In the Biblical book of First Kings, Yahweh’s prophet Elijah challenged 450 pagans to a spiritual showdown on Mount Carmel in northern Israel. The stakes were high: whom would the Jewish people worship, Yahweh or Baal? Since the victors wrote the book, you can probably guess who won.

Some three millennia later, with the publication of Karl Marx’s three-volume Das Kapital, communism and capitalism began a similarly high-stakes contest for the soul of the world. Like Elijah and the prophets of Baal, these two competing systems brought irreconcilable spiritual roots to the fight. But can we say yet who won?

Regarding the soul of communism, to the extent it can be said to have one, it is the philosophy of atheism. Marx was an avowed atheist, though some of his writings also suggest surprising antipathy towards God. Seizing on this fact, at least one author has alleged Marx was a closet Devil worshipper. The consensus view, of course, is that he simply rejected belief in the divine. If he was an instrument of evil (not a stretch considering his quantifiable impact on the world), it must have been as an unwitting dupe.

One also finds evidence of communism’s atheistic heart in the implacable war that Marxist regimes in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, and Cambodia waged against religious beliefs in their own people. Even today, after having scuttled the most economically dysfunctional aspects of Marxism, the Chinese Communist Party continues to oppress independent Christians and has imprisoned over a million Uyghur Muslims in reeducation camps.

Capitalism, on the other hand, while espousing no specific religious creed, first grew from a matrix of Christian cultures in Europe. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German sociologist Max Weber argues that this was not happenstance, but that the ethic of spiritual struggle and growth embedded in Protestant Christianity found a worldly analog in the capitalist economic model.

Additionally, Christianity’s view of the individual as the center of worth and agency also makes it a natural fit for the capitalist system. While the New Testament holds deep concern for the poor—in either spirit or pocketbook—the remedy it proposes is not collective command but individual love. Assets can, and often should, be given away, but as in the Old Testament, thou shalt not steal. Private property is just part of the Bible’s anthropology.

Today, over a century has passed since the ideological battle between communism and capitalism was joined by the publication of Marx’s massive, angry trilogy, one written from personal penury in the domed reading room of London’s British Museum. 

During that span, capitalist economies have elevated their people’s material well-being more than any other system in human history. In her own hefty (and refreshingly un-angry) three-volume masterwork, capped in 2016 by Bourgeois Equality, economist Deirdre McCloskey credits the intellectual paradigm shift of capitalism with a “Great Enrichment” that lifted average living standards more than 30-fold in two centuries, a period unlike any the world had seen before.

Peter McNamara credits McCloskey with demonstrating that “…commerce cultivates a certain set of virtues, consisting of highly modified Aristotelian virtues spliced together with the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. The ‘Bourgeois Deal’ undergirding the Great Enrichment is truly an economic and moral winner.”

On the other side of the scorecard, societies that embraced Marx’s system have left behind memories such as a 96-mile wall built to trap people in their own homeland, long lines of shoppers unable to purchase basic consumer goods, and a perverse moral ecology in which thought police crowded ideological dissenters into concentration camps which one brilliant inmate, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, styled a “Gulag Archipelago.”

Which of these two systems works best? 

There is only one rational answer. Nonetheless, the ideological struggle between communism and capitalism is not over. That’s because it actually goes back much further than Karl Marx or even the prophet Elijah. In the book of Genesis, the serpent convinces Eve to eat forbidden fruit, saying it will make her like God. Chasing this utopian vision, humanity’s parents lost paradise.

Like the serpent, communists say they can engineer utopia if only everyone aligns with the plan. Such a beautiful end justifies any amount of spilled blood.

Capitalists, on the other hand, are realists, understanding that mankind cannot perfect itself. This has been proven as consistently as the law of gravity. Better to have a system that accepts fallen human nature while endowing people with the freedom to struggle and better themselves as they see fit. The resulting individual growth aggregates into not only freer societies but wealthier ones, as the United States continues proving decades after the Soviet Union, once communism’s best hope, crumbled away.

In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told lawmakers they have his full support to end property taxes statewide. 

“Taxpayers need relief,” DeSantis said. “You buy a home, you pay off the mortgage, and yet you still have to write a check to the government every year just for the privilege of living on your own private property… Is the property yours, or are you just renting it from the government?”

“You should own your property free and clear… I think to say that someone that’s been in their house for 35 years has to keep owing the government money, you know…you don’t own your home, if that’s the case.”

The Governor then described buying a flat-screen TV and then having to continue making tax payments on it. 

“That’s not how we do things,” he said. “It’s like, ok, if you’re going to tax something, tax it at the transaction, and then let people actually enjoy their private property, free and clear of the government. So that, I think, is the vision. That’s the philosophical insight.”

The most critical line is the last one: is it truly your property if you risk losing it to the government? Is this a “property tax” or a rent payment you make to the state to keep a roof over your head?

Philosophically, property taxes are arguably one of the most dishonorable taxes established in the modern world, not unique to the United States, as they are implemented in the vast majority of global legislations. Based on sources like Tax Foundation or Immigrant Invest, only a small handful of countries — approximately 175 to 185, over 90 percent globally — have some form of property tax, with the few exceptions typically being tax havens, principalities, or petrodollar monarchies like the United Arab Emirates. These are the exception, not the norm.

At the federal level in the United States, it is impossible to enact legislation to eliminate or dismantle this tax, which is why the governor of Florida is attempting to do it in his State. 

But he faces several legal, jurisdictional, and budgetary hurdles.

The Budgetary Hurdles

Economically, several aspects would need to be reconsidered before advancing such a measure. 

According to reports, property taxes in Florida generate $55 billion annually, funding 73 percent of school budgets and a significant portion of local services. Eliminating them would require alternative revenue sources for the government or, preferably, massive cuts in public spending. DeSantis has suggested that Florida should generate more revenue from tourism and reduce spending. While this sounds appealing — like Elon Musk’s chainsaw — it would still fall short of balancing the budget and would require political commitment from local leaders to move in this direction.

The state of Florida has experienced a real estate boom driven by mass migration from states like New York and California to the Sunshine State, which has driven up housing prices and, consequently, property taxes. According to a Redfin report, between 2019 and 2024, the average tax bill in Jacksonville and Tampa increased by nearly 60 percent, while in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, it grew by 48 percent. Statewide, the median property tax rose by 47.5 percent during the same period, according to CoreLogic.

On average, Florida homeowners pay about $2,338 per year in property taxes, with a state effective rate of 0.80 percent of the assessed value, though this varies by county. For example, in Miami-Dade, the average is $2,756 for properties valued between $350,000 and $400,000 (1.01 percent rate), while in Broward, it’s $3,305 for homes with a median value of $346,000 (0.95 percent rate). Although property insurance is not legally required by state law, homeowners are practically obligated to obtain it, as mortgage lenders and condominium or HOA regulations mandate it. The average property insurance premium in the state is $4,419 per year due to risks like hurricanes and increasing requirements such as flood insurance. Thus, Florida homeowners may end up spending over $6,500 annually to maintain a roof over their heads.

The Legal and Jurisdictional Hurdles

The great challenge for the Republican governor is to successfully promote legislation that aligns all local governments and reconciles their budgets, or at the very least, advances an agenda that creates a collaborative plan among various authorities with a common goal, as property taxes in Florida are collected by local governments, something DeSantis acknowledges.

“Property taxes are local, not state,” he said. “So, we’d need to do a constitutional amendment (requires 60 percent of voters to approve) to eliminate them (which I would support) or even to reform or lower them.” 

The problem lies in the fact that state spending has grown so much that many governments no longer know how to survive without high tax rates, imposing burdens on every transaction you make. This would require not only a massive economic adjustment but also a political responsibility that is difficult to achieve.

Currently, it seems challenging — indeed, nearly impossible — for such a proposal to move forward, especially in local governments dependent on these taxes. Therefore, one path the governor could take is to propose a constitutional amendment to strip local governments of their authority over property taxes, though this would require 60 percent of the vote to pass.

At the moment, support in the Florida Congress is divided, with Speaker Daniel Pérez, also a Republican, opposing DeSantis’s agenda. This has led the governor of Florida to declare that there are factions within the Republican Party in the state that have been co-opted by the left and are unwilling to cut spending and taxes, a problem that appears to be present at the federal level as well.

Other States Have Tried

Florida is not the only state that has embarked on a crusade against property taxes; other Republican-majority states have attempted to end this burden on homeowners. 

At least five states have tried in recent years to abolish this tax for citizens. However, most proposals consistently fall short, generally for the same reasons: budgetary deficits. 

In North Dakota, voters rejected Measure 4, fearing that the loss of $1.3 billion annually would harm schools and local services. In Michigan, the AxMiTax initiative failed to collect the required 446,000 signatures for the ballot, facing opposition due to the lack of a plan to replace $14 billion in revenue, including $2.5 billion for schools. In Nebraska, the Legislative Bill 388 stalled over concerns about budget cuts and the regressive impact of new consumption taxes. In Texas, a non-binding proposal gained Republican support but did not advance due to unaddressed budgetary concerns, as did Wyoming’s House Bill 203, which was rejected by the House of Representatives. 

Essentially, a national debate has emerged about the need to abolish property taxes, but the excessive growth of local and state budgets has, for now, made it an impossible mission to reach agreements to eliminate this burden on taxpayers. 

It appears challenging for any legislative proposal to move forward without first restructuring public spending. Nevertheless, it is a significant achievement that several states have initiated an open discussion on this issue, and that one of the leading political figures in the United States, like Governor Ron DeSantis, has highlighted property taxes as an extortionate burden on citizens, preventing taxpayers from retiring with dignity.