JOHN PETHOKOUKIS: The Long Boom that wasn’t — and what we can learn.

This newsletter occasionally looks at the failed economic and technological forecasts of the past, including those by well-known futurists such as H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Kurzweil. No space colonies, no flying cars, no $100 trillion American economy, and, of course, no flying car in every garage. My point in highlighting such disappointing predictions isn’t to mock those who made them. It’s to mourn for the world we could’ve had but don’t.

One of the best sources for late 20th-century futurist forecasts is the archives of Wired magazine. One of my all-time favorite pieces is a 1997 essay by Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden, “The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980–2020.”

Some things they got correct, such as Rising China, the sharp decline of global poverty, and the pervasive power of the internet. Other things, less so. Today, we’re not all driving around in hydrogen-powered cars or watching humanity walk on Mars. Broadly, the rapid productivity and economic growth of the late 1990s didn’t continue into the 21st century as they and many others of that time predicted.

Well, the grafters and grifters took control of the economy.