the.com/legitimacy
Power everyone obeys without being told to at gunpoint.
means The quality of being accepted as rightful or lawful, so authority works through consent rather than force.
from From Latin 'legitimus' meaning lawful, itself from 'lex,' 'legis' — law. It entered English through legal and political Latin, originally in debates over rightful succession to a throne, before widening to cover any authority, government, or claim people accept as rightfully exercised rather than merely imposed.
- weber's take
- rests on tradition, charisma, or legal-rational authority
- fragile asset
- easy to lose, brutal to rebuild
- not the same as
- legality — laws can be legitimate yet unjust
- self-fulfilling
- believed widely enough, it becomes true