Praxeological Theory of Legitimacy

This article proposes a praxeological reinterpretation of political legitimacy, moving beyond the static conceptions of legal positivism and classical contractualism. Based on the axiom of human action and the inalienability of the ontological will, legitimacy is reconceptualised as ‘dynamic moral capital’: an intangible asset yielded by the individual—the bare owner—to the State on a temporary and conditional basis, operating under the legal concept of usufruct. The analysis demonstrates that political power operates through the issuance of a “narrative debt”, the coercive and centralised realisation of which is technically insolvent given the theoretical impossibility of economic calculation in the public sector. This chronic insolvency leads to inescapable cycles of institutional entropy, where the collapse of the prevailing order is precipitated by the convergence of objective windows of crisis with the actions of political entrepreneurs, who act as coordinating agents offering alternatives perceived as solvent. Finally, in the face of the State’s hermeneutic monopoly and the legislative usurpation of authentic law, a meta-legal framework based on polycentric governance is proposed. This order of free political usufruct, anchored in private property, contractual responsibility and the right of exit or secession, aligns institutional incentives with spontaneous social coordination.