The American citizens have been duped by design by their leaders - the captains of industry. Since the late '60 America could have easily switched over to a 4 or even 3-day work week. But the capitalists running the country wouldn't have it. They wanted to keep exploiting their fellow Americans to the max. Hence the active propaganda of unrelentless consumerism and anti-socialism. Because, god help America if the Americans had too much idle time on their hands and used it to start to think for themselves. As they then would realise that, like the American Indians before them, they too were being appeased, misled and robbed of their time and labour on this earth with meaningless beads and trinkets to feed the entitlement of a happy few.