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RE: Rent Everything!

in #money8 years ago

You are making good points, but I have one issue: I think it does not make sense economically for items of higher costs, like a house, flat, or car. The more frequent and/or regular the use of the object, the less it makes sense to rent. If you rent a car every day, then in some time you could have owned the car already with the money you have spent renting it. And you are going to keep renting it in the future. Not a very happy thought.
Also, when you are renting, you are feeding some one else´s pocket, insted of investing.
But if we see it from an environmental perspective, it makes a lot of sense, it should lead to less need for consumption.
But what if we followed your model, and took away the need for money?
Now we are talking! Let´s turn all of the utilities we need into a commons.
We are heading for a post scarcity society, means of production is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and in the end it will not even be possible to make money from production most goods and services, the means of productions will be easily accessible to everybody.
But that doesn´t mean that we should producce a lot of stuff.
We could have a true sharing economy, only producing what is really necessary, and sharing and reparing all of the rest.

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"I think it does not make sense economically for items of higher costs, like a house, flat, or car. The more frequent and/or regular the use of the object, the less it makes sense to rent. If you rent a car every day, then in some time you could have owned the car already with the money you have spent renting it."
That's true -- but it only works as an argument against renting if you think that owning stuff is a good thing in the first place.
Let's take the car example. This scenario only works if you stick with the same car for all the time it takes you to pay it off -- that is, you're stuck to one model that has to work for everything you do (instead of e.g. taking a cheaper option whenever you do not need the big six-seater), that is always at the same level of technology (while progress marches on, you're still sitting in that 2010 clunker), and that you feel compelled to use all the time, even when it would be more convenient to take public transport, because you already have it, you're paying for it (not just the lease, but taxes, parking space, maintenance etc.), and it would make no sense to leave it standing in the garage.
So if you do it right, I'm not even sure if the economic benefits of owning-it-at-some-point (when it's long outdated and probably costs much more to operate than more recent cars would) are really that high -- and in any case, they're offset by greater flexibility. As your life changes, your transportation requirements change; look at all of the people who still drive their big family cars to work, even though their kids are long out of the house and have cars of their own. That's economical AND ecological madness. And to switch to houses, for a second, look at all the people who say "no, I can't take this job, it's too far away and I just finished paying off the mortgage / I'll lose my deposit / I've settled down here now". We tend not to notice this kind of opportunity cost most of the time, but I think as soon as more people live a more liberated life, this sort of clinging to belongings will seem ridiculous and outdated.

As for the post-scarcity society, I'm completely on board with this. I just think that's quite some way off yet; but then, renting everything might free up enough capital (human and otherwise) that we can get there sooner! :)

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