It’s not the standard view because, in America, consumption is inherently tied to your identity.

You are seen as more attractive if you have trendy clothing compared to “outdated” clothing. You are seen as more financially successful if you overpay for “luxury” handbags. You are seen as having “made it” based on how much stuff you have.

Corporations know they can exploit this. They play up the value of purchases to your identity in advertising, then use that to distract you from the fact that your labor is being allocated solely to fuel this seemingly endless (solely monetary) growth, while they continue to siphon off more and more of your wages because, well, they “deserve” it for being the founder of the company, or being the shareholders that are “invested in its success.”

The only solution to this problem is degrowth. If we show corporations we don’t care about all this excess junk that nobody really needs, the available labor pool remains the same while demand craters. If everyone is working x hours a week, but demand drops to only necessities and minor luxuries, without the products advertised as “needs” holding any demand, suddenly, each individual has to work only, say, half of x hours a week to accomplish the same requirements to sustain society and individual wellbeing.

That, and we need to give the means of production back to the workers too, of course.