It’s not about productivity. If that were the real goal then the entire system would be structured radically differently, given what we know now through actual research. The real goal is ensuring that workers do not have ample time or energy to collectively organize. Make sure they don’t have the time to even think about anything else, and you ensure they damn sure don’t have the time to rebel. The other goal is ensuring there are a significant number of unemployed people in terrible enough conditions to make them desperate, but not so terrible that they are incapable of working. That way if s few stray workers get a bug up their ass about organizing and striking, there’s a reserve army of labor in the homeless and unemployed communities that can step in and scab.