Capital · 2026
KAPITAL
Private equity, permanent capital, value creation in the German Mittelstand.
ISBN 978-3-912703-27-6 · First edition
Essays from this book
2026-04-28
Sicherheitsroboter aus Baden-Württemberg – Lösung für den Fachkräftemangel?
Ein Start-up aus Filderstadt bei Stuttgart hat einen Sicherheitsroboter entwickelt, der Firmengelände, Krankenhäuser und öffentliche Gebäude autonom überwachen kann. SWR1-Reporterin Geli Hensoldt hat sich den Prototypen angeschaut und berichtet, wie die Technologie den wachsenden Bedarf an Sicherheitspersonal in Deutschland abfedern soll. Read more
2026-04-25
Texas, February 2021: Anatomy of an Energy Shock and the Fragility of Modern States
A reflective essay on the Texas blackout of February 2021, ERCOT isolation, grid fragility, and why the most developed economies are paradoxically the most exposed to sudden energy shocks.
2026-04-25
Taiwan: 98% Import Dependence and the Silicon Deterrent
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on Taiwan as the most extreme case of modern energy vulnerability, and on TSMC’s 90% share of advanced chips as an implicit, fragile security guarantee within the emerging doctrine of mutual-dependence deterrence.
2026-04-25
SWIFT, Dollar and Clearing: The Invisible Financial Architecture of Energy Policy
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on how SWIFT sanctions, dollar invoicing and correspondent banking form the real chokepoints of energy policy, and why CIPS and SPFS mark the slow beginning of a multi-rail financial order.
2026-04-25
Strategic Dependence: When Efficiency Turns Into Coercibility
An editorial essay from the book SANKTIONIERT by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on strategic dependence, energy security, and the three variables that separate rational trade from structural coercibility: substitutability, time horizon, and political leverage.
2026-04-25
From Standard Oil to OPEC+: The Long History of Organised Market Power
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) tracing the lineage of organised market power in oil, from Rockefeller’s Standard Oil through the Seven Sisters to the 1960 Baghdad founding of OPEC, the 1973 embargo, and the October 2022 two-million-barrel cut.
2026-04-25
Resilience Instead of Autarky: A Framework for Decision-Makers of the 2020s
An essayistic reading of SANKTIONIERT that contrasts the fantasy of energy autarky with the discipline of resilience, and offers Mittelstand owners and institutional investors a concrete framework for auditing concentration, substitutability and political leverage.
2026-04-25
The Mossadegh Moment: How Interest Politics Produces Narratives That Endure
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on the 1951 Iranian oil nationalisation and the 1953 coup, read as the archetypal case of interest politics producing the ideological resistance it later confronts.
2026-04-25
Japan’s Double Dilemma: Alliance Loyalty, Sakhalin-2 and the Grammar of Exceptions
Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) examines Tokyo’s dual strategy after February 2022: joining the Western sanction regime while retaining Sakhalin-2 LNG. The essay reads selective compliance not as moral failure but as a structural feature of modern sanction architectures.
2026-04-25
Interests Before Narratives: Why Geopolitics Is Decided Beyond Ideology
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on why the grammar of foreign policy is written in interests, not in values, and why European allocators who mistake moral framing for sanction logic will misread the energy order that is emerging.
2026-04-25
The Illusion of the Free Energy Market: How Politics Really Sets Prices and Flows
Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) dismantles the fiction of a neutral energy market, examining OPEC+ quota decisions, the G7 price cap on Russian oil, and US strategic reserve releases as evidence that infrastructure, licensing, and clearing form the genuine frame of price formation.
2026-04-25
Fragmentation Instead of Globalisation: How Blocs and Parallel Systems Emerge
An essay drawn from SANKTIONIERT by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on the quiet end of the 1990s free-trade model, the rise of a multi-bloc order under sanction pressure, and what it means for European capital allocation in a permanently politicised trade regime.
2026-04-25
Energy as Power: Why Kilowatt-Hours Form the Operating System of the World Order
An essayistic reading of Dr. Raphael Nagel’s SANKTIONIERT, arguing that energy is not a commodity but the operative form of power, and that the three pillars of any political order rest on it.
2026-04-24
Wasted Human Capital: Education, Health and the Silent Devaluation of a Nation
An essay on the paradox of financial abundance and educational fragility in Equatorial Guinea, drawing on Dr. Raphael Nagel’s analysis of human capital, household incentives and the need to raise social spending from roughly two percent of GDP toward peer benchmarks.
2026-04-24
Singapore as Method, Not Model: Principles Over Imitation
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on why the Singapore reference in Guinea Ecuatorial 2040 is analytical rather than aspirational, and what transferable principles emerge when imitation is replaced by method.
2026-04-24
Scenarios 2035,2040: Equatorial Guinea’s Fork in the Road
An essayistic reading of the 2035,2040 scenarios drawn from Dr. Raphael Nagel’s book on Equatorial Guinea, examining the cost of delay and the architecture of a possible second economic independence.
2026-04-24
From Paper to Practice: A 2026,2035 Roadmap for Equatorial Guinea
An editorial essay drawn from Dr. Raphael Nagel’s Guinea Ecuatorial 2040, examining how Chapter 8’s implementation logic translates diagnosis into a sequenced, verifiable reform roadmap for Equatorial Guinea between 2026 and 2035.
2026-04-24
Regional Logistics and CEMAC Integration: Equatorial Guinea as a Transit Hub
An editorial essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on how corridor logistics, customs modernisation and legal certainty could convert Equatorial Guinea’s geography into a durable source of non-oil revenue within CEMAC and the wider Gulf of Guinea.
2026-04-24
Reform Coalitions and Political Succession in Equatorial Guinea
An essay by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on how reform coalitions and political succession form the quiet architecture of resilience in Equatorial Guinea’s transition beyond the oil model.
2026-04-24
The Mirage of Upper-Middle Income: Statistics Versus Daily Life in Equatorial Guinea
An essay on the arithmetic that made Equatorial Guinea appear wealthy on paper, the concessional doors that closed as a result, and the slow erosion of public trust in macroeconomic figures that no longer describe ordinary life.
2026-04-24
Institutional Discipline: Fiscal Transparency and the Singapore Test
An essayistic reading of fiscal transparency, stabilisation mechanisms and procurement competition as the verifiable core of Equatorial Guinea’s second economic independence, drawn from the analytical framework of Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.).
2026-04-24
Import Dependency and Food Security: The Vulnerable Base of Everyday Economics
An essayistic reading of the food import dependency that shapes Equatorial Guinea’s daily life, drawn from Dr. Raphael Nagel’s Guinea Ecuatorial 2040, examining how distant shocks travel into local kitchens and why balance of trade and basic access must be thought together.
2026-04-24
Geopolitics and Strategic Alliances: Room to Manoeuvre on a Narrow Chessboard
An editorial reflection by Dr. Raphael Nagel (LL.M.) on how small resource-dependent states in Africa can design selective, issue-based alliances toward 2035 without mistaking a change of patrons for genuine diversification.
2026-04-24
Beyond Oil: Viable Sectors for a Diversified Equatorial Guinean Economy
An editorial reading of Dr. Raphael Nagel’s Guinea Ecuatorial 2040, examining which productive sectors can realistically carry the weight of diversification over the next decade and what enabling conditions they require.