> All else being equal, you want to produce more with less labor and other inputs.

I'm not sure how to work with the "all else being equal" part. I suspect it's a way to get out of dealing with the truth of the situation, but feel free to expand on it.

But.. to the main point: "you want to produce more with less labor and other inputs" <- the owner of the business does, yes. But unemployment statistics and in general "labour" wants the opposite.

Let's take this to an extreme. Take all the business owners in the land and make them so efficient they only need employ themselves. "Productivity" remains the same, but now the bulk of the inhabitants of the land are unemployed, and can't buy the "products". So now the owners make no money and go bankrupt. And no-one has work. And there's no productivity.

I think what "you" really want (and by "you" I mean "we") is for business owners to make only the slightest margin of profit possible (after paying themselves) to keep their businesses running and to employ as many people as possible, who all get paid as close as possible to the owner; and for any left-over to be reinvested in new businesses with the same approach to paying staff. That way more people have a job, more people are "productive" and more people can buy the stuff made by the companies.

Sure, this is a ridiculous extreme, but it makes more sense to me than "you want to produce more with less labor and other inputs". I am curious though: is there an equally impractical and extreme story that works to bolster your argument, to help me see the pattern more clearly?