Nothing in the OP's argument was quantitative. Both are qualitative arguments. The OP raises some good points that deserve serious thought, but I find his argu

Nothing in the OP's argument was quantitative. Both are qualitative arguments. The OP raises some good points that deserve serious thought, but I find his argument sketchy and hand-wavy. The crux of the argument is this: > "Our mainstream economic system is oriented towards maximal production and growth. This effectively means that participants are forced to maximize their portions of the cake in order to stay in the game. It is therefore necessary to insert useless and even harmful "tumor material" in one's own economical portion in order to avoid losing one's position. This produces an ever-growing global parasite fungus that manifests as things like black boxes, planned obsolescence and artificial creation of needs." Everything else in the post is either analogy or following the assumptions in that paragraph to their conclusions. But the sheer amount of reasonable objections that are ignored or dismissed in that paragraph is staggering. If today's capitalist systems have systemic issues that result in gross misuse of resources, I don't think it's for any of the reasons that the OP suggested. For that reason, I am skeptical of his proposed solutions.