Regimes can dissolve the ruler-ruled divide by trading material comfort for acquiescence

Evidence

As the newly installed Hungarian leader, J nos K d r first pursued a policy of extreme repression, and then advanced a “social contract” of sorts with the society: The provision of consumer goods and a limited political pluralism (whose boundaries expanded with time) were exchanged for societal acquiescence. … The party sought to coopt those who might have been a force against it, both by giving the intelligentsia considerable incentives to join and by implementing this “social contract.” Hungarian party officials went out of their way to emphasize that expulsion or being struck from the membership lists carried no penalties, and K d r himself emphasized that the party brought in large numbers of nonparty experts into both the state administration and the economic sphere. The regime divide blurred, as mistrust slowly evolved into a shared recognition of the inherent limitations of the socialist system and its reform. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 305

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Parallel to the ‘sacrifice’ framing: Kádár replaces ideological sacrifice with a consumerist social contract, trading acquiescence for goods — how a regime softens its legitimacy demands rather than manufacturing an enemy.
• DEEPTHINKING: Hungary chose to blur rather than harden the regime divide, inverting the external-enemy logic — solidarity secured by consent and cooptation rather than manufactured threat.
• XREF: connects to: Rulers administer enjoyment to subjects until it is extinguished in fixed entertainments; A ruler can pacify society by draining each class’s institutions of political meaning. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1811; Civilizations decline when surplus shifts from investment to consumption (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Rulers administer enjoyment to subjects until it is extinguished in fixed entertainments #expands (0.78)
• A ruler can pacify society by draining each class’s institutions of political meaning. #complicates (0.78) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1811
• Civilizations decline when surplus shifts from investment to consumption #corroborates (0.72)