Full legislative power couples formulated directives with execution, verification, and mass consent

Evidence

In general, it may be said that the distinction between ordinary men and others who are more specifically legislators is provided by the fact that this second group not only formulates directives which will become a norm of conduct for the others, but at the same time creates the instruments by means of which the directives themselves will be “imposed”, and by means of which it will verify their execution. Of this second group, the greatest legislative power belongs to the State personnel (elected and career officials), who have at their disposal the legal coercive powers of the State. But this does not mean that the leaders of “private” organisms and organisations do not have coercive sanctions at their disposal too, ranging even up to the death penalty. The maximum of legislative capacity can be inferred when a perfect formulation of directives is matched by a perfect arrangement of the organisms of execution and verification, and by a perfect preparation of the “spontaneous” consent of the masses who must “live” those directives, modifying their own habits, their own will, their own convictions to conform with those directives and with the objectives which they propose to achieve. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 991

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the maximum degree of legislative capacity as the union of directive formulation with enforcement organs and spontaneous consent of the governed.
• XREF: Directly prefigures the hegemonic coupling of coercion and consent that later readings will use to analyze how exclusionary norms get internalized.