§42 is something that is still relevant today, should be, with
regardless of housing and such
> If a man rented a field for cultivation but has not produced any grain in the field, he will be convicted of not working the field and will give the owner of the field grain corresponding to his neighbors.
There is probably cases of essentially fraud where it is litigated today too. Like you rent something and promise share of revenue, but then do not actual do anything. Contracts are hopefully very much better defined. But in standard arrangement where you promise to work fields and promise to give part of harvest to land owner it is obvious that you should not be excused of not actually doing that.
Yes, that's exactly how rent works nowadays. You rent a piece of real estate and you pay the rent. So, yes, it's still relevant today but not particularly noteworthy.
This is terrible for long-term ecological health. The soil needs time to recover, and if it's constantly farmed, the soil just gets more and more depleted. A very early example of well-intentioned regulations ending up causing more harm than good (and indeed, much of what used to be fertile farmland in that part of the world is now desert from over-farming).
The deal with the state is in principle the following:
1. If you have a conflict with some other person/family/clan the buck needs to stop somewhere otherwise you just swap murders back and forth indefinitely
2. Having the buck stop with another (third?) person/family/clan is unaccaptable to most persons/families/clans, why would you voluntarily yield power to them?
3. Having learnd from centuries of bloodshed and oppression you develop a system where you can collectively decide on with whom the buck stops and more important: a system where you can remove someone if you are collectively unhappy with their performance in that position.
Now there are a myriad possible ways of doing 3, with some of them tracking the collective will more closely than others, with different definitions of who is included in the collective, with different ways of persisting certain elements through the power transition etc. But anybody who knows about history and politics knows that without that you will even have more chaotic, violent and oppressive circumstances. Unless you happen to be in the clan that is currently in power and you happen to have no war and/or bloody throne-fight during your life.
Especially in countries with housing taxes (you pay based on where you live, independently of how much you earn or wether or not you earn anything) and property tax (based on an estimated value of what is owned, independently of any revenue).
In some places, it would almost seem merely existing is ground enough for taxes.
> America was founded on people taking up arms against the taxman [while lacking political enfranchisement].
The second half of the slogan "no taxation without representation" is not a minor detail. In fact the Tea Act [0] —which motivated the Boston Tea Party protests, to which the British government's escalation in response eventually led to the American Revolution— was not an act establishing or increasing any tax. On the contrary, the Tea Act was actually reducing taxes and duties on tea!
The idea that the American Revolution was triggered by "taxation" shouldn't be retconned under modern eyes into believing that the colonists were against the idea of taxation.
I understand you to be reading this as progressive, whereas I see it as the opposite: if you rent land but do not have the money to pay (for whatever reason) the rent still has to be paid.
> If a man rented a field for cultivation but has not produced any grain in the field, he will be convicted of not working the field and will give the owner of the field grain corresponding to his neighbors.