CHAPTER 1A Short History of Retirement
When I want to understand what is happening today, I try to decide what will happen tomorrow; I look back; a page of history is worth a volume of logic.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
The U.S. standard-gauge railroad track is four feet, eight and one-half inches wide. Why such an odd measure? Because that was the width in England and the United States when railroads were built by British expatriates.
Where did the English get that measure? The first rail lines were built by the same people who built the tramways that preceded railroads, and they built the trams with the same jigs and tools used for building wagons. The wagons were built to the width of what is now the standard-gauge railroad track so that their wheels would fit the ruts of England's ancient roads.
The ruts had been made by the chariots brought to England by the imperial Roman army. And the chariots were four feet, eight and one-half inches wide to accommodate the rear ends of two horses. You're not alone if you struggle with change.
Retirement as we know it today is a relic from a time and a world that have long since passed. In the context of our modern age, conventional ideas about retirement are not just inappropriate—they are counterproductive. The concept of retirement was a shortsighted political machination and social manipulation that is hopelessly out of touch with our times. Retirement is an unnatural phase in the modern life course. It is inserted between work and ...
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