Consumerism has mostly been a way to separate fools and their money throughout the 20th century.

If consumerism wouldn’t exist, the workers would have earned good dollars, but would have kept the wealth to themselves, and so you end up with a powerful working class. If instead, the people spend their money as soon as they have it, the companies and therefore the company owners get a share of the money repeatedly, until all of the wealth is slowly siphoned away by the owning class.