No we do not live in a too materialistic society.
Forget your lipsticks, materialism is directly linked to new conservatism where the old fad of thriftiness has been exchanged for low investment now, high returns later.
Once this returns have been paid, then we should all be as materialistic as possible and spend, spend, spend.
Materialism in turn promotes competion, which in a free market economy will thus generate billions for the economy and show what a true meritocracy we have in England.
People no longer aspire to having land or gold reserves, modern society has moved towards visible wealth. That is how nice your house looks like or what car you have. Best of all, can the neighbours see steam rising from your swimming pool when it is minus 2 knowing it is costing about 75 pounds a day to heat!!!
Right or wrong that is aspiration nowadays, partly due to Premier footballers and pop icons, partly due to neo-capitalist ideology.
However, materialism has its downfalls which must be addressed. Those too lazy, too thick or simply too Welsh to do well get jealous and this leads not so much to crimes of utility, but credit cards and debt.
And who pays for this debt in real terms??? Middle bloody England. The hard working and aspiring classes trying to fund a nice house for their loving family only to be faced by high interest rates because the peasants do sweet FA.
However, I still maintain that materialism creates aspiration, and the all the smelly masses can be at the same plateau if they only stopped drinking, smoking, robbing and watching porn!!!!