The End of the Mob?

When I see people that is not only passive but actively against social activism, people that believe that individualist ethics is not only necessary but sufficient… Then I try to remember the social achievements of the XIXth and XXth centuries:  constitutions, democracy (once limited and eventually universal), education, etc. Could have been all these achieved without massive mobilization or social democratic reform? Are these people totally unaware of history?… or is it something else? On the one hand are the classic libertarians. They see the State with the same eye that the protestant saw the big fat Vatican church. They see socialists like catholics asking for the mercy of god… well, demanding it, which seems equally gratuitous not to mention unfeasible. But protestants quickly understood the difference between being fat and big: The empire was big, but healthy. In fact, it was so light that as it grew, they referred to it as the expansion of freedom and democracy. What made it healthy was that it truly payoff for those committed to ethical excellence. Being born in England or Northern Europe provided some help, nevertheless Japanese didn't complained about it. 

On the other hand is the idea that most major social achievements have already been done, and the only thing that is left is the fine tuning of policies which are not to be craft by demagogic politics but by expert committees. The rules of the game are practically settled, now we can just focus on playing as individuals. If there's still some residual systematic bias is to be corrected by expert committees, not by the mob whose role was only foundational.

 If the big complex machine doesn't work, lets make it smaller and simpler. Then even if it has problems, it will not affect us as much. Lets run on already reliable machines. Are these reliable machines simple? were they always working or was there a path of trial and error to achieve their level of complexity and reliability?