Legitimacy, in simple terms, is consensus, and consensus is the yes/no algorithm weighted by each person's energy level.

For example, those who control the military and large capitalists have greater weight, but if you only focus on these major nodes and completely ignore retail investors, if they collectively abandon your public chain, you will also lose legitimacy.

Therefore, building legitimacy means you hope to have support from over 51% of the computing power; often, 51% is not enough because there may be external enemies, which requires additional computing power to fend off those external threats.

An expanding collective can satisfy both weighted nodes and retail investors. For instance, the Khuraltai assembly in Mongolia allowed Mongolian warriors to gain excess wealth and status through warfare. Another dimension of expansion is colonization, such as that of Spain and Britain. The final dimension is progress, like the Four Modernizations.

An expanding collective, whether from a military perspective, a colonial perspective, or a productivity advancement perspective, finds it relatively easy to build legitimacy because you have external energy input that can satisfy well beyond 51% of the computing power.

Why did the Ming dynasty lose legitimacy? The scholar-official class abandoned the Ming and colluded with the Manchus, while retail investors were left in dire straits, leading to rebellions (like that of Li Zicheng). Why did the scholar-officials betray? It was not because they were not wealthy enough, but because their interests became rigid; if you touched their interests (like mining taxes or commercial taxes), you would be seen as their enemy.

Why was Yongzheng able to manage the scholar-officials and achieve "the integration of officials and gentry in tax collection"? Because at that time, the military had not yet become corrupt, and the power was still in the hands of the emperor. In contrast, the Ming army had already colluded with the scholar-officials.

Thus, empires often need to expand; the period of expansion is relatively easy to manage. However, expansion always has boundaries, which are determined by marginal profits. The marginal cost is the cost of management and military defense (such as garrisoning troops or building the Great Wall), while the benefits are determined by production methods and geography. Therefore, the expansion boundary of agrarian civilizations generally reaches the Hu-Yong line, where agriculture east of the Hu-Yong line yields positive returns, and establishing defenses at the Hu-Yong line is relatively convenient.

What is the expansion boundary of industrial civilization? The British Empire is a typical case. The United States, on the other hand, further sells consensus on top of industry (selling water, iPhones, Nike, and dollars). Let's temporarily call it the consensus economy.

The consensus economy maximizes profit margins (with a dollar gross margin of 99.99%) but increases defensive costs.

Now, it is a contest between the industrial civilization of the East and the consensus civilization of the West. The difference is that the West has approximately reached its expansion boundary, while the East has just begun.

The Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the Afghanistan war, when viewed together, indicate that the West has reached its expansion boundary.

Is retreating an option? Yes, but retreating requires strict management of node consensus.

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