We don't have a culture that recognizes the value of higher and highest ends. This is part of the self-described pragmatism of liberal societies. For "pragmatic" reasons, we say that we cannot agree on what those higher ends are. So, we restrict common life to economics. The result, of course, isn't that we simply disagree on what those highest ends are. We reduce life to economics and reinterpret life in economic terms. So, rather than accommodating them, the liberal order actually progressively erodes higher ends, coercing life into the narrow straitjacket of economics, recasting even human relationships according to the market paradigm. Economics becomes the point of life, its ordering principle, an end in itself that we serve rather than something that serves us as we pursue higher ends. This is why economists are held in such high esteem. They are something of a priesthood of the salvific religion of Homo Economicus, with the Market as its god.

The result is perhaps more material wealth, but aimless, ugly, mediocre, and vulgar in its nature, because we suffer an acute spiritual poverty. Consumerism is what happens when material goods are not ordered toward a higher end. We have replaced the cathedral with the hamburger and the dildo.