"No government is going to reform the system that put it in power!"
— Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister
Systems can be exploited. That much is certain.
However, there's a point where a legitimate fix for a system would ruin everyone involved with it, whether by revealing their fault in ignoring the problem, losing the benefits associated with that system, and/or just plain prejudice and/or power keeping their way-of-life alive.
So those in power will refuse that answer/fix, or try to take it out of commission, simply because they can, and because it nets them something that others do not have, putting them above those they deem inferior.
Part of the reason for Why We Are Bummed Communism Fell, as when the Soviet Union dissolved, many government officials lost their jobs, political positions, or corrupt power, since their governmental systems no longer existed.
Compare Withholding the Cure. Also compare Evil Reactionary, who is more about resisting societal/political changes in general, whether they themselves exploited the former system or not. Expect this trope to be a Silly Reason for War in some examples. This trope may lead to a Broken-System Dogmatist. Also a favorite of the Corrupt Corporate Executive. People like this tend not to be prone to the Original Position Fallacy.
Examples:
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Films — Live-Action
- Canadian Bacon: The whole plot revolves around the United States government trying to start a war with Canada because, with the Cold War over and Russia refusing to take the bait when the U.S. tried to make it restart hostilities, a new enemy is needed ASAP to keep the military-industrial complex functional and happy.
- Million Dollar Baby: Once Margaret starts making money as a boxer, she buys her family a house. Her welfare-queen mother refuses it, because then she wouldn't be on welfare anymore. This is the first indication that they're irredeemable assholes, and after delaying a visit to her to visit Disneyland and trying to sign over her winnings to them after she's left paralyzed in a boxing match, she finally disowns them.
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: The Klingons sue for peace, because their hostility toward the Federation is unsustainable in light of the accident on Praxis, their moon and previously-key-energy-production facility. Unfortunately, there are those on all sides, Humans, Klingons, and even the Romulans, that want the hostilities to continue, because they exploit the benefits, jobs, and even the control, that come with their current political position.
Literature
- Anthem: In the future, humanity has regressed into a low-tech, agrarian, collectivist dystopia that relies on candles for illumination. When Equality 7-2521 rediscovers electric lighting and shares his findings, he is punished for not only deviating from his assigned tasks as a street-sweeper, but also because his discovery will disrupt the plans of the Council of Scholars and the Department of Candles.
- Elting E. Morison's Men, Machines and Modern Times deals with this trope. He describes several instances where actors refused a given technical progress such as ironclads, continuous aim firing and Bessemer converters because it could have disturbed their way of life which they had identified with the current technological tools.
Live-Action TV
- In The 100, the Mountain Men suffer from a vulnerability to outdoor radiation levels. They discover that bone marrow transplants from the Ark survivors will allow them to tolerate the radiation, and they happen to be housing 47 of these survivors in their community. Instead of requesting help from their guests to donate over time to help them, they immediately start kidnapping and draining them, having concluded that they need ALL of the 47's bone marrow to inoculate all Mountain men. This ends up starting a war between the Mountain Men and the Ark survivors who just want the 47 back. It escalates to the point that they are on the verge of completely annihilating one another, and when the leader of the Ark is captured, he points out the short-sightedness of the Mountain Men's plan, and that they would have willingly donated bone marrow to help the Mountain Men had they been asked.
- Batwoman (2019): "Time Off for Good Behavior" revolves around a prison CEO using convicts to attack youth centers. His reason for this is that the more kids who stay out of prison because of these centers, the less money his prisons make.
- Leverage: Redemption: One Villain of the Week is a pharma bro who found a cure for a disease and then buried it because the treatment his company made was more profitable, especially after he raised the price. He grabbed the Villain Ball hard when he continued to take government money to find a cure, making it possible for the crew to send him to prison.
- The Lone Gunmen: Played with in the episode "Like Water for Octane". The Lone Gunmen seek the episode's MacGuffin, a car fueled by water, with a spy hired by oil companies hot on their heels. The Gunmen assume that the spy is out to destroy the car because it would remove the oil companies' monopoly (thus playing this trope straight), but the spy eventually reveals that he's out to get the car in order to get the water-fuel technology mass produced. Then the son of the inventor explains that even if the water-fuel technology would remove the necessity for cars to use gasoline, they still would depend on such things as lubricants and roads, and the production of these things would just increase to compensate for people driving more — meaning that car-related environmental destruction would just get worse, not better. This is what made the inventor of the technology decide that The World Is Not Ready.
- The Orville: In "Mad Idolatry", Capt. Ed Mercer's ex-wife Kelly shows kindness to a girl on a Bronze Age planet by healing her hand with the Planetary Union's advanced technology. When the crew returns to the ship, the planet then phases outside our universe for 11 days, but returns having experienced 700 years' worth of time dilation. Unfortunately, Kelly's act of kindness created a theocracy centered around her. When they go down again to survey the damage, she meets up with a high priest of the religion, and shows him that she is not a god, simply a traveler with advanced technology. When the priest decides to reveal the truth to the populace, one of his subordinates murders him before he can do so, wanting to keep the religious control to the church.
- Psych: The villain of "Let's Doo-Wop It Again" is the owner of a security business. When the founder of a charity focused on getting youths out of crime started making headway, members of the community started feeling safer, leading to them cancelling their security contracts with the villain. He tried to make it look like the charity's founder had been the victim of a violent crime to scare people into thinking they needed the security firm again.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Original Series: The elite side on the planet Ardana in "The Cloud Minders" fall victim to this. Kirk and the senior crew of the Enterprise have come up with a way to protect the miners who mine the zenite, a mineral used for medical purposes, from the gas that comes from the rock, in the caverns on the planet's surface. The elite class rejects the idea because it would mean admitting that the miners, known as "Troglytes", are being exploited based on an easily correctable flaw, and that they would lose the second-class prejudice being forced on them.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: This trope is deconstructed in "Symbiosis". The Enterprise gets involved in a conflict between representatives of two planets Ornara and Brekka. Ornara is suffering from a deadly plague, and Brekka is the only planet that produces felicium, the sole cure for the disease. Further complicating things, Ornara is the only planet in that particular star system that has the capacity for space travel, but their ships are falling apart, meaning the population is at risk. When Dr. Crusher observes the two Ornarans take the felicium, she immediately realizes that the "medicine" is actually an extremely addictive drug that has hooked the planet's population for decades; the first doses of felicium cured the plague, and the supposed symptoms the Ornarians face are signs of withdrawal. When she and Picard confront the Brekkans, they confess to knowing the truth, but explain that their entire economy is predicated on the manufacture of felicium — removing the supply chain would devastate their own people. Dr. Crusher wants to reveal what's happening and manufacture a non-addictive cure for the Ornarans, but Picard points out that the Prime Directive prevents their interfering with the planets' ways of life. He does, however, ultimately Take a Third Option by refusing to work with either the Brekkans or the Ornarans, as the Prime Directive technically means that he can't help fix the latter's collapsing ships. Picard and Crusher note that the future will be up to the two races either creating a new system or refusing to adapt.
- Star Trek: Voyager: Controller Emck, a Malon waste hauler, uses a Void in space as a dumping ground for radioactive and antimatter waste in "Night". Unfortunately, the Void is also home to a species of alien. To try to protect the aliens, the Voyager crew show Emck a way to clean and refine the waste so it can be used for other purposes. He refuses, as it would mean that he would be out of a job. Plus, he makes a wider profit margin by dumping the waste in the void, since he has no other competition in that area, and he sees the aliens there as inferior to him. Just to be a Jerkass and rub salt in the wound as well, he decides to attempt to either keep Voyager in the Void, or destroy them.
- Yes, Minister: The page quote comes from "Power to the People", an episode in which Hacker considers reforming the electoral system to make local government more responsive to its voters' concerns — only to backtrack abruptly when it's brought home to him that the same reforms would apply equally well to national government, and make him equally accountable to his voters.
Music
- In Rush's 2112, the nameless farmer protagonist has found an ancient guitar in a cave and presented it to one of the priests of the Temples of Syrinx. The priest, who figured out that the rediscovery of music would distract people away from the Temples' theocracy, smashes the guitar in a rage and tears the man a new one over this (fake) sacrilege. The Temples of Syrinx don't get to enjoy their position for much longer, though, because the song ends (a few days later In-Universe) with a Benevolent Alien Invasion blowing up the Temples sky-high.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer: Bretonnia is a Medieval Stasis land of aristocracy exploiting the peasantry, played for Black Comedy. However, merchants tend to be obscenely rich and powerful despite technically being peasants due to many legal loopholes (such as aristocrats not being allowed to earn money by nontraditional means) or outright bribery, and they actually suppress several well-intended attempts to give peasants more rights as this would lead to them losing power.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate: A halfling at the carnival of Nashkel has the only Stone-to-flesh scroll in proximity which could help Branwen return to life after becoming a statue. This, however, would prevent him to capitalize on visitors paying to see the "stone maiden" and to anybody willing to purchase the scroll. You can bypass him by purchasing another scroll in the temple of Beregost, or kill him, if you want. If you have the NPC Project mod installed, Jaheira can and will knock him off out of indignation and take the scroll for good.
- Baldur's Gate II:
- Magic is forbidden in Athkatla... unless you pay an expensive fee for the license to use spells. The price is so high that only powerful and rich factions could afford it. However, these factions often happen to be evil and willing to use magic only to further their activities, such as the Shadow Thieves (the local mafia), pirates, or the slavers which are in affairs with the parasitic nobility. Therefore, if you are an adventurer or a guard, many illegal acts can't be effectively prevented because it would mean fighting against high level wizards ready to blast your ass away (until the player comes). Magic authorities, the Cowled Wizards, do not question who pays for the license as long as they keep a low profile and avoid causing too much trouble in public: it would deprive them of the fee, and in the so-called City of Coin money comes before people.
- The Cowled Wizards do not even question how fair trials for illegal magic activities are, if sentenced prisoners were guilty after all and the gravity of their misdeeds, or how the wizardry asylum Spellhold is run: as we see in a cutscene, they are shamelessly willing to exploit inmates as experimental subjects for spells, particularly young women for the reasons you might imagine.
- Corruption is indeed rampant in Athkatla. In the city gates, we can see a guard allowing a Shadow Thief bringing inside his smuggled black lotus flowers. It is evidently easy to intercept such cargo and avoid many associated criminal activities, but this would reduce bribes...
- The djinni of Trademeet could easily solve the problems that the city is facing, or help local citizens with wares sold at honest prices. However, they monopolized merchant activities while the city was struggling, and changing the situation would make the population not anymore depending on their goods, which are sold at insanely high prices. They simply don't care about people suffering.
- Brynnlaw has a brothel run by lady Galvena. When Claire, one of the courtesans, asks for permission to leave in order to marry Sanik, she is denied even if she served her for years. Then Galvena sends an assassin to kill Sanik and sentences Claire to death so that "an example shall made of you". The fact is that courtesans are actually enslaved and drugged with a potion that is also used for customers with a "weighty purse". The town is ruled by pirates so putting out Galvena's illegal activity is out of consideration. Luckily, soon comes the player.
- In Crackdown 2, the Agency is secretly withholding the cure to the Freak virus and Catalina Thorne is trying to pressure them to release it. However, the Agency refuses to release it because it would depower their Agents.
- Mass Effect 3:
- Curing the genophage is essential to enlist krogan help against the Reapers, but the salarians are full of prejudice and distrust them. The salarians fear that the krogan could become again the warmongering race they were, plus being forced to give them compensations and concessions, so they approach Shepard proposing to sabotage the cure in exchange for their military assets. Shepard can ignore them and proceed with the cure, or listen and make the krogan believe they were cured when in fact they weren't. The latter could turn well or bad depending on your decisions, mainly who is leading the entire species.
- Justified in the Omega DLC: Aria is the "pirate queen" of the titular station and definitely a dictator and a crimelord (or crimelady...), but Shepard needs her political power and assets in the fight against the Reapers, and moreover needs not that Cerberus controls Omega, so he helps her to take back the station, even if it means letting her rule continue. Depending on your choices, though, you can potentially steer her towards becoming a more benevolent ruler.
- Thief: The Dark Project: One of the letters you can find describes a local Hammerite accolyte (a member of the in-game fanatic catholic church expies) who is totally corrupted and inept, but no action is taken since he also manages to provide important funding and resources to his church.
Visual Novels
- The Great Ace Attorney: The climax of the sequel hinges on the fact that if all the corruption was to be revealed the general public would lose trust in the justice system and set things back decades (in an already quickly developing field). It takes a direct order from the queen herself to overcome this sentiment.
Western Animation
- One episode of Moville Mysteries has Professor Kindly steal a paper on using cold fusion as a fuel source from his would-be victim Rico, intending to use it to get rich. Mo informs an oil company about it, and the company promptly has Kindly killed and the paper destroyed.
- Played For (Dark) Laughs in The Simpsons when, at an energy convention, Hans Moleman sets up a stand which presents proof that solar energy is a viable fuel source, only to be immediately knocked out by goons for oil companies, who replace his stand with one dedicated to fossil fuels.
