Infantilization in consumerism isn't so new an issue for me, actually. I'm just returning to it after a long absence because it's relevant to understanding wokeness.

I don't see this as punching down since I'm talking about the decadence of what Matthew Stewart called the new aristocracy (the richest ten percent of developed Western societies). You find this left-wing decadence on expensive college campuses, not in poor, rural areas of the US, for instance. The woke are generally well-off, privileged white folks, and they exaggerate their victimhood to seem like they're warriors for social justice. These days, real victims of social injustice are found mostly in the developing world.

But I agree that there are other structural causes of the downside of consumerism.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/

https://medium.com/@benjamincain8/american-infantilization-and-the-age-of-reason-2da7faf92c34?sk=a76c121e43a5314438d12c81e04be822

https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/progress-and-american-infantilism-9fc1a826767?sk=2bc1fc33c13a0e54177beab8fd32629f

https://aninjusticemag.com/the-appalling-depth-of-the-consumers-infantilization-2ed7924e32c3?sk=942ad3778016e13f0e2d415cdfc614d1

https://medium.com/grim-tidings/how-to-be-existentially-mature-in-an-infantile-society-917255a385d6?sk=1c90f05c4f985e1432c94ca76ed252c0