I agree with much of what Nicole Gelinas has to say about what free-market capitalism is and isn’t in this NRO article, but not with this passage:
But consumerism isn’t the fault of free-market capitalism. It is largely the result of decisions by Western governments to favor the financial industry above all other industries. Since the 1980s, America has made it clear that it will protect large financial institutions from bankruptcy. The rest of the West has followed.
I don’t think consumerism is “largely the result” of post-1980 economic policies. I think it’s largely the result of original sin and material abundance. Free-market capitalism has produced a lot of the latter and thus bears some indirect responsibility for consumerism, but consumerism is a price worth paying for that abundance. Subsidies for large financial institutions are indeed deplorable, but get rid of them and people — nearly all of us, I should think — would still have a tendency to prize material possessions too much.