GDP growth is compounding, while leisure time is zero-sum.… if you increase your leisure time by 5% every year, at some point your life will be just leisure time
This seems like a weird comparison. GDP reflects the total value of goods that people consume, whereas leisure time is just one such good, like food. Nobody cares if the total amount of food each person can eat increases by 1% each year, because 2000 kcal is enough for most people. The amount of leisure time available to people in the industrialized world has increased over the decades, but surely the amount of leisure time we can get will plateau at some point (it’s mathematically impossible for leisure time to exceed 168 hours a week, but it would probably peak below that).
This seems like a weird comparison. GDP reflects the total value of goods that people consume, whereas leisure time is just one such good, like food. Nobody cares if the total amount of food each person can eat increases by 1% each year, because 2000 kcal is enough for most people. The amount of leisure time available to people in the industrialized world has increased over the decades, but surely the amount of leisure time we can get will plateau at some point (it’s mathematically impossible for leisure time to exceed 168 hours a week, but it would probably peak below that).