The state's chronic budget crisis has generated a flurry of Capitol protest demonstrations, newspaper articles, manifestos and other forms of political discourse that focus on potential spending reductions.

College students who may face higher fees, the disabled whose state benefits may be reduced, health care advocates, local government officials and state worker unions are among those protesting the loudest.

While Republicans, from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger down, push spending cuts, the Legislature's dominant Democrats are staging hearings that supposedly explore the potential for making such reductions but are, in reality, framing the Democratic case for tax increases.

How this turns out - or when it does - is anyone's guess. The principal players in this year's version of the budget melodrama, in fact, can only speculate themselves on the concluding act some months hence. The only certainty is that no matter what happens this year, the fundamental gap between the state's revenues and the demands for spending will remain and another version will be played out next year.

If one ignores the overheated fiscal rhetoric of the moment and concentrates on the conflict between supply and demand, the shape of the much-larger dilemma emerges. The notion of limitless opportunity for personal growth and gratification - the driving force behind the state for a century and a half - has withered, and California has entered a new era. It may be the "era of limits" that Jerry Brown proclaimed three decades ago as he assumed the governorship, but in reality it's an era of rationing, and it extends well beyond the budget.

The interaction of population growth, cultural change and economic evolution has produced a new reality for California: Not everyone will get what he or she would regard as a fair share of the good life, at least as that term has been defined in generations past. And the political process has evolved, in turn, into a mechanism by which social goodies are apportioned.

One aspect of the state budget crisis - the escalation of fees for public services - illustrates the syndrome. With Democrats and Republicans locked into a perpetual stalemate over taxes (voters had their say this month by rejecting a union-backed ballot measure to make raising taxes easier), countless new fees have been imposed by the state, and local governments have enacted their own versions.

Going to college, using state and local parks, building a house, crossing a bridge, acquiring licenses for regulated activities - even receiving fire protection services - now carry much stiffer fees than they did just a few years ago, and many others are in the works. Every new or expanded fee prices someone out, and thus lowers demand - a form of rationing by economic status.

This isn't all bad. Fees that fairly reflect marginal costs, or pay for specialized services, relieve the burden on taxpayers. Fees, however, are just one form of rationing in a society where demand, thanks to population growth and other underlying influences, exceeds supply. Housing is a case study in the phenomenon.

With 600,000 more Californians every year, the state needs roughly 200,000 new units of housing, and that demand, rising land costs, ever-tighter state and local land-use regulations and ever-stiffer development fees put upward pressure on the market. As California's median home price approaches $400,000, only a small percentage of its families can aspire to home ownership, and many cannot even find affordable rentals.

Legislative proposals to force local governments to force developers to build more low-cost housing don't address the underlying dilemma, just as commanding employers to provide health insurance to workers doesn't affect medical economics. Indeed, politicians who would legislate more low-cost housing or medical coverage are often advocates for more costly development restrictions and medical regulations.

And so it goes, on issue after issue - health care, transportation access, water, to name but a few. The old, probably unsustainable, egalitarian ideal is dying; 21st century California is a place of more distinct socioeconomic classes, and the stark politics of rationing will be a hallmark.