Genuinely, look at the US in the same time period. The quality of life for most people across a a range of measures is enormously worse. Hours worked, health outcomes, housing security etc. Productivity - like GDP, is enormously more relevant to capitalist investment classes than normal people. A teacher, working in a US city any time between say 1900 and 1980 could save and buy a house, get married, have children - likely on a single salary. Towards the latter half of that period, they could also afford a car, pay for their children's university education, take annual holidays etc. Is that true today? Is it true in most cities of a nurse, a factory worker, a service economy worker? You're confusing the metric with the outcome. The metric is designed to measure only what is relevant to the most wealth, privileged people in society.