If that were true, it would only reflect badly on those 'scholars'. Increased productivity is not in itself a bad thing, it is the subordination of productivity of use values to the production of surplus value that is the problem.
' Rather than more people being fed better, it produces more people, some of whom are fed better, most of whom who are fed well-enough feed themselves crappy, uninspired food produced and consumed as part of crappy, uninspiring social relationships, and huge numbers of people fed far far worse all around. '
It would be surreal (or perhaps just some unintended autobigraphical psychopathology) to argue that people's uninspiring social relationships reflect badly on the food on their table. Yes, it is true that people ought to be better fed. It is for that reason we ought to be pleased with the greater output of food that human labour achieves.
'The whole idea of socialism is to increase the quality of life for people and the planet'
(the planet is not alive, but let's leave that to one side) you cannot have an improved quality of life if you have no life at all. Four billion human beings owe their existence to the improvements in agricultural productivity that have taken place. What we need is to ensure they get the whole output of their labour, not just the leftovers.