I think the author, who admittedly sweeps through a lot of strange generalizations on classical history in this article, is just using the idea of Aristotle and

I think the author, who admittedly sweeps through a lot of strange generalizations on classical history in this article, is just using the idea of Aristotle and Plato "not being enough" to illustrate the delusions of consumer culture. We are no longer satisfied with pure virtue but instead have to buy things to display our success. I do agree that self-help writers have a strong tendency to completely ignore Aristotle or do some terrible injustice to his self-improvement philosophy, but I'm not sure if it's really happening in this particular article.