Wasn't the dole only implemented because land ownership had concentrated to a few extremely wealthy individuals? Only a few generations earlier, during the Second Punic War many landowners had either died or had their farms ruined to deny food to Hannibal, allowing the land to be bought at low prices.
Combined with massive influx of slaves from Gaul and other places making latin farm laborers too expensive.
Still, the effect is the same. A large proletariat with very little income demanding to be fed by the state. With significant political power, based on making up a large percentage of the population in the capital.
The problem with many of those argument is that the source base to draw such wide conclusion is really bad. And while we have some comments on some things in some regions, to make wider conclusions about economics for the empire as a whole is really tricky business.
