[ben_w]

I would say: Consumerism helped grow the economy from the end of the agrarian era/start of the industrial era to a poorly delimited point in our recent history when we transitioned from industry to services. After that point, consumerism has been as bad for our mental health as high fructose corn syrup has been for our waistlines.

Manufacturing and agriculture combine to less than a fifth of American GDP today; I say it would be better quality of life if Americans worked one day a week for the same material possessions, but the drive to consume ever more is the primary impediment to that. Similar arguments apply in the other G20 economies, but I’m not going to quantify them.

Of course, I’m not an economist, so perhaps I’m doing a gross disservice to the real value of the service sector…