It's about money. But a nice side effect is that it keeps the people busy so they have little down time to reflect on why they are in that condition, or more importantly, no time left to take action, as well as the threat that if they do anything, it could endanger their job and life. That's why they don't take away too much from too many, otherwise suddenly those masses don't have anything to threaten and a lot of free time to notice what happened and by whom. Bread and circuses.