You know what we CAN do?
Voluntarily downsize. There's no law against that.
Rather than live in a larger house and earn $40,000 a year, try getting a smaller house you can pay off, and live on $20,000 (or less) a year. Reduce, reuse, recycle and go to garage sales, so you can spend less money (and consequently, need to earn less "to survive")
The less money you earn = the less taxes you pay.
The government can't decide what your standard of living is going to be...they can only insist you pay taxes on WHATEVER YOU HAPPEN TO EARN. So you see, we do have a choice.
If everyone stopped playing the "consumer" game tomorrow, there would be a massive crash. But it would be the good kind of crash *grin*
Seriously, the world is so messed up that SOMETHING has to give.