The work "The Sovereign Individual" reminds me in many parts quite strongly of Sieferle’s "Epochal Change" and "War and Civilization."
I therefore asked ChatGPT to create a synthesis:
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The Coming Development: From the Collapse of Order to the Sovereignty of the Individual – or to New Fragmentation
1. The Erosion of the Old Order
Modern civilization, as it has unfolded since the Industrial Revolution, is increasingly coming under pressure. Its fundamental pillars – nation-state, public institutions, mass welfare, and centralized control – are losing their effectiveness. This erosion is the result of several parallel processes:
Technological disruption (digitization, cryptography, networks)
Economic deregulation (mobile capital, tax evasion, the decline of state control)
Cultural relativism and loss of trust (crisis of legitimacy in public institutions)
Demographic and energy shifts (aging populations, resource depletion)
This development is not merely a transition, but an epochal rupture, as Sieferle describes it – comparable to the end of antiquity or the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era.
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2. The Sovereign Individual as a New Social Figure
At the center of the coming age stands a new social figure: the sovereign individual. It is:
technologically autonomous (encrypted communication, financial self-organization, global mobility),
detached from the state (barely bound to territorial states, new forms of belonging such as networks and communities),
economically selective (operating globally, exploiting arbitrage between different jurisdictions).
This individual emerges wherever technology overcomes old power structures. It acts within the digital realm, where authority is no longer imposed but generated through trust (e.g., reputation, blockchain technologies, communities).
However, this new autonomy is exclusive. Large parts of the population cannot or will not follow. A two-tier society emerges:
Some shape, flee, and decouple.
Others remain behind, dependent on an ever-weakening state.
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3. The Decline Will Not Be Linear
As Sieferle emphasizes, epochal changes do not proceed along a straight line of progress, but often manifest as crises and regressions:
New forms of violence (asymmetric, decentralized, ideological)
Decay of public order (corruption, inefficiency, loss of control)
Return of pre-modern structures: clans, tribes, closed communities
Thus, the future will not be purely liberal or technocratic, but fragmented, contradictory, and confusing. In some spaces, the sovereign individual will flourish – in others, new forms of authoritarian or anarchic rule will emerge.
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4. Outlook: New Orders Beyond the State
The order of the future will not be structured through central authority but through new principles:
Network-based loyalty instead of citizenship
Contractual governance instead of territorial legislation
Self-responsibility instead of paternalistic welfare states
Anonymity and encryption instead of state surveillance
It remains uncertain whether these principles will prevail – or whether the vacuum will be filled by new, potentially repressive orders.
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Final Image
The state does not die suddenly but evaporates – slowly, imperceptibly, through hollowing out.
What follows will not be a golden age of individual freedom for all, but a struggle for new forms of order:
between digital elites, the left-behind masses, global corporations, local communities, and algorithmic regimes.
Whether the sovereign individual will triumph – or whether we will enter a new Middle Ages – will depend on how we manage power, trust, and technology.