Look back at our history.

A mix of tradition and indoctrination can make people accept their condition, for the major good of the society/deity.

Add to this strong punishments for those who attempt rebellion, and some poor old folk may prefer the usual, poor life to something even worse.

Fear - people who disagree with a powerful ruling class may end up losing what little they already have - maybe even their lives.

Social inertia - It was good enough for my parents and their parents before them. Why should we try to change things? It's the natural order.

Brainwashing - Our teachers and our great leader says it is so, therefore it must be so.

A talent for exploiting the system - Such people always exist. They use their wits to make deals and gather resources for themselves. Very often bribery, corruption and currying favour are involved. They are doing well and have no need to upset the apple cart.

In 1984 by George Orwell the lower class all 'approve' of the government. I think the book does a good job explaining how come. In short:

• they fear the enemy, other countries


• they fear the repercussions they face were they not to approve of their own government

A good real life example of this is North Korea where the state does exactly this. By constantly bombarding its citizens with propagenda and sending rebellious citizens to camps.

They are too hungry to worry about it

There is a term for farmers that live off what they produce, "subsistence farming". That is, if they don't have a good crop, they starve.

If you have to sweat every day to feed yourself and your family, to provide clothes and shelter, why would you have time to worry about your oppressors?

Add a village priest announcing that "the meek will inherit the Earth," and you don't have much to worry about at all.

Fear is a powerful motivator, but not just fear of government reprisal. Some people will be afraid that even if they win their rebellion, the changes put in place by the new government will be just as bad or even worse.

Look at how so many regime changes in real life have turned out; a few good examples include the French Revolution, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and the Haitian Revolution. In all of these cases, the revolutionaries got their way and things only got worse.

If the ruling class actually needs the approval of the lower classes, they are already in deep trouble.

The romantic image of the lowest classes just organizing themselves and storming the palace of the evil emperor, followed by a happy end, only exists in fantasy and in political propaganda. The lower classes cannot do that even if they wanted to, as they lack the education, the means, the connections, and the skills for that. The state can easily stop any such attempt before it grows large enough. The police can easily arrest any troublemakers before they can achieve any results. Ohh, but it did happen in real history that the people revolted and changed the government, right? How did that happen? It happened because they were allowed to do so.

The power of the ruling class is not based on the loyalty of the lowest classes. It is based on the loyalty of the class directly beneath the ruling class. The chiefs of the police forces to uphold the laws. Bureaucrats to collect the taxes. Military generals to protect from foreign threats. Banks, and the owners of lands and businesses to keep the economy up and running. Lose the loyalty of these people, and when a rival to your power appears, they will switch allegiance to him. And then they will allow the masses to revolt. There is a wise saying: it's not the people who replaced the king, the court replaced the king.

Given this, it can still have advantages to have some loyalty of the lowest classes. Not because they would revolt on their own, just to make it harder for other powerful people who want to replace you, from being able to use them.

Now let's look at the motivations of the lowest classes. Revolution is risky. You might get a better life, but you also might end up dead or in prison. So you have to weigh the risks and possible rewards.

• Stability. There may have been revolts in the past, or in neighboring countries, and you know it only resulted in chaos, and at the end, it didn't get better for the common people. A stable, powerful government is needed. Everyone knows that. There are external enemies who would conquer us if our nation gets weaker. Everyone knows that. We are important cogs in the big machine. It's the natural order of the things. Why would a different ruler be any better? - Yes, if a group which promises a utopia gets strong enough, they might instill doubts about the above values. But if such groups are allowed to grow strong enough, then you already have much bigger problems than the loyalty of the lowest classes.




• Possibility of rewards within the system. If there is even the slightest possibility of improving your condition within the system, you might hope to be able to benefit from it, instead of trying to demolish it. A slave can be manumitted for good behavior and faithful service. A simple peasant might earn the gratitude of the king by being at the right place at the right time and performing the right service. You might win the lottery. You might find some lost treasure. The probability of these things must be very low, to not upset the hierarchy too much, but if once in a while a very small number of lower class citizens are lucky enough to be able to climb one step of the ladder upwards, it might instill hope in the others that they themselves might one day become lucky enough.

All you need is a scapegoat, and almost any will do.

This answer will get politically charged if I lean on any present-day real-world examples. But pick any time or place in real human history (or present, but maybe lets shy away from that for now) and observe racism, zealotry, or just any form of tribalism altogether serve as the basis for an invented or exaggerated enemy. The systems at play can be varied: genetic, religious or moral, economic, philosophical (i.e. political models), or even geographic.

The common factor is how easily people in power can sell a message rooted in any form of tribalism, redirecting the majority of fear and consequent hatred to some external force. Even better, the oppressed will then place their faith in their real oppressors to protect them against such external threats whether completely fabricated or just exaggerated, and gladly surrender the power needed for that protection.

This answer is light on details, but mainly because you can pick almost any. A known oppressor has the benefit of familiarity and the effects of Stockholm Syndrome, while outsiders are automatically subject to rampant xenophobia.

And if some real external threat need no exaggeration, that's even better, for such are the times when super powers are born to long outlive the conditions that birthed them.

This is actually pretty much the standard condition world-wide. In many countries, such as the USA, there is a political alliance between the ultra-wealthy and the dependent poor, together pitted against the middle classes. Typically the rich and the poor agree on a few things: ever-increasing taxes levied against the working and middle classes (which include small business owners), the money going to pay for ever-growing government bureaucracies and government-connected institutions like banks (making the ultra-rich richer and more important), bureaucracies which give handouts to the dependent lower classes who are, if not grateful, at least psychologically addicted and willing to viciously fight to keep those handouts. Both groups will furiously attack and demonize the working and middle classes when they ask for things like tax cuts.

Religion is always a great reason.

You are the lowest rung of society because of transgressions in a previous life. If you follow the laws of those above you and stick to your caste, you will be moved up a class in the next life. Eventually you'll be ruling class and from there eternal reward.

Religion is great because you don't have to prove anything. People just believe it.

A followup to this part of L. Dutch's answer:

some poor old folk may prefer the usual, poor life to something even worse.

The Devil you know is usually better than the Devil you don't know.

Tie this to your country being the head of an empire, memories of Rebellion Gone Horribly Wrong (i.e. The Terror during the French Revolution), and not being too oppressed (rulers learning the right lesson from the Revolutions of 1848), and you've got a relatively stable class-conscious society.