To use your example, the worst thing that
would happen to someone who deliberately modified furniture or any other
rentable asset without permission is that they would have to pay for the
repair, replacement, or devaluation of that furniture or asset. This is
a very similar economic outcome that one would experience and accept now
within our capitalist society, so it would be difficult to believe that
people will reject Egalitarianism for this reason alone.
And if the modification was part of a
repair to the furniture or asset, we would probably thank the user. If
people feel inspired to modify their old furniture or other assets, as a
creative exercise, we are sure that we can cater to this desire without
people needing to become creative with the furniture they are actually
renting. We are in favour of people making something that is near the
end of its life into an ongoing asset. If people wish to recreate
furniture to make it more suitable for their purposes, then it is
sensible to just rent the appropriate furniture instead of continuing to
rent the inappropriate furniture. Also, if you have a particular or
uncommon requirement of your furniture, which is not unreasonable, we
would probably modify or create something for you. Further, people can
apply to modify the furniture they rent, just as they can apply to
modify the homes they rent, and we actually offer incentives to
encourage people to do so, when we perceive that it is going to increase
the value of that asset. And we expect to see a lot of people partaking
in this upgrading of all sorts of rentable assets because people will
then be able to continue renting the asset at the same cost even though
the asset is now higher in value.
