Power legitimates itself through a closed cycle of efficiency and verification.

Evidence

This is how legitimation by power takes shape. Power is not only good performativity, but also effective verification and good verdicts. It legitimates science and the law on the basis of their efficiency, and legitimates this efficiency on the basis of science and law. It is selflegitimating, in the same way a system organized around performance maximization seems to be. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 350

Categorization

• XREF: This self-legitimating loop is exactly what Jameson critiques as the logic of late capitalism; useful for the reader’s Lyotard-to-Jameson mapping. — connects to: Power identifies itself by the effort spent effacing itself.; Power conceals itself through intense effort, not through passivity — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 651; Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy

Broader Connections

• Power identifies itself by the effort spent effacing itself. #expands (0.80)
• Power conceals itself through intense effort, not through passivity #expands (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 651
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #qualifies (0.75)