I agree with you, but in the end, I think that pitting an imagined austere but socially developed society against our actual supposedly-profligate but socially

I agree with you, but in the end, I think that pitting an imagined austere but socially developed society against our actual supposedly-profligate but socially underdeveloped society misses reality to repeat a myth: the myth of decadence. This myth lets people pretend society is too productive and too good at meeting needs, leaving nothing but petty status disputes, covering up the reality of a society that's running dramatically below peak efficiency precisely because it doggedly dedicates so much of its resource base to status disputes.