Can you? I would wager that many long-lived institutions had no particular intention to be long-lived; I could easily believe that it's actually a negative correlation (just as companies that grow big aren't necessarily those that were aiming to grow big).
This is what I was thinking. Institutions that last a long time are those that are effective in accomplishing their mission and passing knowledge down from generation to generation (which they very well might do simply to be effective), and this doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with their intentions regarding longevity.
I believe I read somewhere that when the framers wrote the US constitution they expected it would have to be rewritten every generation or so. I wouldn't exactly call the US gov a long term organization at this point, but if that's true (I admit I'm struggling to find a source right now, so correct me if I'm wrong) then the current form of the US government does seem to have survived beyond it's original intent.
