To make it intuitively more obvious, replace “thief” with “king”. From certain perspective, the king owns the entire country, including you, including your hypothetical maximum production. If the king could predict your potential productivity, he could set your tax to be “your hypothetical maximum production, minus the minimum you need to survive”, and then punish you if you fail to pay the tax.
To make it intuitively more obvious, replace “thief” with “king”. From certain perspective, the king owns the entire country, including you, including your hypothetical maximum production. If the king could predict your potential productivity, he could set your tax to be “your hypothetical maximum production, minus the minimum you need to survive”, and then punish you if you fail to pay the tax.