The use of force externally without clear defensive justification and systematic internal rights violations align with Rawls’s criteria for outlaw states: policies that reject the binding force of shared legal and moral international principles in favor of unilateral pursuit of power and interests.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has resisted war powers oversight and shown a willingness to subsume or override multilateral constraints in pursuit of its strategic aims.
More recently, the U.S. escalated into sustained military operations against Iran, including joint U.S.–Israeli combat strikes on Iranian territory while productive negotiations were underway.
Externally, the United States has launched a unilateral military assault that resulted in the abduction of Venezuela’s president without international mandate, asserted claims over Venezuelan oil and revenue streams.
Domestically, executive immigration actions have overridden due process and core human rights protections, sidestepping legal constraints and normal legislative oversight.
Under Rawls’s framework, such a state pursues its rational interests without regard for the legal and moral limits that bind societies in a stable international order. In 2025–26, U.S. policy exhibits precisely that pattern.
Rawls defines an “outlaw state” as a polity that systematically refuses to honor the reasonable constraints of the Law of Peoples, especially the duties of non-intervention, respect for basic human rights, and compliance with the norms of international cooperation.
I wrote this because I’m watching the Epstein files turn into pure spectacle. There are real crimes and real elite insulation here. That deserves outrage. But I worry we’ll stop at the villains. We need less concentrated wealth and power—not better billionaires.
#anti-capitalism #epsteinfiles
SCOTUS says the Emergency Powers Act isn’t sufficient legal justification for tariffs. Score one for the separation of powers. Maybe score one for the rule of law if remedy follows. But there’s nothing good in this for the working class.
open.substack.com/pub/666673/p...
Am I the only one who thinks ICE/BP could’ve shot half a dozen more woke white women with impunity? That if they’d shot an armed 2nd Amendment advocate first, there would’ve been only one summary execution in Minneapolis instead of two?
When the day’s news sparks a strong opinion in me—good or bad—the first thing I do is look for bigger picture context. Not every fact-finding mission turns into an essay, but all of my essays start here.
GDP growth is of no use to the people who do the work. We already have enough to go around.
666673.substack.com/p/the-econom...
#anticapitalism #anti-capitalism #socialism #democracy
tl;dr Kropotkin is Santa ❤️
—
On the night before Christmas, we’ll all be about
While the people are sleeping, we’ll realise our clout
We’ll expropriate goods from the stores, ‘cos that’s fair
And distribute them widely, to those who need care.
#anticapitalism #anarchism
#60Minutes
#InsideCECOT
12-21-25
Hidden no more.
@therealjackhopkins.bsky.social
@thejenniwren.teamlh.social
@theoriginaltomjoad.bsky.social
@melissjpeltier.bsky.social
@sandibachom.bsky.social
@malena.bsky.social
@philmandelbaum.bsky.social
@analisaswan.bsky.social
archive.org/details/insi...
The whole concept of natural resources belonging to elites under any regime is dubious to me. Claims of legitimate vs illegitimate transfer of ownership are nonsensical from that perspective.
If you unstack all the turtles, it doesn’t take long to get to private property rights established by force under imperial rule. This holds true throughout the Americas, as does “independence” being a consolidation of power and property in the hands of breakaway colonial elites.
US corporations took advantage of long-term extraction rights granted by early 20th century authoritarian regimes in Venezuela. Typical imperial-era bullshit. They were getting a steal and they knew it. By mid-century, Venezuelans saw this as legalized plunder. By 1976, they set things right.
Trump’s post is well-worn US foreign policy: treating private capital’s grievances as national ones. This is how wars start without being called wars, and how costs are socialized while profits stay private.
substack.com/@666673/note...
#anticapitalism #nowarbutclasswar
I spent my weekend researching trained rape dogs so you don’t have to. This essay is about moral absolutes—and what happens when institutions decide to keep monsters. #palestine #gaza
I made up a new word for humans killing humans by way of systemic neglect. #anticapitalism #anti-capitalism #socialism #anarchism
Thanks for taking the time to give me feedback. I’m a writer, not an artist. You’re correct that I use Gen AI to generate thumbnails (and for proofreading). Can you help me understand how the thumbnail leads you to believe the writing is not my own?
Turns out every communications medium advancement incites panic before our bullshit detectors recalibrate.
This started as a Columbus Day joke and ended as a moral reckoning. Turns out, consistency is harder than outrage—and critical thinking is a hell of a buzzkill. #anti-capitalism #antifa
"What would happen if we stopped acting as if the primordial form of work is laboring at a production line, or wheat field, or iron foundry, or even in an office cubicle, and instead started from a mother, a teacher, or a caregiver? . We might be forced to conclude that the real business of human life is not contributing toward something called the economy but the fact that we are all, and have always been, projects of mutual creation." . - David Graeber
One of David Graeber's most interesting pieces was from 2013 called - 'A practical utopians guide to the coming collapse.'
Here is an extract.
When America makes exploitative business models illegal, the rich still get paid. Time to change that.
#anticapitalism #economics #socialism
Same book, different self. #recovery #addiction #alcoholism #literature #books
“The Russian Anarchists” by Paul Avrich is a history of Russian anarchist movements from the 19th century to the Bolshevik Revolution. It covers figures like Kropotkin and Bakunin as well as non-hierarchical social forms like the artel.
Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” (1902) includes his firsthand observations of artels in practice. This book should be on anyone’s anarchism 101 reading list.
I’ve always understood Marxism to be state-oriented, at least until the state withers away naturally in the inevitable progression of history. For sure Marx himself was a state solution guy in his lifetime. Bakunin was the anarcho-socialist vying for control of the Internationale back in the day.
