I don't think there's a "war on stuff" so much as there is a tendency among many people to accumulate and tend to way too much stuff: http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html. And I'd include myself in that group. And the price of stuff is not just in the original acquisition cost (which may be zero); it's also in real estate needed to hold stuff and the time needed to search and sort it.

I've got a loose rule: if I've not used it or worn it in the last six months, it should go, no matter how much it originally cost. Some seasonal clothes and and a few tools are exempt. For books, I ask if I'm likely to re-read it, and if the answer is no, it goes. In the post-Amazon world, books are very rarely hard to re-acquire. In short, "The Possessions Exercise" is useful: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/02/13/the-possessions-exercise-....

America had entered a time of peak stuff, when we had accumulated a mountain of disposable goods

Right.

It's strange to read the article and not see "cost" and "trade offs" mentioned. My guess is that we're psychologically wired for a world of limited and scarce stuff, but many of us no longer live in that world. A similar problem can be seen in our predilection for refined sugar.