The True European Idea: Sovereign Nations, Sovereign IndividualsThe True European Idea: Sovereign Nations, Sovereign Individuals
Why Bitcoin Revives What the EU Has Lost
The original European idea was never about creating a superstate. It emerged from the horrors of two world wars and the long shadow of totalitarian centralization. Thinkers like Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, and Jean Monnet envisioned peace through voluntary cooperation among sovereign nations; ->free trade, open borders, cultural exchange, all while preserving national identity and self-determination.
At its philosophical core lay Enlightenment values: individual liberty (Locke, Kant), subsidiarity (decisions taken as close to the citizen as possible, rooted in Catholic social teaching and federalist thought), and a deep suspicion of concentrated power (Montesquieu's separation of powers). Europe was to be a union of free peoples, not a centralized empire erasing differences. Nations would remain sovereign, cooperating where beneficial, but never surrendering their essence to a distant bureaucracy.
Today, that vision feels inverted.
The Drift Toward Centralization: Everyday Erosion of SovereigntyThe Drift Toward Centralization: Everyday Erosion of Sovereignty
The EU has evolved into something closer to a centralizing power structure. Subsidiarity exists mostly on paper; competence creeps ever upward to Brussels and Strasbourg.
Consider the Bavarian pretzel ("Bayerische Breze"), granted EU Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in 2014. Only pretzels made in Bavaria following strict rules on shape, texture, and ingredients can bear the name. What began as protection for tradition has become micromanagement: Brussels dictates local recipes, overriding the judgment of the Bavarian baker.
This pattern repeats across thousands of regulations - from light bulbs to food additives. Power flows upward, citizen participation downward. Democratic deficits grow: unelected commissioners wield immense influence, while national parliaments lose veto power in ever more areas.
A Philosophical Question: Roots in Elite Power Plays?A Philosophical Question: Roots in Elite Power Plays?
Is the modern EU perhaps more the result of Machiavellian pragmatism, Hobbesian central authority, and Kalergi-inspired pan-European visions?
Machiavelli taught that power is maintained through cunning and control beneath a veil of virtue. Hobbes argued for a Leviathan - absolute sovereign - to prevent chaos. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, father of the Pan-Europa movement, dreamed of a united continent led by a spiritual elite, with some interpretations seeing cultural homogenization as inevitable.
Whether deliberate grand design or gradual drift, the outcome is similar: incremental transfer of sovereignty from nations (and individuals) to supranational institutions. The "ever closer union" becomes less about voluntary cooperation and more about irreversible central control.
These Times: Digital Centralization on the HorizonThese Times: Digital Centralization on the Horizon
As of late 2025, the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI) framework is advancing rapidly. Member states must offer wallets by the end of 2026 – voluntary for citizens, but mandatory for governments and soon many private services. A single digital container for ID, licenses, diplomas, potentially everything.
Simultaneously, the ECB has moved the Digital Euro into its next phase after completing preparation in October 2025. Holding limits, programmability, and full transparency are on the table – a CBDC designed to "complement" cash while enabling unprecedented monetary oversight.
In an age of eroding privacy, this feels less like Enlightenment liberty and more like Bentham's Panopticon digitized.
Bitcoin: The Philosophical Return to SovereigntyBitcoin: The Philosophical Return to Sovereignty
Bitcoin is not merely technology – it is applied philosophy.
Born from cypherpunk ideals (separation of money and state, as Timothy May and Wei Dai envisioned), it realizes Enlightenment principles in code:
- Individual Sovereignty — "Not your keys, not your coins" is the purest expression of self-ownership. You alone control your wealth – no intermediary, no permission, no revocation. This revives Lockean property rights in the digital realm: your labor, your fruits, your keys.
- True Subsidiarity — Decisions are distributed across thousands of nodes worldwide. No central authority can alter the rules unilaterally. Consensus emerges organically, power stays as close to the individual as possible.
- Resistance to Leviathan — Fixed supply defies inflationary central planning. Censorship resistance protects free exchange across borders. Pseudonymity shields privacy without anonymity's abuses.
- Voluntary Cooperation — Nations, communities, individuals opt in. No coercion, no "ever closer union" by treaty creep.
In this era of CBDCs and digital IDs, Bitcoin offers a path back: from centralized control to sovereign individuals forming voluntary networks. It is hyper-European – embodying the continent's best traditions of liberty, diversity, and checks on power – while the EU drifts toward something else.
Bitcoin does not ask permission. It verifies. It empowers the individual against institutions. In doing so, it may yet revive the true European idea: free people, freely associating, sovereign in their persons and property.
EchoEcho
Is the original European dream still alive – or has Bitcoin become its truest guardian?
Zap if you hold your own keys and believe in individual sovereignty.
Share your thoughts: Can the EU return to subsidiarity, or is decentralization the only way forward?
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