[dag100]

> Even godawful economic growth would compound way too much.

You vastly overestimate how much of the growth would be going to the workers in question. Especially as, before fiat currency and electric communication, prices were (relatively) more stable than today, and hence so were incomes, especially for labour work. Why would some factory owner in the 1800s pay his workers more than he needed to find new workers? Most economic growth was captured by capital owners and what would today be known as the middle class, but back then were merchants, doctors, etc. - basically just the tier below the capital owners in the social hierarchy. The vast majority of people were peasants.