Modern economics is based on economic growth. Economic growth is based on making products that are designed to fail (aka planned obsolescence), and as a result are designed to waste resources and energy. Consumer spending is tied to marketing which effectively distorts our wants and needs towards products which do not fulfill our basic needs (in the aggregate).
So called ‘Green’ products are still creating waste. For example buying a new hybrid car creates more waste (due to the additional manufacturing of the new vehicle) than maintaining an older car.
Could there be an entire industry of higher priced ‘lifetime’ products? Could these products be manufactured locally, in small facilities that pay real wages? Engineering would still be centralized in this model, as information is cheap to ship. But the ecological cost of shipping products from overseas would be used rather than pure financial cost in justifying sourcing decisions.
Sounds like a book :-)