Why don't Marxists and liberals unite over what they share?

Marxists and liberals may agree in rejecting taxes, squatting, and in their sympathy for Bitcoin, but they start from incompatible premises on the private ownership of the means of production. The overlap is tactical, not programmatic.

The post that reignited the debate argues that paying taxes is "literally funding the bourgeois state" and legitimizing money, which, in its view, prevents the abolition of commodities. The text adds that taxes come out of surplus value and chides those who fail to grasp this. It is a classic formulation of the left's rejection of taxation, but with a twist that brings it closer to liberal discourse.

## Taxes: same complaint, different roots

For Marxism, taxation is a tool the state uses to sustain capitalist relations of production. For liberalism, it is an expropriation of individual income that reduces economic freedom. Both reject the levy, but the former wants to abolish the structure that makes it possible, while the latter wants to limit it.

The tweet mixes two levels. It criticizes paying taxes as funding for the "bourgeois state" and, at the same time, points out that money itself legitimizes commodity exchange. That double objection does not fit the liberal view, which defends the market and currency as expressions of contractual freedom.

## Bitcoin and squatting: partial overlaps

Sympathy for **Bitcoin** brings together sectors on both sides for different reasons. The liberal sees a currency beyond state control; the Marxist may see a tool to erode the monetary monopoly. The convergence is real, but fragile.

Something similar happens with the squatting of homes. Rejection of the occupation of personal property appears in both discourses, although the Marxist distinguishes between personal property and means of production. That distinction is what the liberal does not share.

## Ownership of the means of production

There lies the main fracture. Some believe in private ownership of the means of production; others do not. That difference cannot be resolved with deals on taxes or cryptocurrencies. Any agreement would be a temporary status quo, not a stable alliance.

The text also points to differences on immigration and social policies, where the liberal tends toward more open positions. These are disagreements that make an alliance even harder—one that, on paper, only shares a rejection of certain taxes.