The pioneering criminologist, Edwin Sutherland, introduced the field to the concept of white collar crime, challenging traditional notions that crime was primarily the domain of the poor. In expanding upon this work, criminologists (in particular Raymond Michalowski) developed the idea of analogous social injury, i.e., corporate and political behaviors that, while not always legally defined as crimes, carry harmful consequences paralleling those of conventional offenses. They involve the use of force and fraud in pursuit of material gain.
In this way, the harmful practices of elites are normalized despite their detrimental effects on society; the actions of powerful political actors may not always result in criminal prosecution, yet they inflict harm comparable to crimes like assault, theft, and even murder—in many cases are precisely this in substance but are not recognized as such in the criminal law. Similarly, political corruption, such as bribery, or the undue influence of corporate money in elections through campaign finance, operates in legally gray areas that nonetheless erodes democratic integrity just as surely as outright election fraud.
The normalization of these behaviors, as well as the organized concealment of them, illustrate how power structures shape legal definitions of crime, shielding elite offenders while criminalizing marginalized or oppositional groups for lesser offenses. By examining corporate and political actions through the lens of analogous social injury, we can thus better understand how systemic harms persist and why legal frameworks fail to hold the most powerful actors accountable.
The present obsession with Ukraine provides a ready example with which to interrogate this question. So does the organized resistance to auditing the federal government by Democrats, unions, and progressive courts, a large-scale project currently being carrying out by the Trump presidency and DOGE, an auditing service headed by Elon Musk.
There is a deep motive behind the defense of US involvement in Ukraine by Democrats and RINOs, those Republicans who remain captured by globalization, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism (i.e., Cold War progressivism). One could see the motive in December 2019, when Trump, the chief magistrate of the federal government, was impeached for trying to get to the bottom of the Biden crime family and its association with Ukrainian oligarchs (see The Urgent Necessity of Purging the Government of Deep State Actors and Warmongers with links embedded to previous essays covering this topic in depth).
The impeachment was designed to obscure the graft of former vice-president Joe Biden and his bagman Hunter Biden, whom, as president, Biden pardoned for all crimes Hunter committed between 2014 and 2024—along with several other Biden family members. Democrats were desperate to cover up graft in Ukraine because it could lead to all their other schemes, so they portrayed Trump’s actions as illegal, when in fact he was honoring his duty to expose crime and corruption in our politics.
Hiding graft is the same motive that causes the corporate state to organize a color revolution not only abroad, but at home, as well as bureaucratic and judicial resistance to Trump and DOGE’s audit of government agencies (see The Sinister Plans Behind Auditing the Federal Government; Victims of Their Own Design: DOGE and Progressive Panic; There Will Be Pain: The Deconstruction of the Administrative State is Here). Have readers ever wonder why members of Congress, despite earning a $174 thousand dollar salaries, are worth millions of dollars? They cannot openly take money from the taxpayer or oligarchs, so they have created a system of graft that launders the money they use to enrich themselves and families.
One graft strategy Democrats use is to set up non-governmental organizations (NGOs), pass laws that appropriate money to agencies and departments that interlock with those NGOs, and then depend on ideologically-captured federal bureaucrats in those agencies—politically aligned with big corporate and progressive interests—to push out those appropriations to the NGOs, which in turn enrich those politicians and their families, whose members are in senior positions in these organizations. This is why it is so important to deconstruct the administrative state (see Federal Employee Unions and the Entrenchment of Technocracy).
This scheme represents a vast money laundering operation leveraging the administrative state to direct dollars into their bank accounts. The scheme operates on a planetary scale. It’s why Democrats and RINOs push free trade and globalization: it opens the world up to graft networks. It’s why they oppose tariffs, which, as an external source of revenues, cuts into the graft (I will be publishing an essay very soon on tariffs). They push instead for internal taxation (income taxes, inheritance taxes, property taxes, sales taxes), i.e., soaking the American worker instead of taxing foreign companies. They do this because internal taxation diverts through obscured circuits the revenue stream that returns to them via the transnational system of corruption.
Ukraine is one of the most sought-after nations because it is one of, if not the most corrupt nation on the planet. This is why Biden arranged for Hunter to sit on the board of Burisma, a large energy-focused holding company in Ukraine. This is why, when he was vice-president, Biden threatened to withhold billions from the Ukraine government if they did not fire a prosecutor who was looking into this arrangement. (see The Conspiracy to Overthrow an American President; I Told You Joe Biden is Corrupt and Compromised.)
Over the past two decades, corruption has remained one of Ukraine’s most pressing challenges. This is on purpose. Corruption in Ukraine is desired. Corruption is deeply embedded in its economic, judicial, and political institutions. This is not a bug but a feature. However, while Ukraine is marked by particularly egregious cases of political graft and oligarchic control, it is important to recognize that corruption is not unique to Ukraine—many developed nations grapple with systemic corruption. The United States is one of them. The party of corruption is the Democratic Party.
Because of the hysterical desire on the part of Democrats and RINOS—and their European counterparts—to continue hurling Ukrainian bodies at the Russian front (there is another motivation in all this), I focus on the relation between Ukraine and the West. What millions of well-intentioned people have come to see as a noble cause in Ukraine, represents unwitting support for corruption on a global scale. I will at the end of this essay explain how so many millions can be deceived in this way.
The modern era of Ukrainian corruption gained global attention following the 2004 Orange Revolution, which was driven by widespread election fraud. Hopes were high that the new leadership under Viktor Yushchenko would dismantle entrenched corrupt networks. That’s what they were told. But the situation worsened under President Yanukovych (serving from 2010–2014), whose administration became infamous for kleptocracy. His extravagant estate, Mezhyhirya, symbolized government excess and the unchecked power of oligarchs who manipulated policy for personal enrichment. This widespread corruption fueled public outrage, culminating in the 2014 Euromaidan protests and Yanukovych’s eventual ousting.
I have written about how the 2014 overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine was orchestrated by the United States (History and Sides-Taking in the Russo-Ukrainian War). In the years that followed, anti-corruption efforts intensified, with the establishment of independent anti-corruption agencies and increased public scrutiny. However, these institutions continued to face political pressure, and enforcement has been inconsistent, to say the least—indeed, more performative than substantive, as corruption is woven into the warp and woof of Ukrainian society, again, which explains why Democrats and RINOs and their European counterparts are so eager to incorporate Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence.
Western nations, despite their apparently strong legal frameworks, contend with their own forms of corruption, including corporate fraud, financial crimes, lobbying influence, and regulatory capture. The 2008 financial crisis exposed massive corporate misconduct in the US and Europe, yet few executives were held accountable; meanwhile, the crisis was exploited to shift billions of dollars to people in need to the rich and powerful. Political lobbying, while legal, results in policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the public interest. Scandals involving conflicts of interest, money laundering, and tax evasion routinely emerge in Western democracies, proving that corruption is a global issue, not just a Ukrainian one. Democrats and RINOS have effectively legalized corruption and normalized pathological relations—and the system is transnational.
While the Ukrainians continue to struggle with corruption, their challenges should not be viewed in isolation. The focus on Ukraine and its noble structure is deliberate, meant to distract attention from what that conflict is truly about: perpetrating the system of corruption, as well as feeding the ravenous maw of the war machine. Recognizing this broader context helps observers avoid overly simplistic comparison between Ukraine and Western nations, allowing for a more nuanced discussion of systemic corruption worldwide. Indeed, it explains the situation in Ukraine.
Knowing this, how do we address the problem? We must vote against corrupt politicians and deconstruct the administrative state that enables the graft. To do this we must expose them. We have to deconstruct their tactic of virtue signaling and stand up to their fear mongering. That is the work of Freedom and Reason. I am not alone in this work. On the positive side, we must return to the American system, the system of external revenue generation and protection of domestic industry and the working class, as well as end entanglements with foreign nations. Again, this is the subject of a forthcoming essay, so stay tuned. It will suffice to say here, that the Trump agenda is the right one if we are to dismantle the global system of corruption that is breaking the United States of America.
freedom and reason 