Ready to shudder? Listen to the likes of CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who tells us that “elites” in this country “are waging an outright war on working men, women and their families, and there is no chance the American middle class will survive this assault if the dominant forces unleashed over the past five years continue unchecked.”

His is a populist theme sounded by any number of commentators and politicians who blame free trade, big, bad corporations, their wicked D.C. lobbyists and tax cuts “for the rich” for what they view as the gradual impoverishment of the middle class. The only thing wrong with this theme is that it is absolutely wrong.