The Impossible Bargain: Principled Living When Leaders Choose Survival Over Sacrifice
The Inheritance We Broke—And What Persistence Looks Like Now
Editor’s Note: This essay publishes on Veterans Day 2025. To every veteran reading this: your service mattered. The fact that leaders squandered what you built doesn’t diminish what you gave. This is written in your honor—and in recognition that we owe you more than platitudes.
If I could sit with my grandfather—a man who worked two jobs into his 60s and 70s to support his family—I would have to tell him the truth: It’s broken.
He sacrificed everything for family. When I think of him now, I remember pure dedication and grit—the kind that built the post-war prosperity I’m now watching collapse. He held up his end of the bargain.
We broke ours.
I can’t have that conversation with him anymore. But I can document what happened to the inheritance his generation left us. I can show, with data and without partisan rage, how both parties chose comfort over courage. How the system built through sacrifice is now governed by those who choose survival over principle.
Eighty years ago, the Greatest Generation stood at the precipice of global darkness. They didn’t flinch. Today, we stand at a different precipice—not of war, but of decay. And our leaders are flinching.
ACT I: THE INHERITANCE
The Gift They Gave
The generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated the Axis powers didn’t just win a war. They built a world.
Within three years of victory, they established the United Nations to prevent another global conflict. They drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—thirty articles that would reshape how civilized nations treat their citizens. They created international institutions designed to promote cooperation instead of conquest.
But the real gift was economic. The Arsenal of Democracy—that industrial capacity that outproduced the Axis into submission—pivoted to civilian prosperity. American manufacturing dominance created the largest middle class in human history. The social contract was explicit: Work hard. Play by the rules. You’ll own a home. Raise a family. Send your kids to college. They’ll do better than you did.
That wasn’t empty promise. It was lived reality for three generations.
My grandfather embodied this. No college degree. Two jobs. He made it work. His sacrifice bought his children’s prosperity. Their education bought my opportunities. The ladder was there. You just had to climb.
This was the inheritance: eighty years of relative peace, unprecedented economic growth, and a functioning social contract. They gave us the chance to build without fighting. To prosper without conquering. To debate within democratic guardrails instead of settling disputes with artillery.
They gave us a world that worked. And we spent it down.
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The Empire Cycle Framework
Ray Dalio’s work on empire cycles reveals the pattern that explains what’s happening to America.
The Big Cycle—Dalio’s term for the rise and fall of great powers—follows a roughly 250-year arc. Empires don’t collapse randomly. They follow a sequence. Education quality declines first. Then economic competitiveness erodes. Then military and geopolitical power fades. These factors are mutually reinforcing: strength in one amplifies others, weakness in one accelerates broader decline.
Here’s the timeline for America:
1776-1945: The Rise. From revolutionary colony to industrial superpower. Education expanded. Manufacturing dominated. Military capacity grew. By the end of World War II, America represented approximately half of global GDP. The empire peaked.
1945-1990: The Peak. Post-war prosperity. Cold War dominance. Uncontested economic and military supremacy. The inheritance was being spent wisely—infrastructure investment, educational expansion, middle-class growth. The system worked.
1990-2010: The Plateau. Unipolar moment after Soviet collapse. But cracks forming. Manufacturing jobs moving overseas. Education quality stagnating. Debt accumulating. We’re still powerful, but the foundations are eroding.
2010-Present: The Decline. Education outcomes falling. Economic competitiveness slipping. Industrial capacity ceded to China. Trust collapsing. Leadership paralyzed. We’re in the descending phase of the cycle.
Dalio’s framework isolates education as the leading indicator. When a society stops investing in the next generation’s knowledge and skills, everything downstream suffers. You can’t maintain economic competitiveness without educated workers. You can’t sustain military dominance without technological innovation. You can’t preserve democratic institutions without an informed citizenry.
America’s education system is failing. Not completely—elite universities still produce world-class researchers. But the broad middle is collapsing. International test scores show American students falling behind peers in developed nations. Education spending increases while outcomes stagnate. The machine is broken.
And here’s the compounding crisis: reserve currency empires accumulate massive debts. When you control the global currency, you can print money to fund consumption today. The bill comes due later—often in the form of inflation, currency debasement, or fiscal crisis. Rome did this. Britain did this. We’re doing it now.
The WWII generation gave us an empire at its peak. What have we done with it?
Now layer this on top: We’re not just following the standard empire cycle. We’re accelerating it through choices—political cowardice, moral decay, economic betrayal, military hollowing. The next three sections document the evidence.
ACT II: THE SPENDING DOWN
Moral Bankruptcy
The first thing we lost was our moral compass.
Trust Collapse
The data is unambiguous: institutional trust collapsed from 77% in 1964 to 20% by 2022. Americans who trust their fellow citizens dropped from 46.3% in 1972 to 31.9% by 2018. We don’t trust our government. We don’t trust each other.
It gets worse. The United States now ranks dead last among G7 nations in trust in the national government. We rank last in confidence that elections are honest. Last in belief that the judicial system treats everyone fairly. Last in trust of the military—despite having the most powerful armed forces in human history.
And trust didn’t just collapse—it shattered along partisan lines. Republicans trust business, police, and the military while Democrats trust labor, the press, science, and education. There’s no shared institutional anchor. No common ground. No referee both sides accept.
When you have no shared trust, you have no capacity for collective action. Democracy requires believing that people you disagree with will accept electoral outcomes and operate within institutional constraints. When that faith dies, democracy hollows out.
The Moral Anchor Lost
But the trust collapse points to something deeper: the loss of shared moral reference points.
As Noah Smith documents, the moral anchor of victory over the Axis has been lost. On the right, a growing movement rehabilitates Hitler and questions Churchill. Tucker Carlson’s podcast with Darryl Cooper—where World War II was framed as Churchill’s fault—wasn’t fringe commentary. It got millions of downloads. The Heritage Foundation, once a respectable conservative think tank, has capitulated to Groypers who openly mock the Holocaust.
Here’s what’s happening: The term “Nazi” has been weaponized so thoroughly by the left that it lost meaning. When everyone from moderate conservatives to actual fascists gets called a Nazi, the word becomes noise. Rightists, exhausted by the constant accusation, started fighting back—not just against the misuse of the term, but against the historical consensus itself.
On the left, the Palestine movement diminishes the Holocaust as moral reference point. Decolonial discourse—imported from Muslim-majority countries where Hitler carries no stigma as a Western imperialist—reframes World War II as just another chapter of colonial violence. The Holocaust becomes one atrocrity among many, not the defining moral line of the 20th century.
Here’s the second-order consequence: When you lose shared moral reference points, society fragments. The evil of the Nazis—once the clearest moral line in modern history—has been reduced to a debating point on both extremes. When you can’t agree on whether defeating Hitler was unambiguously good, you can’t agree on anything.
We lost our moral compass. We also lost the economic foundation.
Economic Betrayal
The second thing we lost was the middle class.
The Data
Middle-class America has been shrinking for five decades. In 1971, 61% of Americans lived in middle-class households; by 2019, only 51% did. The ladder my grandfather climbed is being pulled up.
Real wages for men without college degrees fell 28% since the mid-1970s. Middle-skilled men saw wages decline 24%. The social contract—work hard, earn security—broke. You can follow all the rules and still lose.
Income concentration at the top 1% has climbed to levels not seen since the 1920s. A century of progress reversed in a generation. The rich aren’t just getting richer—they’re capturing an ever-larger share of all economic gains while everyone else treads water or sinks.
At America’s 100 lowest-wage companies, CEOs now make 632 times what their workers earn. In 2019, that ratio was 560:1. The gap widens every year. This isn’t market efficiency. This is extraction.
The California Squeeze
The data tells one story. My life tells another.
I hold a BA in Psychology and an MA in Education. I work 60-hour weeks in California, earning $80,000 per year—above the median income. My parents’ generation could buy homes and raise families on less education and shorter hours. Today, I’m treading water while they’re sinking.
The “luxury” of middle-class life—the assumption that education and effort would yield security—has evaporated. I save $500 per month, sometimes more, on $5,000 net income. That’s a 10% savings rate. It requires lifestyle tradeoffs my parents never faced. I can’t go out as much. Can’t travel freely. Can’t date casually without considering every meal’s cost.
And despite saving aggressively, despite advanced degrees, despite working 60-hour weeks—I have no option to buy a house in California. The math doesn’t add up anymore.
I’m not alone in considering leaving the country entirely. Not because I want to, but because the economic equation no longer works. I’d stay if I could save 10% and buy a house, even in a lower cost-of-living area than California. But that baseline security—the floor of middle-class life—is gone.
When the educated and industrious start planning exits, something fundamental has broken.
This is what wage stagnation looks like from the inside: not poverty, but the grinding erosion of possibility. The slow realization that doing everything “right” no longer guarantees the outcomes it used to. My grandfather’s sacrifice bought his children’s prosperity. My sacrifice might buy me the option to survive.
This economic reality—advanced degrees, aggressive saving, still can’t buy a house—is the subject of my ongoing work on sovereignty engineering. Get weekly insights on building financial, location, and time sovereignty when the system fails you. [Join 15,000+ readers building despite the odds] [LINK: Newsletter signup]
The Social Contract Broken
The World War II generation’s deal was explicit: Sacrifice now. Work hard. Play by the rules. Your kids will thrive.
That deal held for eighty years. It’s dead now.
You can educate yourself, work hard, be honest—and still lose. The system rewards rent-seeking and capital ownership, not merit. You can follow every rule your parents taught you and still find yourself priced out of housing, drowning in debt, watching your purchasing power erode.
The social contract isn’t just fraying. It’s severed. And the people who severed it—the leaders who chose short-term political survival over long-term economic sustainability—are still in power, still making the same choices, still pretending the old formulas work.
We lost the economic foundation. We also lost our defensive strength.
Arsenal Lost
The third thing we lost was the Arsenal of Democracy.
Manufacturing Dominance Ceded
America and its allies have ceded the Arsenal of Democracy: China now represents over 30% of global manufacturing, projected to hit 35%. The industrial powerhouse that won World War II through sheer production volume no longer exists.
Here’s the comparison: During World War II, America massively outproduced the Axis powers. Germany had better tanks. Japan had skilled pilots. But we buried them in volume. We built more ships, more planes, more trucks, more ammunition than they could destroy. The Arsenal of Democracy won through industrial capacity, not wonder weapons.
Today, that equation has reversed. China produces in waves. America relies on technological superiority and wonder weapons—F-35s, aircraft carriers, precision munitions. But wonder weapons don’t win long wars. Production capacity does. And we no longer have it.
The US industrial base is hamstrung by what economists call regulatory stranglehold: environmental review processes that take years, permitting delays that add billions in costs, labor rules that prevent rapid scaling. There’s no real plan to reverse this. Tariffs won’t solve it—they just raise input costs. We need regulatory streamlining, industrial policy, and alliance integration. We’re getting none of those.
The Military-Civilian Divide
But the Arsenal’s collapse isn’t just about manufacturing. It’s about the widening gap between those who serve and those who don’t.
Less than half of one percent of Americans serve on active duty. Only 39% of young adults ages 18-29 have an immediate family member who served, compared to 77% of adults 50 and older. Over 50% of military families feel they don’t belong in civilian communities.
When less than 1% serves, who speaks for defense? Who understands sacrifice?
Congressional representation collapsed from 75% of the House and 81% of the Senate being veterans in the 1970s to under 20% today. The active military declined 37% between 1980 and 2023. When Congress has no veterans to speak of, who makes the hard calls on military spending versus social programs? Who understands what they’re asking when they vote to deploy troops?
The Pentagon has warned that this divide threatens recruitment, readiness, and the connection between civilian leadership and military reality. When veterans are invisible in civilian communities, when policymakers have no military experience, when less than 1% bears the burden of national defense—the link between sacrifice and citizenship breaks.
We lost our moral anchor, our economic foundation, and our defensive strength. But the rot goes deeper. We lost something else: leadership.
The Coward’s Consensus
The fourth thing we lost was the courage to govern.
Bipartisan Debt Explosion
The pattern is bipartisan. Reagan increased debt by 186%. Bush by 101%. Obama by 70%. Trump by 40%. Different methods, same result.
Republicans cut taxes and increase military spending. They promise growth will cover the gap. It doesn’t.
Democrats increase domestic spending. They promise the rich will pay their fair share. They don’t.
Clinton is the lone exception: He reduced debt by 150%, ending with a $128 billion surplus. But Clinton benefited from conditions that no longer exist: reduced military spending after the Cold War, the dot-com boom, and bipartisan willingness to raise taxes and cut spending. That political coalition is dead.
Today’s reality: Neither party accepts the pain required to fix the problem. Republicans refuse to raise taxes or cut military spending. Democrats refuse to reform entitlements or cut domestic programs. So debt compounds, interest payments consume more of the budget, and future generations inherit the bill.
Both parties chose comfort over courage. Both parties chose political survival over hard choices.
Congressional Dysfunction
Before 1974, the federal government never shut down. Since then? Twenty-two times. The budget committees created in the 1974 reforms to prevent shutdowns are “quite weak” and “have never worked as intended,” according to Congressional Research Service analysis.
Here’s why: Leaders refrain from reaching across the aisle because they have more to lose electorally by negotiating than by letting government shut down. Primary challengers punish compromise. Donors punish moderation. Media rewards polarization. The electoral calculus favors dysfunction.
The Grand Bargain That Never Happens
Everyone knows what’s needed: entitlement reform, tax reform, discretionary spending caps. The grand bargain that balances revenue increases with spending cuts.
It never happens. Because neither party will accept the pain.
Republicans won’t tell their voters that Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable without benefit cuts or tax increases. Democrats won’t tell their voters that you can’t fund European-style social programs without European-style middle-class tax rates. So both parties punt. They pass continuing resolutions. They raise the debt ceiling at the last minute. They kick the can.
On D-Day, 19-year-olds ran into machine gun fire knowing they might die.
Today, 60-year-old Senators won’t risk a primary challenger.
That’s not leadership. That’s cowardice in a suit.
The Greatest Generation chose sacrifice. Today’s leaders choose survival. And the veterans are watching.
ACT III: THE RECKONING
The Veteran’s Verdict
Alec Penstone, a 100-year-old World War II veteran who served in the Royal Navy during D-Day, watched modern Britain decay and said:
“The country is worse than it was when I fought for it. The sacrifice wasn’t worth the result.”
He’s right to feel betrayed.
Documentary interviews with post-9/11 veterans reveal the same pattern. They don’t know why they were sent. Didn’t believe the US could win. Felt the wars were disastrously misguided. They watched leaders who never served make decisions from comfort. Different wars, same betrayal.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s not “old man yells at cloud.” It’s a verdict delivered by someone who paid the price and watched us waste the inheritance.
Personal Reaction
I read this and felt anger. Then sadness. Then understanding.
Family members served in the military. They’re disappointed about where the country is headed, though not yet as disillusioned as Penstone. The difficulty in thriving despite service. The sense that the sacrifice-reward equation broke.
But they still have hope.
I see Penstone’s sentiment creeping closer with each passing year, though.
He’s right to feel betrayed. They all are.
The Impossible Bargain Defined
Here is the impossible bargain we’re asking you to accept:
The World War II generation built a system through sacrifice. That system rewarded hard work with security, honesty with prosperity, service with respect. They held up their end of the bargain.
We broke ours.
We live in a system designed by those who chose hardship, now governed by those who choose convenience.
We owe veterans something more than “thank you for your service” platitudes delivered at football games. We owe them the same stubborn courage they showed. The same willingness to choose principle over comfort.
But what does that look like in a broken system?
The answer isn’t in nostalgia. It’s in a choice.
ACT IV: THE PERSISTENCE
The Data on Post-Traumatic Growth
Research on post-traumatic growth reveals something unexpected: 63.2% of trauma-exposed veterans report moderate-or-greater growth—higher than rates measured a decade ago. Among veterans with PTSD, 86.4% report post-traumatic growth, up from 72% in 2011.
Veterans aren’t just surviving their trauma. They’re growing through it. Post-traumatic growth is associated with better mental functioning, higher quality of life, and greater resilience. The protective factors? Gratitude. Purpose. Social connectedness.
Here’s the lesson: Veterans aren’t succeeding because they’re optimistic about the system. They’re persistent despite it. They choose growth through hardship. They build meaning from chaos. They don’t wait for conditions to improve—they improve themselves under adverse conditions.
This isn’t heroic mythology. It’s documented psychological reality. The majority of veterans who face trauma don’t just endure—they emerge stronger.
Personal Application
I’m not a veteran, but I understand the principle.
Childhood trauma, neurological challenges, economic headwinds—none of it has been easy. Many of my challenges were self-inflicted. But I’ve made a choice: 60-hour work weeks building something meaningful. Long-term vision over short-term comfort. Aggressive saving while watching peers chase lifestyle inflation. Dating with future-focus, not immediate gratification.
I’m building toward location, financial, and time sovereignty—my own business, my own terms. In five years: healthy, thriving financially and relationally, seeing the world. The alternative—being stuck in the system with little happiness and freedom—is unacceptable.
These aren’t heroic sacrifices. They’re small, daily decisions to build despite the odds.
This is what we owe the Greatest Generation: not gratitude speeches, but the stubborn persistence they modeled. My grandfather worked two jobs into his 70s. He didn’t know if his sacrifice would pay off. He did it anyway.
We don’t know if we can restore what’s been lost. We build anyway.
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The Call
What does principled living mean now?
It means making hard fiscal choices your representatives won’t. Supporting candidates who’ll accept primary challengers to do what’s right. Building businesses, families, communities despite economic headwinds that weren’t supposed to exist if you “did everything right.”
It means rejecting both parties’ comfort narratives. Republicans who promise tax cuts will magically balance budgets. Democrats who promise free everything without explaining how to pay for it. Both are lying. Both are choosing your vote over your future.
It means choosing sacrifice over survival in your own life. Saving aggressively when peers spend freely. Working toward sovereignty when the system promises security it can’t deliver. Dating for long-term compatibility when dating apps optimize for immediate gratification.
The system doesn’t reward principle anymore. That’s precisely why principle matters.
The Greatest Generation didn’t know if defeating the Axis would create lasting peace. They fought anyway. We don’t know if principled persistence will restore what’s been lost. We persist anyway.
CLOSING
My grandfather is gone. I can’t have that conversation with him. But if I could, here’s what I’d say:
We broke what you built. Both parties chose comfort. Leaders chose survival over sacrifice. The moral anchor is gone. The economic foundation cracked. The Arsenal ceded to adversaries. The courage to govern evaporated.
But some of us see it. Some of us feel the anger and the grief. And some of us are choosing differently.
We’re working the 60-hour weeks. Making the hard calls. Building despite the odds. Not because we know it will work, but because it’s what you taught us to do.
You worked not knowing the outcome. We’ll build not knowing the outcome.
That’s the bargain we can keep: Not to fix everything you left us. But to persist with the same stubborn courage you showed.
That’s what we owe you. That’s what we owe ourselves.
The afterparty is over. The work begins again.
The Afterparty Is Over. The Work Begins Again.
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About Wolfe Elher:
Wolfe Elher holds a BA in Psychology and MA in Education and works in California. His grandfather worked two jobs into his 70s to support family—an ethic of sacrifice Wolfe watched disappear as America’s social contract broke down. With family members who served in the military, Wolfe has watched multiple generations navigate the widening gap between service and reward. Despite advanced degrees and above-median income, he faces housing costs his parents’ generation never imagined and is actively building toward location, financial, and time sovereignty. His work examines the intersection of generational sacrifice, economic reality, and principled living when institutions fail. He writes at paradigmreset.com.