1) Unions say it when they always demand increased salary (= focus on private spending) rather than reduced working hours

2) Voters say it when the right and far right is polling high. Lower taxes = wish for higher private spending, if people are going to work less then tax rate must up for society to function as public expenditure will increase, not decrease, with lots of elderly needing care and fewer workers available.

3) Lots of people have the ability to reduce working hours by working fewer hours (in Norway, if you have kids you can always get 20% unpaid leave by law). And most could do so economically if they reduced their consumption and spending. But people do not seem to consider reducing their salary as an option. The option is available to lots of people and they are not taking it.

PS: You talk about getting more stuff, but to meet the future labor problems we are talking about reductions being needed to peoples consumption, not staying at the 2025 level.

They're not taking it because living costs are up across the board. The laws allows you to work part time, but your expenses don't so you have to work 40h week to keep up in the rat race with everyone else.

1) Unions are asking that Capitalists share a bigger slice of the fruit of workers labor back with the workforce. Forcing a link between that and private spending and eventual consumerism is skipping a few steps in the logic.

2) Voters vote on a number of reasons. Taxes are one, but they range from geopolitical, immigration, healthcare, education, safety, access to housing among others. And then there is the charisma and quality of the candidate. Saying people vote left or right for one single issue is simplistic, and not very genuine. It could also be that significant groups of people abuse the social support tools, and people get tired of paying taxes for someone else to benefit by not doing their share.

3) You are clearly well off and are being a bit selfish. Many people live paycheck to paycheck, and would like to save some money for their future, which seems smart considering that goverment funds will crumble (as stated in this article). Other people work because they have done so for 30 years and sadly their life are empty outside of it. Assuming people work 100% just because they are too materialistic or attached to wealth feels a bit unfair to what most of society goes through.

Don't mean to critise, but in face of your strong opinion, I wanted to highlight that as Flaubert said, "There is no truth, just perceptions".

I was a bit clumsy -- I just meant that if people wanted to prioritize time over luxuries then SOME people, who are in a position to, not all, could have sent that signal. Because luxuries (vacations, cabins, boats) are still getting prioritized in the scandinavian middle class, and those specifically could have sent the signal they wanted more free time instead.

I agree with your points outside of that context and I should have specified it.

People who believe that consumerism was something that the general population opted into willingly rather than a result of a torrent of post WW2 psyops campaigns designed to deal with the "problem" of industrial overproduction.