History Main / BreadAndCircuses

''' No Real Life Examples besides the TropeNamer, please.'''

-->-- '''Machiavelli'''

* In ''{{The Order of the Stick}}'', Celia [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0619.html invokes]] the second reason for why Halley shouldn't kill the head of the thieves guild: the SuccessionCrisis would harm people, and give the MOB a chance to get into the city.

* In ''GirlGenius'', one of the Baron's soldiers [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090116 asks another whether the Baron sent soldiers]]. He had, in fact, sent barrels of booze. Besides the good will, those drunk on that would make no trouble.

Evil governments are usually depicted as rabbles of power (and money) grubbing, backstabbing despots who each want to cut themselves the largest piece of the pie before it rots completely- at the expense of the Joes and Janes in the slums. When a revolutionary hero rises from the dregs and sets everything in its proper place, everyone's happy and all ends well.

Sometimes, however, the evils of such a government (whatever they may be) may not actually filter down to lower levels of society. Perhaps they realize that a happy population is usually a supportive one, or maybe they just aren't ''that'' despotic in most of the more utilitarian areas of government. The workers all get paid, everyone has enough to eat and {{the trains run on time}}. And it's not a LotusEaterMachine or an especially efficient PropagandaMachine; the stuff is real. As a consequence, as long as the people are contented, who's going to care about petty things like restrictions of basic freedom, environmental destruction, WMD research or random abductions...

This usually creates conflict for a hero who sees the evil of those in power because as far as the neighbors are concerned, the hero is simply a rebel or a troublemaker out to ruin their (relatively) happy life- or worse, submerge them in fire and brimstone. Too much focus on the contentment of the people may also lessen audience sympathy for the hero; sometimes, this is even the correct thing, because the hero really will cause more trouble than he fixes.

There are three possible reasons for this conflict:

** The villains at the top realize the dangers of a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and attempt to "buy over" the people in the most effective way possible- by improving their quality of life. The LowestCommonDenominator is willing to cling to this promise at all cost.

** Simply put, there is peace in a sense and there is enough food to keep everyone alive. If the government is toppled chaos will ensue and nobody wants that, even if things will eventually become better.

** Sure, the people in charge are bad enough, but look at all the others lurking out there waiting for the chance to take over -- or worse, stage a civil war over who gets to take over in the EvilPowerVacuum, with attendant cross-fire. NO THANKS.

If TheHero is forming LaResistance or fighting in it, he regards the first as manipulation, and the second and third as wrong, order could be created. If, on the other hand, he is not trying to bring down the government and this issue comes up, often enough he offers these reasons himself. Indeed, this trope may slide insensibly into ReasonableAuthorityFigure, as the repressive measures are deployed against real threats -- particularly if HobbesWasRight.

The nastier sorts provided BloodSport, or even GladiatorGames, for the amusement, and the general population, of course, ''knows'' this.

* In the film ''Pan's Labyrinth'' the Spanish fascist government of Franco is shown issuing bread rations to the starving peasants who remain loyal to the regime. It should be noted this was pretty much dead on accurate; to help deal with the fairly popular Republicans, and to a lesser extent the communists, Franco's government used food rations as a way to gain public support.

* ''BraveNewWorld'' by Aldous Huxley.

* Like most other instances of {{Truth in Television}}, this shows up in TerryPratchett's ''{{Discworld}}''.
** The Patrician runs Ankh-Morpork well, so most of his people don't question all the shady activities involved in the running. [[spoiler:Except the mimes.]] So far he's been reinstated after every deposition. Although he has been described as Machiavellian (for a given level of Machiavelli, anyway), unlike the quote above he does not fortify himself through being loved (in fact most either dislike or are indifferent to him), but by being ''necessary'', and better than any alternative.
*** Machiavellian? "Compared to the Patrician, Machiavelli could not have run a whelk stall."
*** Said "given level of Machiavelli" is approximately [[MemeticMutation 9001]]%.

* While the ''StarTrek'' episode of the same name did not explicitly show how the government of Roma ran the planet, the statements of its being identical to ancient Rome [[spoiler:apart from the automatic weapons]] imply that this trope was played straight as in RealLife history.

* The Imperium from ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' may be violent, discriminatory, oppressive and full of incompetent governors, but nearly every other option, except, perhaps for the Tau (and it's already known they are not that good), is the same as a death sentence by torture and slave work, literally.
** As of the 5e Rulebook, living on a "Civilized World" in the Imperium is a sentence to eventual death by 20/7 slave labour, with the chance of also having your remains turned into the shell for a skull probe. The Imperium does not really fit under Bread and Circuses because the population is controlled by fear and brute force (Inquisition, Arbites, etc.).

** And [[spoiler:now he has decided to [[TheAtoner make things better than his father did]]]].

* Tolbi in ''GoldenSun''. Sure, the Emperor Babi has kidnapped a holy child to force her hometown to build him a lighthouse, and he wants to live forever, and crushes free speech, but he also provides an Annual Gladiatorial festival, and the Tolbians are some of the richest people in the world, and support their Emperor to the fullest.

*** I don't remember Babi ever doing anything to "''crush free speech''" in the games.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* As mentioned above, the TropeNamer was AncientRome, where the poor would receive free wheat and have gladiatorial shows staged for them to keep them happy. Although it's often said that "the Emperor" handed out the bread (or wheat) to placate his subjects, the practice predates the foundation of the Empire by ''centuries'' and the food was rarely if ever actually handed out by the Emperor in person.
** Depicted in ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'' (see above).
** Though if you did live in Italy where they gave out bread you likely would always support the empire it was the conquered provinces that got mistreated.
* This is exactly what happened in Stalinist Russia. (Stalin himself is said to have said "People with full bellies don't make revolutions." Quite the cheek really.) Small surprise that many older Russians kinda miss him now that one of the country's big exports is organized crime... Of course, that's older Russians. Under Stalin, there were a lot of Russians who never got the chance to become old.
** Happened in the 3rd Reich as well (albeit far less people wanted Hitler back). And it wasn't only that people did not care about the jews getting deported or worked to death, several labor camps were renamed to they would not be connected to the cities they were near to for the sole reason that no one should connect the jews there with the city.
* It happens in many modern sub-developed countries, even in democratic settings. It explains how it's so much difficult to combat corruption, as people are too distracted with television shows, samba and soccer... (Yes, I'm talking about ''you'', Brazil.)
** In Brazil, the Presidential elections are run at the same years that the World Cup are. The municipal elections are run in the same years that the Olympics are.
** Several "provisional acts" that increases general taxes are run during the World Cup. Also, if a corrupt politician with great influence needs to face a trial, it will be during the World Cup or while the media focus in a children's murder or pedophile trial. While the population go nuts over the killer, the politician gets a free "Innocent" verdict.
** Carnaval and our (numerous) holidays are also the days of choice for the above-cited [[UpToEleven "provisional acts"]], which serve to further increase politicians' pay checks and job benefits.
* This showed up in both the French and Russian Revolutions. People could deal with tyrannical absolute monarchs, but once people in the capital ran out of food the old regime was out in a matter of weeks.
** Not really, the pressure had been building up for a long time, the starvation just pushed the revolutions over the edge. Subverted in the French revolution where the first seeds of the revolution were planted by aristocrats.
* In ''The Bottom Billion'' Collier says this is much more likely to take place when the evil dictator is in a stable position. If he expects to rule for a long time and to pass the country on to his sons (even nowadays) then it is in his interests to live the good life in a sustainable fashion and to provide a good economy. When revolutionaries take over and realize that they can themselves be revolted against, they simply asset strip the country as quickly as possible and aim to retire on the proceeds of their Swiss bank accounts.
** I would say that North Korea subverts this one, rather horribly... Whatever you can say about the economy in North Korea, it is anything but "good".
*** Well, people don't rebel when they are so starved to the point that a bag of Tostitos can be considered luxurious.
* A few cynics say this trope (along with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO COINTELPRO]]) was used to curb the civil rights/black power and feminist movements.
* Some see the "{{And the Fandom Rejoiced}} trope as this for rabid fanbases. Distracting them from other things that may or may not be wrong with the project, whatever it happens to be.
* This is probably the reason why Marx's prediction of the proletariat starting a revolution didn't happen in most countries. As industrialization boosted the economy, general standard of living improved notably and workers became far less inclined to take up arms, despite the fact that most of the social problems still existed.
* It might be better to ponder a little while if this trope applies to your country as well, even if you're not from Brazil or other such country. Have you noticed how European, American and Canadian people have less and less interest in what the politicians are actually doing? Fewer and fewer people vote, corruption is often shrugged off as an inevitable evil... But at least we have the TV and the Internet, right? And at least we're doing better than those [[BananaRepublic poor people in Africa]] so what are we complaining about?
* [[YourMileAgeMayVary Arguably]], the Chinese development makes this an implicit part of the social contract: The Chinese Communist Party has brought high and steady levels of development into the country and eased restrictions on civil rights that are not politicised. In return, they expect political obedience or, at least, non-involvement. The growing middle Chinese middle and upper classes have (mostly) complied.
* Hamas spends a majority of their funds on social development, the rest are spent on bombs.
* Definitely the case of [[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]], but Singapore. The country is essentially one-party, and recently, to keep it that way, the government literally gives out money to people over the age of 21 (i.e. voting age) during election sessions. Towns and areas that voted for the ruling party also gets the lion's share of infrastructure and development - the few Opposition towns are notorious for being hard to navigate, and this is a country where the buses go literally everywhere. At the same time, the Opposition leader has been forced into bankruptcy twice now, and the media - which is literally and openly censored by the government - paints him as a madman. And that's just the political side.
** I would say it's a [[JustifiedTrope Justified Trope]] though. Or at least, an example of [[TropesAreNotBad Tropes Are Not Bad]]. The reason why most people in the country doesn't do anything is because it's one of the most secure and safe places in the world. We barely felt the recent economy crash, the unemployment rate is very low, crime rate is so negligible that a man nearly got beaten to death on the streets and no one did anything because "things like that don't happen here, so it must be a joke", and murders make the headlines. Oh, and there's no drugs. Ever. Because drug smuggling carries ''the death penalty''.
** It's not for nothing that WilliamGibson, in [[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/gibson.html a famous piece]] for ''Wired'', called Singapore "[[DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]] with the death penalty."
* The 2010/2011 overthrow of the Tunisian and Egyptian governments are, at least in part, due to massive rises in the prices wheat and bread. Ironically, the Egyptian government put in place measures to ensure the poorest families would still be able to afford bread - leaving the middle classes to foot the bill and then riot about it.
* The current situation in Malaysia.
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* A variation of this trope is present in ''TheMatrix'' trilogy. The Matrix itself is a construct designed by the Machines to keep the human population unaware of its role as an energy source for the Machines themselves.
** Smith claims that the first incarnation of the Matrix took it further and was a complete paradise, but it was so perfect human minds couldn't accept it as real.
** One may call the status quo at the beginning of the first part as symbiosis.

* The current, past and future status quo in all human society.

->''Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: [[TropeNamer bread and circuses]].''
-->-- '''{{Juvenal}}''', Satire 10.77-81

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** I would say it's a [[JustifiedTrope Justified Trope]] though. Or at least, an example of [[TropesAreNotBad Tropes Are Not Bad]]. The reason why most people in the country doesn't do anything is because it's one of the most secure and safe places in the world. We barely felt the recent economy crash, the unemployment rate is very low, crime rate is so negligible that a man nearly got beaten to death on the streets and no one did anything because "things like that don't happen here, so it must be a joke", and murders make the headlines. Oh, and there's no drugs. Ever. Because drug smuggling carries a DEATH PENALTY.

* The Party in ''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' goes much easier on the proles than it does on Party members.

* The government of the country of [[MeaningfulName Panem]] (from "panem et circenses", see above) in TheHungerGames keeps the people appeased (well, keeps the people in the Capitol entertained and everyone else under their thumb) with the titular Hunger Games, in which 24 children are made to [[DeadlyGame battle to the death every year.]]

** It works so well in America that campaigns can still stir populist sentiments in the ever-growing lower class, promising nothing but intangibles, then silently wage class warfare through acts of legislature.

* ''{{Wall-E}}'' is a subversion in that they've been living this way for so long they've actually gotten bored with all this.

* Definitely the case of [[YourMileageMightVary YMMV]], but Singapore. The country is essentially one-party, and recently, to keep it that way, the government literally gives out money to people over the age of 21 (i.e. voting age) during election sessions. Towns and areas that voted for the ruling party also gets the lion's share of infrastructure and development - the few Opposition towns are notorious for being hard to navigate, and this is a country where the buses go literally everywhere. At the same time, the Opposition leader has been forced into bankruptcy twice now, and the media - which is literally and openly censored by the government - paints him as a madman. And let's not get into the arts.
** I would say it's a [[JustifiedTrope Justified Trope]], though. The reason why most people in the country doesn't do anything is because it's one of the most secure and safe places in the world. We barely felt the recent economy crash, the unemployment rate is very low, crime rate is so negligent that a man nearly got beaten to death on the streets and no one did anything because "things like that don't happen here, so it must be a joke", and murders make the headlines. Oh, and there's no drugs. Ever. Because drug smuggling carries a DEATH PENALTY.