Normally, it would be poor form to pick apart someone's well thought-out reasoning, but your reasonings are not well thought-out: they're middle class talking points, and effectively propaganda, lacking any overarching cohesion.

> If that happened any increase in productivity would be offset by the reduced time worked, so no one would get richer (very simplistically).

This is a useless point for the common man. "Productivity," in statistical economics jargon, means "how much profit is squeezed out of an employee." It's a substitute for the much more charged "surplus value of labor." When productivity goes up and wages stagnate, as we've seen happen, it means the common employee is not getting richer, but instead being fleeced -- usually do to a moral depression that does not leave him able to negotiate (struggle/fight/etc.) for higher wealth (both material and non-material).

This false equilibrium falls apart when you can simply deduct hours worked, and lower wages just enough to have a better productivity-to-hours ratio. Cannily, this is what has happened to most large low-skilled labor markets, where MBA "consultants" come in to grift and sell management/the executive team on how to make more money -- at the cost of everything else. See: McDonalds and Walmart as a prime example.

This also has the added bonus that you can now decide not to offer full-time benefits (human rights), because your workers are no longer "full time."

I.e. economic propaganda does not reflect real life.

> Humans are competitive

Humans with way less, are also hungry. Humans with way more, are also desensitized-degenerates that need hyper-stimulating avenues of pleasure like extreme avarice to sate their desires.

Most people do not work because they want to, but because they need to. The only "competitive" people you'll see in the work-force are the greedy. Who've passed the point where money no longer really means anything, but still have decided to dedicate their life watching that number go up. They are degenerates. Using them to paint all of humanity with a broad stroke is ill thought-out.

> And we're all getting richer. Sure there's more billionaires then ever, but if we're all getting richer so what? (and yes we are getting richer: the economic progress in Asia and Africa over the last two decades has been incredible. And the west continues to develop also. The world is richer than it has ever been)

Materially, yes. Spiritually, morally, intellectually, emotionally, socially: no.

Colonialization of foreign lands, effectively enslaving these people to be a part of the dominating civilization's "economic machine" is not a good thing. These people had a way of life before Western Civilization (TM) came in and obliterated their culture. They were presumably content, otherwise they would've sought out "innovation," "competition," and "productivity" on their own -- without the help of colonizers.

If the pieces of what I've quoted are authentic, and genuinely from the heart, then it is an example of moral bankruptcy (most likely due to environmental causes -- rather than individual).

There are other things in the world besides money. The only civilization that keeps on beating the war-drum of money money money is the Western Civilization. Everyone else has other things that are important to them (notably: family, social connections, spirituality, living a good life, being a decent human being, and so on). But in fairness, these are all slowly disappearing, as the U.S. keeps on pumping inflation out to the world, and forcing everyone else to "join" or "suffer" economically (materially).