Lockean political legitimacy is a demanding ongoing project, not an achievable steady state

Evidence

Locke’s conception of political legitimacy is a remarkably optimistic picture. But its optimism is conditional and in no sense absurd. For, unlike the anarchist view or the Marxist vision of the socialist or communist community, it is a picture of a continuing and inordinately demanding collective human project. It is not a picture of a State of affairs that is effortlessly and routinely available at any stage of history, still less of one which depends on something other than myriads of intended and free actions. It is a goal at which to aim, not a destination at which it is reasonable to expect ever fully to arrive, let alone to remain forever. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1233

Categorization

• DEFINE: Characterizes Lockean legitimacy as process-oriented (‘goal at which to aim’) — central to the reader’s trust-as-dynamic-construction thesis.
• XREF: connects to: Struggles for political progress are never definitively won. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 536