How would those landowners passify the plebs if democracy was no longet an option, I wonder?
By installing a state

But that's ridiculously expensive!
obviously, they had centuries to accumulate wealth, and enough time to come up with the mentioned techniques to pacify the plebs
And thanks to the acceleration of history coupled with our incredible methods of communication, it has become nigh on impossible to accomplish such a feat again if ever there was a loss of control. We live in interesting times
