Initially their people do the things that are necessary for the survival of the society like growing food, defending the borders, building roads and bridges, transporting food and materials and protecting and teaching children how to grow up and take the reins.
As the success of the society eventually allows more leisure time occupations that actually contribute nothing to the welfare or survival of the society become successful in their own right. People emerge who make money entertaining the essential people. In the days of King Arthur we called them court jesters.
These non essential entertainers gather together to give prizes to each other and will pretend that we actually care what their views are on how a society should function. Since they think they're an important part of society, but in reality no one would care if we dumped the lot of them in the ocean. We realize they're too stupid to say anything meaningful so we ignore them.
When the non essential members of a society begin to control it, as is the case today, it is on its way to ruin.