Video game entertainment. TV. Propaganda. No starvation, even a luxurious surplus for many of the people. You don't riot because you have a good life.

In antiquity, you were living with the constant risk of a bad harvest. The only contact you have with your rulers is them coming occasionally to take away the small surplus that you have, and then some. Sometimes they would even come for you yourself, dragging you off to some war in a faraway land that you have no interest in, or even knew that existed.