Persistence Before Advantage: Generative Viability and the Limits of Path Dependence

Persistence is widely treated as a self-evident background condition in social theory. Across accounts of path dependence and institutional stability, systems are assumed to endure long enough for trajectories to form and advantages to accumulate, leaving persistence inferred retrospectively from survival. This paper challenges that ordering by treating persistence as a generative threshold rather than an outcome. It argues that path-dependent explanations operate downstream of continuity and therefore cannot account for how systems remain intact under sustained pressure. To address this blind spot, the paper introduces the concept of a rhythmic viability zone (RVZ), defined as a bounded range of conditions under which generative continuity can be maintained without collapse. RVZ does not describe a mechanism or outcome, but specifies whether systems remain capable of absorbing pressure and regulating disruption over time. The paper reorders the analytical sequence through which persistence, advantage, and historical explanation are theorized.