I think they did bring productivity gains.
Many countries in Asia, even the middleclasses don't own washing machines because domestic staff are so cheap. Such a waste of human potential.
I would argue that we did become more productive and affluent, but social status is relative and that's what people thought they were buying and were thus disappointed.
That is getting worse, not better, and I don't have a solution. Culture is upstream of both politics and economics...
We simply have more and niftier versions of each thing, per person. This is greater affluence, but largely through redundancy. There used to be a house phone, a house TV, a house dishwasher, etc. and everyone shared it. Those things brought productivity gains. But then they incentivized people to purchase one of each and then to move to separate houses, and the gains reversed.
Why does my family have savings, unlike most Germans? None of us ever divorced and the kids stay at home until they are married, and we share cars and kitchens and bathrooms, and there is only one TV and one grill and one big freezer. We just buy fewer things because we share things, and save the difference, because employers pay us the wages that people who need to Buy All The Things require to subsist, but we don't require those things.
Your family has a dissident culture, and dissident attitudes to social status.
Don't change! 💖
