Warlords, Aristocrats, and We the People: Why You Need Legitimacy

The most powerful force in any civilization separating prosperity and success and failure is legitimacy. America has been squandering it.

There’s a scene in the movie Office Space in which Peter Gibbons is talking to a pair of management consultants called the Bobs. The Bobs are interviewing Peter as part of their investigation into coming layoffs, and instead of kissing up to impress them, Peter shocks them with an important truth: the only motivation he has to work is the fear of losing his job, and “that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”

That insight is key to understanding the most powerful force in civilization: legitimacy.

WHAT IS LEGITIMACY?

Why do people accept a position in society where they’re not on top?

Why do people choose to work grueling twelve-hours days doing something they don’t enjoy knowing a large part of what they produce will go to someone else? Why obey laws they didn’t get to make? Why volunteer for wars, risking grave injury or death, on the orders of people taking no such risk themselves? Why go to work in a cubicle when other people get to be celebrities, bosses, corporate giants, arrogant politicians, trust-fund kids, and billionaires? Why accept a humble place when others get to have everything you want but cannot have, happily carrying a load from which others benefit?

People don’t have to. They can just stop. If they truly want to, they can even grab their pitchforks and leave a trail of blood to make the point.

Accepting a role as an ordinary worker, or even a member of the solid middle class, is on its face irrational. Anyone can spend five minutes on Instagram to see other people getting a much better life. Other people fly on private planes. Other people live in bigger houses. Other people give orders while you just take them. Other people, who work no harder than you do, take home millions doing work you also would enjoy.

Why in the world does anybody put up with this?

A lot of people would tell you the answer is power and fear. People with more get to thrive because they control the power. They control the resources. They command the armies and tanks and jets. They control the police and courts of laws that force you to obey. People believe citizens put up with this irrational situation because they have no choice. That’s completely wrong.

At most, power and threats can make someone pretend to go along. You can’t get hundreds of millions of people to cooperate, work hard, and obey through violence alone. To paraphrase Peter Gibbons, your threats will only make people work just hard enough not to get hurt, put in jail, or fired. If you want your system to thrive, you need people to buy into the system. You need legitimacy.

HOW LEGITIMACY WORKS

Every society has to have a basis for legitimacy to survive. Legitimacy is the story a society tells about why things work the way they do. Philosophers say legitimacy is what gives those wielding authority the right to exercise power. I think a better way to say it is legitimacy is a collection of promises society makes to citizens.

Society asks people to fulfill certain duties, and in exchange it promises it will carry out certain responsibilities. These promises give everyone a reason to cooperate and do their part, even when it’s not in their personal interest to do so. People do it because they buy into the system. As long as the system continues to operate the way it claims, people continue to happily fulfill their obligations. If everybody does their part, no one feels taken advantage of or cheated, and everything works. If the system stops meeting those promises, however, the deal breaks and this buy-in collapses.

Every type of society has its own unique basis for legitimacy—the story it tells and the promises it makes. The bigger the promises, the better that society works. For example, a warlord rests his legitimacy on an implicit promise to maintain enough order to provide the basics of peace, prosperity, and stability in a dangerous world. He promises the strength to put down all rivals to establish basic security, so tolerating his tyranny is better than the alternative of no rule at all. As long as the warlord keeps his promises, people tolerate him, and society works. However, if the warlord fails at keeping his promises—his jurisdiction becomes dangerous, he can no longer provide basic food or housing, or rivals emerge capable of challenging him—his warlordship quickly crumbles.

An aristocracy makes bigger promises, so it produces far more prosperity and progress than a warlord ever could. An aristocracy’s legitimacy rests on a system of hereditary rule. Like the warlord, the aristocracy promises peace, security, and the basic means to live, but also rulers born and trained to rule. Rule by blood promises better rulers with a duty to look after the people, as well as an end to dangerous civil wars over power. When a warlord dies, there will always be some violent struggle as rivals seek his place; when a king dies, a legitimate heir should prevent all the kingdom’s dukes and strongmen from going to war over the crown. This reduces destructive civil wars that burn down farms, destroys crops, and get ordinary people killed.

The peasant also gets more protection from his lord under aristocracy —not just against bandits and rival kingdoms but also rival lords. This allows the peasant more security to produce, more protection to build things, and even a chance at some mobility. In some aristocracies, this promise is even built into the system itself like China’s Mandate of Heaven in which, when an Emperor fails to meet his promises, his right to rule is divinely revoked allowing a new dynasty to take his place. Aristocracy therefore generates more production, efficiency, prosperity, innovation than a warlord.

The best system of legitimacy we’ve developed is the democratic republic. A democratic-republic rests its legitimacy on the most ambitious of promises, rule by consent. The democratic republic claims citizens won’t have rulers at all, but will take part in a system of self-government in which they consent to any power wielded over them. In America, this has meant legitimacy resting on three big promises:

• America promises democracy, meaning citizens can influence and control any power affecting their life.

• America promises social equality, meaning citizens have social mobility and institutions operating with transparency. Without a fair and level playing field in which those on bottom can fairly compete to reach the top, there’s a ruling class instead of self-government. If those with power can lie or hide things from the public, the people can’t correct or control them and self-rule means nothing.

• America promises the American Dream, meaning citizens have a fair and equal opportunity to pursue their dreams however they define them. This is more than a promise of prosperity or benevolence from rulers, but that all citizens can define their dreams however they wish and pursue them without interference.

These promises give citizens a stake in society. It’s a reason to work hard, no matter where you currently are in society. It’s a reason to study and learn and participate. It’s a reason to take risks and build new companies. It’s a reason to volunteer to defend the system with your life. Most of all, it’s a reason to be content because you have a fair chance at chasing and catching your dreams This is why America is industrious, prosperous, and inventive. It’s why America is rich and powerful. It’s why America has been more successful than any other society in history. These promises lead to citizens who enthusiastically choose to do much more than what’s required.

It’s therefore in the interest of every American to keep this system working, whether you’re a leader at the top or an ordinary citizen. Every benefit those at the top enjoy depends on those in the middle and bottom buying in. That in turn depends on America keeping its promises, sustaining its legitimacy.

AMERICA IS SQUANDERING ITS LEGITIMACY

This is the source of our present national crisis. America’s legitimacy is beginning to fail because its promises are no longer being kept. Most alarming, no one in leadership seems to see, much less understand, what’s going on.

When a society loses its legitimacy, it ultimately will fail and fall. This fall won’t come all at once. It will happen gradually with small cuts as each lie is pronounced and promise isn’t kept. With each breach of faith, people will work a bit less hard, cooperate a bit less, and become a little less willing to obey. Over time, society slows down. People stop taking risks. Innovation dries up. Things stop working as well. Happy people become jaded, distrustful, and miserable. Society slowly decays and becomes weak. Finally, everyone agrees the system is unworthy and it fails. Like bankruptcy in a Hemmingway novel, it happens gradually, then suddenly.

The only antidote is to keep your promises. Legitimacy can’t be faked. You can’t trick people with clever messaging. You can’t tell people opportunities exist when they can clearly see that they do not. You can’t lie to people that things work one way when they can see they work another. You can’t intimidate or scare people into believing your false truth. The Soviet Union tried to lie and coerce its way into propping up its failing legitimacy, and all that happened was people repeated things they knew were lies. People know whether promises are kept. The only way to shore up lost legitimacy is to earn it back. You have to actually keep the promises.

In the next piece, I’ll talk more about why the promises of America aren’t being kept.

What do you think about the need for legitimacy? Join the conversation in the comments.