People want to work for a greater purpose, to sacrifice themselves for a worthy cause. Pizza and TV or whatnot can make the grind of life sweeter, but it'll remain a grind. If a leader can convince the people that the grind is worth it, that they're not just animals pushing buttons in exchange for food pellets, they can achieve great things.

George Orwell explained fascism this way, but it applies generally to the way the human mind works:

Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation ‘Greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is a good slogan, but at this moment ‘Better an end with horror than a horror without end’ is a winner.