I like the way you think, so let me play the devils advocate. If that you propose is what first built up the US, then was it not that course of action that eventually led to consumerism? I support my point by saying that once a solid infrastructure was built and appliances were of good quality and well made, it was then that the manufacturers needed to find something else to build.
And I knew you or someone else would bring up
exactly this point, so I submit that the infrastructure you speak of may have been solid and adequate 50 years ago, but unfortunately time has passed. Much of what was built wasn't even maintained well, never mind updated to meet modern demands. And then you have what
wasn't built due to the movement of labor into the service sector. Outside of NYC, mass transit of the kind useful for day-to-day tasks plain just doesn't exist in the 50 states. The electrical grid is old, fragile, one step away from disaster. I won't even speculate on the condition of our power generation infrastructure other than to say the picture likely isn't pretty. As far as structures, most of what has been built in the last 50, and especially last 20, years has been low quality housing designed mostly to make a quick buck for real estate speculators. I'd love to see the shape these houses will be in 50 years from now. Then again, given their location, it likely won't matter ( more on that later ).
If everything lasted forever and had utility, there would be very few things left to make and sell.
No matter how well we make things, nothing can be made to last forever. There will always be things which need to be replaced or repaired. If we had much more infrastructure that alone might create sufficient jobs to employ many of those displaced from manufacturing/selling "widgets". In fact, there is a lot of infrastructure work which should be done, but isn't, for reasons I can only speculate.
If we look at infrastructure, you will see that it is driven by consumerism. Many homes are sold each day because people want a nice, new, larger home. Generally, it isn't out of necessity. How much more infrastructure would we need if people stayed in homes that were sufficient for their family size and just updated it as needed? There are a lot of people that derive their livelihood from the home market.
You're right here, and unfortunately a consumer-driven rather than necessity-driven housing market means houses are no longer built to last. Here in the US we make wood-framed, shingle houses with no selling point other than the fact that they're bigger than what they replace. They're poorly designed in terms of both ergonomics and construction. In other places where space/raw materials are at a premium living spaces are made to make the most efficient use of available space, and are also made to higher standards ( reinforced concrete, metal window frames, ceramic or marble flooring, etc. ).
However, remember I mentioned earlier about these houses likely not needing to last much longer than their poor construction will allow them to? The reason ties in quite neatly with your mention of sprawling suburbs. Because housing designers in the US chose to be lazy, and make houses big rather than making smart use of less space ( or just building them up instead of out ), they were forced to put these houses where cheap land for them existed. End result is the suburban sprawl and the spreading of familes with each generation to ever more remote locations. Except there is one problem. We're loathe to spend money on infrastructure. Sure, we spent once in a frenzy to build the roads and electrical infrastructure which let surburbia sprawl. However, we never planned for the long-term maintenance of this infrastructure.
This is a problem that can never be fixed because the massive construction of roads and bridges in the 1950s and 1960s was never sustainable. This infrastructure was built in a euphoria of suburbanization at the behest of real estate developers, with no concern regarding the future maintenance of these relatively lightly used facilities. It is time to just let some of these roads and bridges terminate, and relocate the communities they support to places with denser/smarter housing. We simply cannot afford to maintain thousands of miles of roads and hundreds of bridges that support moderate to light density housing areas. We'll go bankrupt if we try. Like I said earlier, consumerism on any level is unsustainable. The great, failing experiment with suburbia is perhaps the clearest example of that, and also the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the planet.
It's an interesting concept. Certainly, we can't all be farmers. What is the compromise?
We can't all be farmers, but I'm envisioning us going back to a system where more goods and services are produced locally. Make things we
need less expensive and people will need less money. It won't matter if fewer people have jobs. Right now in many places just the cost of necessities exceeds an average salary. This is largely because there are unproductive middlemen in all levels of the chain, each taking their cut. Let's just look at one example-generating power. You have people making profits selling fuel, running generators, and supplying the grid. The end user must supply a continual income stream to these people in order to have electricity. Now envision where this same person buys solar panels and storage batteries. In principle, they pay once for the system, and get electricity forever. Of course, nothing is forever, but apply a similar model to everything else. End result-costs of living drop, maybe you only need work one year out of three ( or part-time 15 hours a week ) to support yourself. Sure, perhaps fewer jobs, and fewer "extras", but also a lot more leisure.
I'll add that the above model is far from coherent or well-thought out. The general idea though is the more lasting
useful assets the previous generation makes, the less the present one needs to work for the same quality of life. Taken to an extreme, imagine that prior generations had set up a system of androids doing all labor and also building/repairing themselves. End result is the current generation doesn't
need jobs from an economic point of view.
Right now we're doing the reverse. We're making things which don't last, essentially leaving our offspring no better off than we were. In some ways they're worse off because sooner or later things will come crashing down. Those currently in charge are just hoping this occurs after their time on the planet is done. I do see the trend on the cusp of reversing. Consumers are starting to get wiser, and not buying into the idea of needing to get every incremental upgrade. This is probably because they've been burned too many times, spending big bucks only to see what they bought selling for half the price a month later. Now they're more content to just wait a month, or three, or not buy at all. Consumers are also becoming less receptive to advertising, probably because it long ago reached a saturation level like white noise everywhere. Now it's up to businesses to catch on. Make lasting products fulfilling a real, long-term need, not one-shot gimmicks. Moreover, start to make more products easily upgradeable/repairable rather than throw-away. You could charge more for such a product. Moreover, you could save substantially in advertising if such products are good enough to sell themselves.
