By Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden | 11 March 2026 (IDN) — In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, which has guided economists and political thinkers ever since. It marks the start of the Industrial Revolution, which began in England and then spread throughout most of the world. That was 250 years ago.
It is not that long ago—only four life spans or so, the time of your great, great, great grandparents. Where will we be 250 years hence?
Presumably, just as today we listen to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born 270 years ago, and watch or read William Shakespeare, born more than 400 years ago—artists whose works have survived changing tastes and spread far beyond their European origins to countries as varied as Japan, China, Argentina, Tanzania and South Korea—we can be sure that generations to come will have much the same cultural interests.
In all likelihood, in the twenty-third century, we will still enjoy tastes picked up from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—perhaps The Beatles, Pablo Picasso, some of the outstanding Nigerian and Indian novelists writing today, or the pristine recordings of the magnificent Chinese classical violinists and pianists now emerging.
We won’t necessarily have better artists who could rival Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, or Shakespeare —but surely a handful who will be just as good.
Faith and the Search for Meaning
Our religions will persist—among Christians, perhaps mainly among the less well educated. Astronomy will probe to the very edge of our universe and perhaps to universes beyond, if they exist, as many suspect. Yet even with such discoveries, science may still fail to find God in a way that settles the debate over belief once and for all.
By the year 2250, many of the defining events of our time will have faded into distant memory: the great world wars of the twentieth century, the Holocaust, the rise and fall of communism, the election of the first Black president of the United States, America’s global dominance, humanity’s early exploration of the solar system, the Arab Spring, the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons, the first experiments with body-part replacements, the great recessions of our era and the poverty and underdevelopment in Africa.
History will remember them—but for most people, they will feel as distant as the wars of earlier centuries feel to us today.
Instead, for most people, economic and material needs will largely be satisfied. Humanity may be satiated by progress on this front.
Some individuals might live to be 200 years old—perhaps even grow weary of a prolonged retirement and wish they had died a century earlier. Yet alongside this longevity could come a flowering of the arts.
Space travel may make mining on the moon routine. Uncrewed spacecraft—taking perhaps 150 years to reach distant destinations—may explore the far edges of our galaxy, transmitting intimate images of space and offering tantalising glimpses of black holes.
A More Peaceful and Cosmopolitan World
Economic debates will continue, just as they do today. But the old discussion about the “limits of growth” may disappear.
Science may bring fusion power derived from seawater, crops yielding unimaginable harvests, and transportation requiring only minimal energy. Abundant food, energy and minerals could become available everywhere.
The ideas of John Maynard Keynes, developed in the 1930s, may still shape economic thinking. His emphasis on demand management will likely remain influential, while austerity policies aimed at balancing budgets may be dismissed as relics of the past.
Keynes predicted that economic progress would allow humanity to return “to some of the most sure principles of religion and traditional virtue—that avarice is vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour and the love of money is detestable. We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful.”
Figures such as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Mobutu Sese Seko, Augusto Pinochet, and Donald Trump may well have been cast into the dustbin of history.
With higher levels of education and prosperity, societies may become less tolerant of tyranny. A more cosmopolitan world—where intercultural marriages are common—could see nationalism gradually wither.
Democracy and the observance of human rights may become universal norms. The Catholic Church, Judaism and Islam may evolve beyond theocratic structures. Meanwhile, the non-violent philosophy of Buddhism may gain wider appeal as a universal moral code.
The words of American political thinker Michael Mandelbaum, writing in the early twenty-first century, might prove prophetic: “The great chess game of international politics is finished… A pawn is now just a pawn, not a sentry standing guard against an attack on the king.”
Is this idealism—or could it be true?
As the poet Robert Browning once wrote: “Man’s reach must exceed his grasp—or what’s a heaven for?” [IDN-InDepthNews]
Copyright: Jonathan Power