No, that's not what real wages mean. Real wages going up means we can afford more stuff, full stop. The fact that real wages haven't kept up with productivity

No, that's not what real wages mean. Real wages going up means we can afford more stuff, full stop. The fact that real wages haven't kept up with productivity means that we can't afford as much more stuff as is being produced, but we can still afford more stuff. I'm not making a point about society, I'm making a point about what real wages mean.