State intervention to secure legitimation generates an ever-deepening need for more legitimation

Evidence

Following the undermining of traditional forms of legitimation, the ground was now also being swept away from under bourgeois ideologies as well, while the extent and complexity of the subsystems of purposive activity' were increasing. The interventionist state now sought to satisfy its need for legitimation through a substitute programme’by sustaining a system that offered social security and upward mobility in proportion to achievement. In order to be able to ensure this, and thus assure the loyalty of the masses to the capitalist form of society, considerable scope was required for manipulation through state intervention, extending deep into social and private life. This, in its turn, increased the state’s need for legitimation all the more. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2697

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A self-reinforcing legitimation spiral: the substitute programme demands manipulation that itself demands more legitimation — a genuinely dense systemic mechanism rather than a surface-level point.
• XREF: connects to: Legitimating myths trap power-holders in chains of forced consistency — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 671; Law-and-order ideology legitimizes state intervention in crises; States continuously recraft mythologies to legitimize their power (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Legitimating myths trap power-holders in chains of forced consistency #corroborates (0.90) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 671
• Law-and-order ideology legitimizes state intervention in crises #exemplifies (0.80)
• States continuously recraft mythologies to legitimize their power #corroborates (0.78)