When one thinks of productivity demand, you should ask yourself the following: Are you adding value?
- Are you creating wealth (giving more value to something, increasing something, or making something more)?
- Are you neutral (not adding value to your input but not decreasing it either)?
- Are you creating poverty (wasting the input so that you have less than you started with)?
A simple example is if you take a piece of paper (worth 50c) and a bit of pencil (worth 10c) and you make a drawing on the paper. Your drawing is a masterpiece. How much is the piece of paper now worth? If you sell your drawing for $150, you have created wealth.
On the other hand, if you take the paper (worth 50c) and a bit of pencil (worth 10c) and you make a drawing that is useless, what do you do? You crumple the paper and throw it away. You thus throw away 60c, creating poverty.
Productivity is all about creating prosperity, welfare, making things better, adding value, or doing necessary things. Non-productivity is destroying what there is.