The Economic Illiteracy of High School History
20th November 2013
Bryan Caplan, a Real Economist, blows the whistle.
In 11th grade, I took Advanced Placement U.S. History. I enjoyed it at the time. Once I started studying economics, however, I was outraged by the economic illiteracy of my history textbooks. Mainstream historians barely mentioned the unprecedented miracle of sustained economic growth. Instead, they focused on distribution: How poor workers used labor unions and regulation to pry their fair share from the heartless capitalists who employed them. These historians never mentioned the negative side effects of unionization and labor market regulation – or even the view that such negative side effects existed. My historical miseducation eventually inspired my lecture on “Why the Standard History of Labor Is Wrong.”