'Why aren't we far more productive?' sounds not too different from 'Why don't we have infinite growth on a finite planet?'
- There is not enough meaningful democratizable work. Most work is either menial, or challenging. And I'm not even talking about the third kind of work [1].
- Menial work is getting more and more automated.
- Challenging work doesn't necessarily scale with human resources beyond a certain point (e.g., If 1000 researchers are already working on cancer, increasing the number to 10,000 isn't necessarily going to help find a cure faster).
[1] https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/