Before the game starts there was a conflict between kingdoms, and Ivalice (the kingdom where the game takes place) raised a large army of commoners to help fight. The war ends in a bloody stalemate, and the commoners are all sent home with no money to rebuild their homeland. A solid core of that army raises up in rebellion against the nobility that used them and then threw them away, but are ultimately crushed.
The old king dies, leaving behind two potential heirs - a late-teens daughter (who may or may not even be related to him by blood) and an infant son (who, hilariously, has the same caveat). Two factions of nobles spring up, each plotting to manipulate one of the heirs to put themselves in absolute power. A civil war breaks out, further worsening conditions for the common folk (who are still trying to recover from that prior-events foreign war - that ended like 2 years before the civil war starts). The heirs themselves are puppets with no real power over either their own lives or the fate of the kingdom.
The ultimate indictment of the monarchy is Delita, childhood friend of the main character and a commoner. After watching his sister die on the orders of the nobility, Delita wheels, deals, and backstabs his way into a position of power in the faction controlling the princess, kills the nobles in the hierarchy above him, wins the war after all of the leadership of the other faction dies, marries the princess, is crowned king, and then murders his queen shortly thereafter. He's a king with absolutely no royal blood, with no redeeming qualities besides ambition, who goes so far as to manipulate his best friend to further his own aims. The game ends before you can see any of what he does as king, and you're just kind of left to imagine how much worse things can get.
---
Besides, marijuana is far more harmful than steroids. - BlitzBomb I headbang to Bruckner.