@Phil "Productivity" depends on people with purchasing power paying for stuff. When people were no longer necessary on farms, sure, now richer farmers were willing to pay more for new things, but they were a small fraction of those made poor. Factories could produce tons of new things, but who would buy them? Factory workers, said Ford. But those were never enough, and now they are robots too. Without a state purchasing broadly, sure we can produce a lot, but we have few buyers. 1/