The Return of the Family Business

I was talking with a friend last week about the proliferation of small businesses as more and more people are losing their jobs from large corporations. The millions of small businesses, including about twenty million operated from home, will only increase during the coming years.

My friend observed that the concept of large business is a very recent one spawned by the industrial revolution. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, most businesses were family owned and operated – as either farms or as small shops. During past decades small shops have had a negative connotation as “mom and pop” stores.

Fortunate, the stigma of such micro businesses is gone. Even home-based businesses which, for years were not taken seriously, are now mainstream. While most new home-based businesses are started by one member of a family, they often draw in a spouse or children – who do bookkeeping, design the business web site, help produce merchandise, prepare mailings and much more.

While big-business will never disappear, small businesses have retaken their rightful place in our economy and hearts.