As an industrial design engineer, I understand why The Sovereign Individual has attained near-cult status in Silicon Valley (“The book that explains the billionaire doomers”, Opinion, July 25; and Letters, July 30).
Engineers are often drawn to systems-thinking and elegant solutions, and the idea that technological capability can liberate individuals from the inertia of outdated institutions is naturally appealing.
But this vision, for all its digital polish, is a retelling of a very old story. History is full of elites who sought to insulate themselves from broader society — from Florentine wool traders and Genoese bankers to modern venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs. The outcome is almost always the same: short-term dominance followed by instability and decline.
William Rees-Mogg wrote from the perspective of an aristocratic class that had long relied on hierarchical structures. His co-author James Dale Davidson reflects a newer type: the clever, under-appreciated engineer convinced that their moment has come. But both promote a worldview that places autonomy over responsibility, and power over empathy.
There are echoes of Machiavelli’s The Prince, with its unblinking focus on the retention of power but little of Plato’s wisdom from The Republic, where justice is deemed preferable to injustice not just socially but morally. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations argued for enlightened self-interest but within a moral framework. Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, reminds us of the importance of reason, humility and our duty to others, especially those weaker than ourselves.
The danger in The Sovereign Individual is not its prediction of a digital elite — it’s in the implicit justification of its dominance. Power concentrated in the hands of a few, no matter how clever, always comes at a cost.
The real question is not whether such a future is possible, but whether it is desirable — and for whom.
Frazer McKimm
Dublin, Ireland