… is from page 105 of Liberty Fund’s 1983 collection of some of the writings of the late, great G. Warren Nutter, entitled Political Economy and Freedom; specifically, it’s from Nutter’s 1978 address, to the Mont Pelerin Society, “Liberty and the Growth of Government” (original emphases):
The question of what rights belong to the individual under the principle of private property is a complicated one, but those complications must not be allowed to becloud the most basic issue of ownership of property. A free society differs from a controlled one to the extent that the individual is protected against arbitrary seizure of his property by government. An individual owns property if he has acquired it legitimately, in accord with the principles of a free society. Taxes represent a claim that government asserts against private property, not a property right of government. Individuals alone have property rights in a free society.
