DON BOUDREAUX: The Awful State of Pop Economic History. “The list of egregiously mistaken yet most widely held beliefs about economic history is long.  And one of the worst offenders on this list is the notion that labor unions created the American middle class – the myth that workers’ ability to bargain for higher wages and fringe benefits is chiefly a consequence of their heroically organizing with similar workers to collectively demand from employers this higher pay.  (Remember, workers at Ford Motor Co. were not unionized until 1941, but twenty-seven years earlier Henry Ford more than doubled his workers’ pay.  And he did so not chiefly out of any ‘personal concern’ for his workers; rather, he did so because, by lowering worker turnover and reducing worker absenteeism, this higher pay for workers would result in higher profits for Ford.)”