Peter F. Drucker Boxed Set (8 Books) (The Drucker Library)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Unmaking the Nineteenth Century

WE ARE BUSILY ENGAGED in unmaking the two proudest social achievements of the nineteenth-century reformer: that married women do not go out to work but stay at home and are free to devote themselves to family and children, and that older people retire.

Historically, the labor-force participation of women was always equal to that of men—both worked from the time they were able to do so until they dropped. Neither farm nor craftsman’s shop can be run alone by either man or woman; both require a couple. And, until recently, all but a minuscule fraction of the human race made its living on the farm ...