The differences between an archipelago and a federation—or an empire

The above paragraphs (see particularly §19.00.13) also serve to showcase the differences between an archipelago of states, such as the EU, and a federation. Within a federation, the individuality of its component parts, of the states forming it, is lost. In practical terms, names and citizenships are granted by the new, super-state and not by the individual parts. States within a federation are absorbed into a new entity, a new information platform that replaces them. In contrast, states within the EU retain their nature as information platforms for their citizens. Could archipelagos, then, constitute modern empires? The great empires of the past mostly left their component (conquered) states untouched, allowed to mind their own business as long as they complied with the empire’s authority. This may of course have been the result of expedience, because effective control by the (new) centre could not be exercised due to a lack of information processing abilities. If so, have need and opportunity led to the creation of a modern-style empire, in the form of the EU? The obvious difference (voluntary participation, rather than conquest by war) aside, the EU differs from an empire because there is no centre, there is no dominant state, there is no EU nationality coveted (or abhorred) by the nationals of its member states. In this respect the EU is unlike, for example, Imperial Rome, which privileged its citizens and granted Roman citizenship to non-Romans only as an exceptional gift. By abolishing the dominant centre (most likely as a result of Christian dogma), the EU avoids any likeness with an empire, holding the role of a precursor of things to come rather than that of an updated and modernised relic of the past.

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