The prophecies [had] consisted of statements such as:

The expanded vision was a vision of world rule by the WTS.

The home-produced book Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Statistical Survey (1992) analyses the evidence that the top leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the president and other officers of the American corporations of the WTS, plan for the time when the governments of all nations submit to the WTS.

The book explains how Rutherford got his idea for world rule – he got it from the theology of the previous WTS president Charles Taze Russell:

From 1919 to 1938 Rutherford turned the formerly loosely organized "Russellites" into a hierarchy where people at each level reported to the level above – ultimately to the WTS president.

He banned everything among J Ws which might cause disunity or distract from distributing WTS publications. He banned voting, birthday and Christmas celebrations, movie attendance, and all but banned love, marriage and sex. He insisted that children should not waste school holidays but should urge their parents to take them door to door.

Meetings consisted of reading The Watchtower magazine and answering set questions by quoting The Watchtower – unplanned comment was disallowed. To enforce all this, dissenters were shunned by "loyal ones" who in turn were motivated by threats and discriptions of imminent world destruction called "Armageddon".

Critics soon considered J Ws "the most totalitarian system on the face of the earth." J W leaders, in contrast, wrote of  "Our Godly Unity."

Rutherford’s idea, suggests the Statistical Survey book, was that comparatively small numbers of people acting as one person will eventually dominate the divided majority and take over.

The Statistical Survey book extrapolates to the year 2000 some of the statistics available by 1991. Some of these projections are shown in the accompanying chart. Figures for 1998 are added as comparisons to indicate progress.

The Statistical Survey book gives many quotes such as:

The WTS also set all congregations the goal of expanding at 20% per annum. Mathematical projection shows that such 20% increase would, if achieved and maintained, have led to a Jehovah’s Witness world in the 1990s. However, the expansion rate slowed.

The chart accompanying this article suggests that most of the 2000 AD targets, as projected from the 1991 figures, will not be reached. This is because the overall, worldwide, annual expansion rate of the J Ws slowed to around 4% in the 1990s.

The chart suggests a general malaise among J Ws in the Western World. The reason is probably the doctrinal change which redefined the "generation of 1914".

From 1982 to 1995 Awake! magazine had the statement:

In 1995 the "Creator’s promise" failed when the WTS redefined "generation" and made it indefinitely long. (Investigator No. 51)

Pentecostals, Mormons and Adventists are growing faster than J Ws. The Statistical Survey book, however, considers whether the religious/political unity of J Ws across over 200 countries might, in the long run, come into decisive effect as societies advance toward a "global village". Worldwide unity controlled by a central authority could become important if the world experiences problems which only global concerted effort can overcome.

Working against the J W hierarchy is the loss of credibility due to their failed prophecies for specific dates such as 1918, 1925, 1936, 1942, 1975, 2000, etc. (Investigator 56)

The prophecies were useful to motivate people to join up and preach. But now that the Organization is one of the biggest and most united in the world those same failed predictions are a handicap.