As you mention Lafarge. I think his fallacy and other theorists of its time and school of thinking was mankinds natural sense of enough os enough.

Lafarge wont come true with the quite large inequality of wealth and mankinds appetite for disteactions and general fear of silence and deep contemplation.

In the case of Europe much of generated wealth is wandering abroud (China: goods, US: digital services) so wealth doesn't get enough redistributed but is created somewhere else.