Rental Society

In my post the other day, I talked about the problem of the decline of mechanical literacy leading to passive consumerism. I also mentioned the connections between the DIY movement, whih is bringing back near-forgotten skills, and environmentalism. But there is another environmentalist take on who should control material goods, which is expressed by By William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle. In this vision of a "green" future, people will rent or lease everything, and at the end of a product's lifespan, the company will take it back for recycling; It' s a view of production and consumption based on an ecosystem. One problem is that this view of the world leaves no room for user agency and creativity. If corporations own all of my things, I can't do anything to personalize them unless it is authorized by those corporations. Another is that it renders problematic any dissent from corporate policies; if I publicly denounce the corporation that owns my clothes/books/computer, I may have violated the fine print of my lease, allowing them to come and take them away. Vivendi/Sony/Gap/Microsoft are not Mother Nature, and I am not a fruit fly. It freaks me out to no end that this rental movement seems to be gaining steam. Maybe I'm just stereotypically American, but I want to own the things I depend on. Dependence (as opposed to interdependence) is too dangerous a societal fate for me to countenance.