I think it came from capitalism's 2nd problem. ( 1) people buy crap but far be it for me or the gov't to tell people what they can and can't buy.)  2) capitalism has a history of treating it's employee's bad. This has led to systems in which employees try to attenuate this problem. Government workers have embraced these aggressive systems which are created to be used on businesses where money is a zero sum game. Not so for governments. They cave easy and the government workers get far more than they deserve.