If a society decides to produce consumer goods from its available resources, it is answering the basic economic question “what to produce?”

Basic economic questions

Economics teaches that every society must answer three basic questions because resources are limited while wants are unlimited. These three questions are: what to produce, how to produce, and for whom to produce.

Why the answer is “what to produce”

  • Choosing to produce consumer goods (rather than, for example, capital goods or military goods) is a decision about which goods and services will be made.
  • That choice directly corresponds to the “what to produce” question: it specifies the type of output the society will allocate its scarce resources toward.

How and for whom (for contrast)

  • The “how to produce” question deals with production methods, such as using more labor or more machines, or choosing cleaner vs. cheaper technologies.
  • The “for whom to produce” question deals with distribution: which people or groups in society will get the goods that are produced, often linked to income and purchasing power.

TL;DR: In your sentence, the blank should be filled with “what to produce” because deciding to use resources for consumer goods is a choice about the mix of goods a society will produce.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.