That's one of the reason that mullification through the carrot works so well in the United States... It's a very wealthy nation with vast reserves of resources to draw upon to keep people happy.
Perhaps the thing that happens is people see it's all BS and just decide they don't need all the toys, and once they don't need the toys, they don't need to work either. Plus they'll get more critical of the system.
Please take into account that most of us humans are bound by various obligations. Be it the financial type, i.e. paying off your house for 30+ years or, even more captivating, creating substitutes for natural needs. Compare with the fact that most of us live isolated, especially in these times, without real world communication beyond chats, mail, telephone and, well, Hacker News. The lack of face to face opportunities to speak and do nonverbal communication is one of the causes for rising psychological diseases, drug abuse and antisocial behaviours in the last decade.
Our post Neolithic Revolution society is based on the concept of the ruler and the ruled. Why? Because having power is also a desire which may be the most destructive one for humanity in general.
We may be living on a punishment planet or simulation.
"Resources" exist in people's minds, not in the ground. Rocks and toxic sludge have no intrinsic value.
That wealth takes the form of things in the ground, but also influence and the capacity to satisfy the desires of other countries and the people in them. Some of that is powered by processes that use raw materials that are non-renewable and dragged from the ground, but in the United States a lot of it is based on a hugely robust import export economy... Most of the things that push the joy buttons come from China.