Hard to disagree, in theory. But who decides what is "tat for popular consumption" and what is "need"? And what do you do when 90% of the shops have to close because they sell "tat"? Or when car factories have to lay off workers?
The obvious answer is that the shopkeepers and factory workers would be turned to making solar panels and cycle paths and bamboo bicycles. But how long would it take, hypothetically, to transform the whole world?
And people would still desire "tat," in the form of a new car, a new stereo, new clothes, a new kitchen, new pots-and-pans, a new and ever larger TV set?
Because people will spend their money on what they desire, which is 90% "tat". And by drastically cutting back production and retailing of consumer goods, people will become poorer, factory hands jobless, shopkeepers' families starving. One solution might be forcing all men to have one very expensive handmade suit every three years, instead of three new rubbish rags a year. Or a new car, built to last, every 20 years. But is this realistic.
Unfortunately the world lives in a culture of massive consumption of cheap, throwaway rubbish. Could you isolate the UK and create a Utopia? Given all thr threads here about computers, 58-inch TVs, tablets, Iphones, streamers, trainers, hats, multiple expensive cars, expensive holidays, etc., which are evidently all indicators of how not "in need" one is, I doubt it would be easy.