Give them bread and circuses

 Do the leaders of our society need to take any notice of the concerns that our general public feel or is it always the case that the rulers 'always know better'.
There are many instances where the public's opinion is denied and an elite make the decisions.
In this country the death penalty is one example. For certain crimes the general public would like to see the death penalty reintroduced. The confusion over the penalties handed out for capital crimes seem to devalue the victim in favour of the criminal especially the crazy system of halving the sentence if the criminal causes no trouble whilst in prison. "Life sentences" which are handed down by the judge are actually not life sentences but relatively modest 10 to 20 years term which with parole is cut in half. It's hardly a deterrent and reflects our unwillingness to build more prisons to hold people for the full term of their sentence.
The public don't know what to make of the sentencing system since if you take someone else's life even on a premeditated crime the jail term is far less than if you steal from a bank. The deterrent to stealing from the "establishment" is far greater than if a young guy is stabbed or kicked to death in one of the less salubrious areas of our cities. The crime of upsetting the equilibrium between a master and his money is far more serious than a petty killing amongst the peasants.
This, if little else describes the gap between the "money" and the poor.

Give them Bread and Circuses was the Roman solution to inequality and we as a nation have always been keen to rush to the sound of the regimental band and the trotting sound of a Royal Carriage. Keen to doff our hats we applaud their passage, their divine right to patronage and a full belly. We know our place and accept that we are wrong to complain about conditions through "collective bargaining" since withholding our labour will not only frighten the horses but scare off the foreign investors, and that will never do since our own 'home grown' investor seeks his return from the much more speculative casino of 'shorting' and betting on the movement of a currency from one nano second to the next. 
No long term view for your British investor, no involvement in the countries infrastructure, leave that to the French,Germans,Americans and now the Chinese !!!
Parsimonious was the description and well it suits us. From the tales of Dickens to the present we have never been a nation looking after its own (other than the Attlee experiment). We care more for animals than we care for our brothers and sisters !!!