Somebody: I think you've hit on something here. For example, just before Chavez took office, manufacturing made up 16% of Venezuela's GDP. Over a decade of endogenous development plans, nationalizations, and promotion of coops, it makes up 17%. In other words, unlike a lot of past left-wing nationalist and Marxist regimes, there hasn't been a state-led wave of industrialization in the country. In this sense, you can't even compare the country to Argentina under Peron.
Personally I think redistribution is great, and that the welfare state is the greatest and most enduring achievement of the left. Moreover, there are parts of the world that would profit from a purely redistributional revolution, South Africa being a glaring example. But, in the long run the progress of human civilization and the growth of living standards does rest upon the continual improvement in the productive potential, as you point out. After everything's said and done, technological development does far more for social justice than workers councils and vanguard parties.