שמואל יוסף עגנון: "על המסים"

S. Y. Agnon’s story “On the Taxes” is a fascinating and challenging discussion of tax regimes and the social order that provides insights about the nature of society and humankind. This work tells the story of a political decision to impose a tax on walking sticks and of the grotesque randomness of its legislation, arrangements and enforcement.Agnon has ontological difficulties in understanding the social order and the irresponsibility of the leadership, and these are reflected in his work.Agnon portrays social order as a miracle that constitutes an additional tax burden on society. This paradigm leads to important historical and contemporary insights into the social order and the tax regime. The tax discourse in the story is rich, diverse and critical, with many components related to fundamental issues of socio-economic policies in general and tax policy in particular: distributive justice, efficiency, tax legislation and responsible public governance.The ideas expressed in the work correspond with philosophical-political and theological currents of thought: the “Invisible Hand” of Adam Smith,Thomas Hobbes, and the civilizational conception of the tax regimes of Oliver Wendell Holmes. The story does not merely portray the“tax-miracle” track; its plot has important lessons for the modern social order.This literary work makes a significant contribution to the law and literature discourse, due to its surprising context, since the field of taxation is almost completely absent from the arena of law and literature.