OK, then rent is also theft.
"how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?"
C'mon, we're hackers... we can do better than relying on violence and aggression. What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things?
I mean, if you want to abdicate and just accept things the way they are, that's fine. But some of us still believe in progress.
There are powerful groups of people with intellect, reason, logic, rational thinking but also have large sums of capital and the government's servitude to counter anything we try to change.
Seriously? It's mind-boggling to me that somebody would ask that with a straight face, ya know? I mean, the essence of what it means to be a hacker is to examine things, break them apart, understand how they work, and improve them. And as a general rule, most hackers have traditionally preferred to use their minds to achieve various ends, rather than relying on violence.
Put those two things together and it's pretty easy to see why one would think that hackers would be motivated to find ways to improve our systems to governance such that they aren't rooted in the use of violence.
My example was showing how even amongst a group of people who would have defined themselves as hackers, all the winners have resorted to relying on violence in one form or another. You can sit and be principled all you want, and then maybe you'll be a footnote in a history book
Firstly, set up a gradually percentage-based system of mandatory contributions, based loosely on income, to be one's expected annual payment. Add in a unhealth dose of special-interest initiated loopholes. Next, split the whole entirely in half so you fall under an entirely different system if you earn your money working a 9-5. Finally set up a section of the government dedicated to enforcement of these statutes, with financial and penal penalties for violation.
Most countries have a fiat currency. The government via the central bank creates as much money as it needs to run a society, money is there simply to get things done, it's a promise to 'pay' for work.
Money in itself doesn't have any intrinsic value other than the fact that everyone collectively agrees to believe that it does.
The government doesn't have to tax anyone, it can just continue to create money and inject it into the economy and things get done. The problem comes that the more money it injects the less the perceived value of the money is (i.e. inflation). It needs to destroy some of the money it creates and it does this via taxation. That's why you have tax.