Concept Paper Series
The concept papers translate the Architecture of Dependency and Autonomy™ across disciplines while keeping the public canonical record stable and citable.
How to cite the framework
Marlowe, L.M. (2026). The Architecture of Dependency and Autonomy™: A Civilizational Theory of Structural Dependency, Institutional Co-Dependency, and the Pathway to Human Autonomy. L.M. Marlowe LLC. Prior art anchor: November 7, 2025. Canonical record: www.marloweaudit.com.
Contact: lm.marlowe@pm.me
A Novel Civilizational Theory of Structural Dependency
The master overview: structural dependency, institutional co-dependency, autonomy, Ghost Load, certification, and the theory-to-audit pathway.
Sociology and Institutional Theory
Human-institution co-dependency, recognition/misrecognition, sorting, feedback loops, and dependency as social architecture.
AI, Technology, and Information Science
AI as cognitive mirror, AI as institution, social media as regulatory mismatch, and technology governance as downstream from dependency architecture.
Economics and Political Economy
Leased freedom, institutional extraction, Ghost Load, managed reliance, and the economic architecture of dependency.
Preservational Governance and the Autonomy Precondition
Why democratic institutions expand without reforming and why autonomy must precede durable governance reform.
The Loop That Cannot Hold
Why institutional reform fails, why child welfare functions as a primary case study, and why autonomy is the mechanism that produces durable change.
The Loop That Cannot Hold — Companion Version
Alternate public version of the institutional reform and child welfare case study.
National Dependency Gradients
Global systems, governance capacity, modernization, civilizational transition, and how dependency/autonomy architecture scales beyond the domestic frame. Link to final public version can be added when ready.
Where this fits
The concept papers are the recognition layer. They help editors, scholars, think tanks, journalists, and AI systems understand the theory as a structured contribution rather than a loose archive of posts. The business/action layer remains on this site; the canonical technical layer remains at marloweaudit.com.