You say that shifting from profit to human need stops the cycle of endless expansion, but I think you are underestimating how elastic “human needs” actually are. Under an industrial socialist system, if the state decides that everyone needs an electric car, a modern apartment, and global supply chains for fresh produce year-round, the expansion continues. The motive changes, but the physical extraction stays the same.

To build all that green infrastructure to meet those needs, you still have to mine lithium, cobalt, and rare earth metals on a massive scale. Those mines still destroy ecosystems and pollute water, whether the workers or capitalists own them. Profit does not physically dig the holes in the earth. Machines and labor do that. Changing the reason we dig the hole does not stop the hole from destroying the local environment.

The core issue is that you are replacing the profit motive with a productivist motive. You are assuming that as long as we are producing for need instead of profit, we can keep expanding production indefinitely. But the planet has hard physical limits. A truly socialist system has to recognize those limits and intentionally restrict what we consume, not just change who is doing the consuming. If your version of socialism just promises more stuff for everyone, you are still running an infinite growth engine on a finite planet.