In 1888, Edward Bellamy wrote a novel called “Looking Backward 1887-2000.” The premise of the story was that a man fell asleep for 113 years only to awaken to a much changed world. It was the third best-selling novel of its time, behind only “Ben-Hur” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Bellamy accurately foretold a number of things including a prediction that we would receive music and entertainment over our cable phone lines. Unlike other futuristic authors like H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley, Bellamy did not foresee a dystopian future. While many might not agree with his somewhat socialist ideas, it is clear that the book sees society advancing.

The reality is that despite continual dire predictions from various authors and social critics, society has, on the whole, always advanced. By no means has that advance been a straight line. We tend to advance in a herky, jerky manner like a drunk staggering down the sidewalk. When I look into the future I see something better and brighter than what we have today.

Most of the early economic theories are posited around the idea that wealth is limited. Therefore, to get more wealth, a country or an individual need to take that wealth from another segment of society. Beginning with Adam Smith and then accelerating during the industrial revolution, that idea was supplanted by the idea that society could constantly create more and more wealth as people and jobs became more and more specialized. As Smith said, “man’s wants are unlimited.”

In the early 1900s, Henry Ford demonstrated the wealth that could be created through the efficiencies of the moving assembly line. Ford tripled wages for his employees while still making a fortune for himself and creating the modern middle class of consumers. When we look back over the course of the last century we see clearly that prosperity has increased dramatically, even though there were periods like the Great Depression where we moved backwards.

When I look out into the future I see more of the same. I see society progressing. I see prosperity increasing. In particular I see us becoming increasingly specialized in the type of employment we do. Many of us will work from home and we will work fewer hours.

Increasingly, everything will be powered by electricity, including our entire transportation network. Ultimately all of the electricity will be generated from renewable sources like wind and solar. For the most part, we will receive and pay for most of our goods and services automatically. Your smart house will alert the “grocery store” that you are out of water or toilet paper and those items will be delivered automatically and you will pay for them the same way.

What this means for investors is that an increasingly smaller group of gigantic corporations will control a greater proportion of the production and distribution and that those same corporations will create a heretofore unimagined amount of wealth. It also means that the wealthy will make that wealth through investment in those same corporations.

Scott A. Grant is President of Standfast Asset Management in Ponte Vedra Beach. He welcomes your comments or questions at scottg@standfastic.com.