Now calculate it minus government spending (which (granted in my opinion) is not true growth) and it’ll be even worse.
What does GDP (total or per capita) measure, anyhow?
Look at China. Theoretically ALL of their production is government spending (although not true so much these days). So PER CAPITA GDP goes up in China -- does that make the lives of the average Chinese person better? They're State-slaves.
Re-institute slavery here, and watch GDP per capita skyrocket. Would that make it o.k.?
It doesn't even make any sense to measure it "Per Capita". It's NOT per person, it's literally "per head" -- like cattle. The prize stud-bull has a sweet life, but everyone else gets eaten.
Government "Spending" is nearly all redistribution of wealth, plus the cost of paying someone to do the redistributing. Sure, "on average" everyone is assumed to receive the same benefit from government spending. That's what happens when you "average" things. "On average" everyone is also assumed to bear an equal amount of the cost -- again, the results of "averaging". (hint: when the cost >= benefit, it's NOT "production") That "average" result doesn't help you much if you're bearing 80% of the cost while SOMEONE ELSE gets 80% of the benefits.
GDP by itself is worse than useless. When used in the only way that it could be useful (i.e., comparing TOTAL "production" of one country to TOTAL "production" of another country) it only tells you "how much" --- it cannot tell you "HOW"? Americans are soon going to learn that THAT is the more important question.