It's all connected, though. The person who had been working at the Ventilator company wasn't doing it for nothing. They did it so they could afford food, home, and completely unnecessary widgets. The widget factory guy spent his excess cash on thots. Thot girl spent her money on makeup. The lady hawking makeup at the mall spent money on shoes.
That is to say, shit you consider completely frivolous and trash is what gets someone else up at 6:30 to get ready to work. I'm not prepared to define 'essential goods' for everyone, and quite honestly, a world in which all goods are essential sounds like the setup for a dystopian novel. We are on a gaming forum fetishing plastic energy and time suckers, after all.
And while a shitload of that is crass consumerism, and we can shit on that all day, if the shoes stop coming the thot goes broke and the ventilator dude doesn't get his completely unnecessary widget thar he really wants. And that other guy loses his temper because he didn't get to kill space aliens last night.
I can bitch about consumerism all day. I spent years practically off the grid, and while i have too much junk now you don't have to sell me on the value of minimalism. But with going on 10 billion people in the world, we can't just let our economy go to shit. The US is fortunate due to land/resources that we can be self sufficient in a pinch, but that doesn't mean we throw our economy overboard.
I also don't think it's true people aren't buying stuff. We are. Tp, oreo cookies, extra food, water... downloading movies and games and books. I don't think 99% of people are learning we don't need shit.... rather, i think most people are absolutely aching to go out to the mall and splurge in consumerism withdrawal.
You say: "You're asking people to sacrifice so that consumerism gets back to where it was before, but the harder the disease hits, the harder it will be to sell any of this trash."
Nah, i'm saying people want to get back to work. They want to be social. They want to buy shit. Just look at the stupid spring break stuff. Not everyone is scared, or hiding. I have a family member who proudly helps keep trucking going to a major food retailer. I know a couple medics proud to be at work. I know a bartender who is itching to get back to serving people. People miss 1 month ago.
What i'm saying is that i don't think people are learning 'to do without', but rather, 'holy hell do i miss how good we had it' and the way to keep that is to not destroy the economy in the process of preventing pandemic. There is balance to be found.
Like i said, i spent many, many years buying very, very little. I don't particularly like defending consumerism. But i recognize it is what ultimarely feeds billions, and it works. I'd rather consumerism than mass food riots and a breakdown of society.