We have the exactly opposite problem. We can produce so much that there are no markets to consume it all. There is an excess and we get assaulted by ads to consume some of it. Shortages are almost absent.
Arguably, the real problem with humanity's resource use today is not consumerism - not overconsumption - but overproduction. We produce vast amounts of food only to let it go to waste. We produce vast amounts of consumer goods only to shred the unsold (or returned) surplus to maintain their price points. It's cheaper to destroy what we overproduce than to discount it or decrease production output. From an economic point of view it becomes a problem of optimizing the waste disposal costs, not the resource use (especially not resources that can be externalized) - turning food waste into animal feed or biofuels, which in turn incentivizes overproduction when those uses become too profitable.
The entrepreneurial spirit is a perfect example for this. We can talk about disruption all we want as if it means making the world better but ultimately we're looking at existing systems and seemingly saturated markets and asking "how can we add to this in a way that makes us money?". We are explicitly opposed to notions of zero-sum markets but the only way to have a non-zero sum is to add more to it and that extra something has to come from somewhere, even if it's an externality to the balance sheets. For the past century marketing has been defined by creating needs rather than addressing existing ones, selling more rather than just providing another option.
This fuels the economy but it's a horrible waste if you look at it from a detached impersonal global resource use perspective. Even trying to go against this system has been productized and can be bought as a subscription model at this point. We've unlearned any other way to do things because everything has been recuperated by the system we've built. It is indeed easier for most people nowadays to imagine the end of the world than the end of the current system and it being replaced by something better, fairer or more resource-friendly.
You could easily spend far more trying to distribute overproduced items to someone who needs them, or trying to match supply too precisely too production and the consequences of that are not symmetric either.
For example, we can survive an oversupply of food just fine. We absolutely cannot survive an undersupply of food: if you have a population needing a certain number of calories and you don't have it, then in about 3 weeks you no longer have a problem because they've died.
The excess isn't a problem on its own, but it prevents people from making money.
You get stuck with people who have money, who have everything they want, and people who don't have money who can't make any, becauae there is already a huge excess of anything that people who do have money would want.
The solution is pretty simple, tax the rich and give it to the poor. Hard to put into practice due to the power dynamics involved, but let's not pretend it's this great mystery with no possible solution.
but the guy can work cheaper if he has more money, no? If the rich, through a series of steps including taxes and a debt relief program, pays that guy's mortgage, he can work cheaper, breaking the deadlock, no? Or am I misunderstanding the problem you're stating?
