> The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends.

I slightly disagree with this point. The 40 hour work week is a rather recent development; in the past, people had to work a lot longer with no or only one day of. The trend actually goes in the direction of reducing it further (at least here in Germany), where 35 or 32 hour weeks are getting more common (depending on the job, of course). Plus, there are alternative models, such as 4x 10h days + 3 days off.

Sure, the current model serves corporations, but it is by no means their invention. And while they are a big part of why it still is so large, the reason is most likely that they need the labor hours, not the specific consumption behavior.