There's production and there's consumption. The allocation of that production and how it's consumed is dependent on the structure and the vagaries of the rules of all economies, regardless of which definition of meritocracy they most closely resemble.

However, the miracle is that it's possible to get more output from the same amount of human effort with better business practices and better technology. (Though really it is more like a closer adherence to some hypothetical perfectly efficient economy than it is a miracle.) For increases in productivity, and more production not to produce more consumption would be the economics equivalent of violating the laws of conservation of mass and energy, or being able to slow down your car without converting that kinetic energy into heat.

There aren't differing opinions about whether increased production enables greater consumption, because the relationship is equivalent to a mathematical identity. However, that does not mean that there can be no debate about the effects of automation and other technological leaps in productivity.

For instance, there is the notion that making sure those who are responsible for leaps in productivity are well compensated incentivizes continued innovation. Then there is the concern that since the ultimate purpose of economies is human quality of life, those productivity gains don't actually accomplish anything if most participants in the economy fail to realize the benefits of those gains. And furthermore, sufficiently large disparities in wealth and influence are likely to establish a patronage system in place of a formerly meritocratic system, such that the talent pool for the next round of innovation is greatly constrained.

The dynamic between productivity and income is counter intuitive at times. However, consider that there were past instances where people were ready to violently riot for the opportunity to be sent down into a mine where they would possibly contract black lung, only to bring up coal that was worth less than their compensation packages. Measuring such work by the sweat and risk would mean that it was worth a considerable income. However, there were other energy sources that required less effort and factory equipment was efficient enough that a bucket of coal simply wasn't that important. Those developments were good things! That tens or hundreds of thousands of people should be paid to hurt themselves, for something that was worth less than they needed to be paid sounds nonsensical today, but was debated seriously only a few decades ago.

Changes in economies that lead to fewer people being eaten up by their jobs into an early death are good.

Anyway, one final interesting aside. The term "unemployment" when used during the era before the industrial revolution didn't refer to not being able to find how to employ oneself, but to people choosing not to work. Not-starving was a measure for being okay, and common people didn't have too many worthwhile goods and services they could buy if they had more income. The term was used by the equivalent of that eras policy makers in addressing concerns about building up surplus stores, so that they would not suffer blame and revolts when the weather was unseasonably bad, or they wanted to collect more taxes for their own consumption, or they wanted to be able to feed an army.