On the Laws of the State

One of the fundamental principles of monetary and civil law is dina de-malkhuta dina – “the law of the kingdom is the law.” A person must observe and uphold the laws of the kingdom, both laws relating to income tax and customs duties, and laws concerning the public welfare, such as traffic laws and the like.

Several explanations have been given for this. One is that the residents of the country accept the kingdom upon themselves and waive some of their rights to it, agreeing that the kingdom will set laws and manage the order of public life. True, many citizens constantly complain about the level of taxation or about certain laws; nevertheless, as long as they do not openly rebel and overthrow the government, they are acknowledging and agreeing that they prefer the current state of the kingdom’s rule over the chaos that might prevail without it, and thereby they grant the kingdom the right to set laws and collect taxes.

Another explanation offered is that, in essence, the land of the entire country belongs to the kingdom by right of conquest, since it is the kingdom, through its military and economic power, that protects the country. It follows that all the land of the country belongs to the kingdom, and therefore anyone who lives in that country must obey the owner of the property, namely the kingdom. And although every courtyard and house has private owners, their ownership nevertheless rests upon the ownership of the kingdom as a whole. For were it not for that kingdom, who knows whether that courtyard and that house would have remained in their hands?

An elected government has at least the authority that a kingdom has. For with regard to a government, public consent to its rule is far broader, since the public chose the government directly and thereby accepted upon itself the decisions that government will make. Even the minority that is not represented in the government has agreed to accept the decision of the majority. And if someone were to come and say, “I do not agree with the democratic system,” in any case the power of a government is certainly no less than the power of a king who ruled his people by the might of his soldiers’ swords, regarding whom too it was said: dina de-malkhuta dina. In summary, then, it is forbidden to evade taxes or to smuggle goods past customs, and anyone who transgresses and evades his taxes violates the Torah prohibition of “You shall not rob.” This is the ruling of the Shulḥan Arukh (ḤM 369:6).