The core issue of statements like "taxation is theft" is that they view market income as natural and deserved, while other income is not. This of course presumes a state of nature that never existed. 1/4

Modern capitalist relations only came about through strong government action, from enclosure to laws protecting contracts. So the market income you get is a function of institutions. Crucially, it always is, because humans are social creatures that have always lived in ... 2/4

societies with certain institutions, even informal ones.

Welfare similarly comes about through institutions. So there is no relevant difference between them. Just like it's legitimate to pass a law to lower or raise welfare, it's legitimate to raise or lower taxes. 3/4

Now perhaps certain changes to welfare or taxation are individually bad, but my point is that there is nothing special about pre-tax market income. Do you have a right to basic necessities? Perhaps. But a right to pre-tax market income? Definitely not. 4/4

(I say "right to basic necessities" instead of "right to an income" because although I like money, it's possible to imagine folks getting needs met without an income)

Under this framework, questions like "what is a legitimate level of taxation" or "what amount of welfare is alright to give to people" combine into "what amount of income do people deserve?"

Aggregate this across the entire economy, and you're really talking about what distribution of income is just.

So when people say they support a certain level of taxes and welfare, know that they are really signaling their support for a certain income distribution.

We can apply this just as well to discussions of capital income too. The question is: is it just that some folks can make tons of money off of ownership, w/o lifting a finger and w/o any democratic control? Should we choose different institutions so that this doesn't happen?

This argument is quite a bit harder for the right-libertarian to make compared to pre-tax labor income, I would say. Like okay, sure, you should get more money when you work, and if your job is in high demand or you're really good at it you should get even more.

But money just cuz the government says you own something? Why?

And when you boil down into right-libertarian thought like this, you get the answer. They end up saying, "it's just better this way. It's better that rich people get all this money and all this control...

...and it would be worse if we had democratic control of it. Even taxation is too much democratic control."

This really is their justification at the end of the day, and I must say that "The elites can run your life better than you can" is simply an authoritarian statement.

Now before anyone accuses me of strawmaning, of course right-libertarians tend to support some level of taxation and regulation, some amount of democratic control. But the default is assuming the elites almost always do it better.