Consumerism was always a lie. The idea of working more in order to earn more in order to buy more stuff to purportedly make us happier. Insofar as it did, it came with a terrible cost.
It seems to me that at least certain aspects of consumerism work. Labor saving appliances like washing machines, slow cookers, microwaves, and vacuums make life much easier and less stressful. Media like TV, movies, and video games seem to provide legitimate entertainment.
I'm not trying to setup a straw man that anti-consumerist are saying we need to go back to the stone age. I'm just not sure where a society/philosophical movement should draw the line.
What makes the most sense to me would be to return to quality goods over mass production (e.g. emphasis on permaculture, the ability to repair goods, opposition to planned obsolescence, etc.) combined with emphasis of gratitude and a balanced approach to minimalism. However, I'm not sure if this approach is available to people who are not well of financially.
One idea frequently suggested is that people as individuals ought to reduce the amount of consumption, but does this address the fundamental qualitative issues in the system of production? Even if the scale can be achieved, what will be the meaningful permanent change?
Another response is that reducing the amount of consumption is wrong headed: it's targeting an effect rather than the cause. But in my opinion, the worst solution to this problem is the one which insists on a form of government action. Laws can be changed, but they can also be changed back, and in every country the laws are decided by capital (the structure and abstraction, not "big business"). So this also raises the issue of whether what is profitable is good, but that question has an easy answer: it's not.
My ideas are fairly radical (and very radical by HN standards), in the sense that I think there is a fundamental factor in this mode of production, abstract labour to be specific (which Peter Hudis makes a convincing argument for, rather than property, money, "greed" etc. for instance), which is a cause of overproduction, the qualitative aspects of work in industrial capitalism and much misallocation (judged in human standards rather than economic standards).
By abstract labour you mean like overly specific high rate tasks instead of craftmanship ?
By abstract labour I mean the property of labour as valuable in an economy rather than as the concrete action of producing useful items. A related term is commodification, which transforms purely useful items into commodities by making them comparable (i.e bestowing the property of abstract labour). Abstract labour is what makes a coat and 20 yards of linen comparable and tradeable, and as a consequence of this, money is the general equivalent form for trading.
The focus on high rate tasks instead of craftsmanship ties into the (again related) concept of alienation of labour, which is more obvious in late capitalism.