One of the strange truisms of any organization, whether public or private, is this: the workers at the bottom and middle of the organizational chart are generally good and compassionate individuals—but the people at the top are total jerks.

Think about any business, school, or government entity around. Those who daily interact with the customers, students, and citizens are typically kind people who derive both pleasure and self-esteem from being helpful and friendly. One does, of course, sometimes run into unhappy clerks who get a thrill out of abusing their minuscule bit of power (probably because their lives outside of work are not all that wonderful), but they are the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, people working at the lower levels of any organization find that behaving pleasantly makes their own workdays more bearable.

However, those who sit in the spacious office in a plush leather chair and tell others what to do are another story altogether.

We must, of course, first take into account the natural antipathy most of us feel toward those in authority before we judge without context. The ingrained sympathy of the downtrodden for one another is conducive to endless complaints about any new directive, so most managerial decisions are going to generate a storm of ill will and grumpy muttering among those who are affected by them.

However, it is equally true that those in charge must squeeze all the natural human empathy out of their souls if they hope to survive in their positions, so the ill will and muttering might many times be perfectly justified.

Supervising, cajoling, motivating, and (when it is necessary) threatening others is often a process of saying no to requests that are passably reasonable to ask but absolutely impossible to grant. No, you can’t leave early. No, you can’t have a raise. No, you are not in line for a promotion. No, you can’t make personal phone calls during work hours. No, you can’t have a vacation day on Christmas Eve. No, you can’t bring your sick child to work so you can take care of him. No, you need to stay here until you finish your work. No, we can no longer employ you. No. No. No.

In addition, the sad truth is that making a payroll is an ugly business that makes even the nicest person angry and impatient. Budgets have a habit of exploding, and the specter of unexpected business expenses hangs over the heads of those trying to balance the books and keep their jobs. Although individuals who have spent far too much time in college classrooms instead of a job believe that nations will succeed with state control, subsidies, and central planning, even the formerly diehard Communists of China and Russia long ago realized these strategies led to only poverty and despair because they drove the destructive development of self-serving bureaucracies and institutionalized inertia that strangled economic initiative and innovation.

However, the truth is that Capitalism features its own share of unfairness and cruelty because people are often unfair and cruel themselves, and the whole system is going to inevitably be run by bosses who will tend to be unfair and cruel because money is a limited resource. The alternative is an inherently unworkable Communist system that, if history is any guide, will be far more unfair and cruel—and also offer a terrible daily standard of living to most as a supremely crummy bonus.

So how does all of this relate to our nation’s leadership and, in particular, the elected leaders we have in office today?

The inherent limits on the availability of money for our government, which must be extracted from an unwilling citizenry one way or another, leads to two strategies: spend less or borrow more. Although government debt has been with us for a long time, until the past fifty years there was a consensus that our budgets should be balanced. However, this idea has been abandoned in recent decades and replaced by the theory that it is the job of government to spend without restraint, borrow without forethought, and expand without a plan. All that has been necessary to justify runaway indebtedness is a never-ending series of overblown crises and emergencies that have allowed the unscrupulous and unhinged to loot the treasury in order to purchase votes on a scale previously unimagined in American history.

We are, as a consequence, dealing with a remarkable level of government budgetary stress, which is making the elected leaders whom we voted into those spacious offices with plush leather chairs go crazy—and increasingly decide not to run for re-election.

We are today haltingly transitioning from the Santa Claus phase of governance to budget-conscious bean counting. Therefore, our elected leaders and their minions will increasingly be dealing with the ugly business spending of without borrowing, which will make them very angry and impatient. The downtrodden masses—in other words, you and me—will be easily recognized because of our ill will and grumpy muttering as we are compelled to pay for the fiscal mistakes of the past. 

The repercussions of austerity will cut through a half-century of inflated values and malinvestment like a scythe. Electric cars will become the Stanley Steamers of the 21st century, and the windmills meant to power them will tumble. Higher education will largely become value-added trade school as students and their families demand a clear return on their investments. Being smart and hardworking will be more important than being victimized and oppressed, so stupidity and laziness will suddenly become burdensome again. None of this will be easy or painless, so expect many to howl.

However, we should be much better off in the long run (although elected officials will be stuck in increasingly uncomfortable leather chairs listening to the complaints of angry constituents mobbing their spacious offices) because the self-reliance that once characterized Americans will be forced reawaken.

Or, if not, we’re finished.