When have businesses not treated people as consumers?
I once visited a friend in London, his family had a really nice property, worth millions for sure. And then in this kitchen some really funny ancient oven and toaster stuff. It still worked fine. So why replace it? North Americans just keeping buying new, we're the epiphany of that culture.
But at some point in your career you might connect the dots and realize you need people to 'buy buy buy' in order for your sales to remain healthy and for you to keep your job so you can support your family etc. etc..
It's a weird vicious/virtuous circle and I don't thin UBI etc. will solve it. There are innumerable actual innovations and advancements that come out of the rat race :).
This reverses cause and effect. For most of human history, real productive capacity didn't change from generation to generation. Elites fought to sit on more stuff; there was no point bringing peasants into the mix.
The industrial revolution (and the Black Plague, in Europe) changed that dynamic. Real economic growth became a thing. And workers needed to be competed for. That gave them bargaining power in the economy, which they converted into re-tooling it away from solely making toys for the elites and towards producing goods and services for the masses.
It's always comforting to imagine some disembodied "elites" calling the shots and making a plan. In reality, our systems are more chaotic.
*epitome
Sounds like an AGA [1], they are still a consumer culture signal even if they don't look it to an outsider.
If the AGA is new (within the last decade or two), those people spent tens of thousands of dollars on a freaking oven. That's more than most people would spend on an entire kitchen remodel.
If the AGA is not new (from before 1990 or so), it's horrendously energy inefficient. A modern sub-$1,000 oven would pay for itself in energy savings in no time.