The crux of the legitimacy problem

By Dave Anderson:

The crux of any polity's legitimacy problem is the inability to deliver on the social contract.  In Iraq, that is the inability to provide non-sectarian security.  In China, losing the mandate of heaven resulted from increased corruption in the past, and decreased economic growth today or in the near future.  In the Soviet Bloc, it was the elites living like Westerners while shoveling crap down the throats of the masses.  In modern capitalitist-democracies, it is the the failure to provide for increased living standards for most of the population.

John Robb captures the problem well:

• Median male incomes today are the same as they
  were in 1974 in the US (and likely all over the western world).  No
  progress has been made despite a doubling of productivity and massive
  top line GDP growth. Worse, given that female incomes aren't on par
  with male incomes yet, the typical American family makes much less per
  hour worked than in 1974.


• All of the requirements for entry into the middle class are now
  private expenses.  From health care to a college education, if you
  can't afford the minimum (let alone high quality versions), you aren't
  allowed entry.  Worse, those expenses are spiraling out of control at
  rates many times the rate of inflation.  Nothing is being done to address this.