Digital Technofeudalism as a Macrosocial Structure: Between Singularity and Serfdom

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive socio-philosophical analysis of the macrostructural transition from clas-sical platform capitalism to digital technofeudalism. The author explores the ontological paradox of the current historical conjuncture – the phenomenon of “bureaucratized singularity”, wherein the rapid development of sub-symbolic generative systems and AI architectures coexists with a regressive shift of social institutions to-ward quasi-medieval forms. Within the framework of a macrosociological analysis, the network is conceptual-ized as a Digital Archipelago of sovereign fortress-spheres controlled by transnational digital lords (Yandex, Sber, OpenAI, etc.) that extract platform rent from users (“digital serfs”). At the micro-level of everyday life, the article explicates the anthropological mutation of the governing apparatus – the emergence of the subject of cynical rationality (P. Sloterdijk), who utilizes the discourse of “security” to capture regulatory mechanisms and monopolize cognitive infrastructure. Through the lens of V. Flusser’s media philosophy, the article deconstructs the microphysics of subordination via “dark patterns” of UX/UI design, which leads to the expropriation of the Homo Faber’s cognitive sovereignty. As an alternative to this expropriation of subjectivity, the author proposes a three-level positive program of algorithmic resistance based on the practices of deliberate “de-immunization”, counter-functioning, and the preservation of “cognitive anomaly”.