currency issued by the king is used as the country’s currency. This indicates that the people of that country have accepted him and consider him their master and themselves as his subjects. If, however, the currency he issues is not accepted in that country, he is considered to be a robber who takes by the force. He and his servants are like a band of armed thieves, whose laws are not binding. Such a king and his servants are considered to be robbers in all respects.

His equation of kings with mob bosses is worthy of Michael Corleone, but even more importantly, the idea of taxation as theft was already exposited in alexandrian times, and it is interesting that Maimonides would use it to understand the Talmudic principles. Other medieval authorities may have understood those laws as stemming from, for example, the Jewish equivalent of the divine right of kings.