10. Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law



Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law
Bob Komives
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Growth studies are integral to physiology. Construction is integral to architecture. Economic development should be integral to economics. Yet, economic developers and economists share little common ground. At least one economist, Paul Romer, works to change that by convincing other economists that knowledge and technology are part of economic growth. This seems obvious to a person on the street but revolutionary to most macroeconomists.

Depending on where I run into it, economic development still seems to be more in the kit bag of real estate developers, promoters, and financiers, as well as thought provoking generalists. Confusion among economists makes me no more comfortable with the developers and promoters who play on a simpler stage:

" I create jobs.
You want jobs.
Jobs make community rich.
Give me break.
I will make money.
Then, I will make you
a nice, rich community."

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Pending some coherent understanding of economic development such a monologue plays well to many audiences.

I find more comfort with the generalist synthesizers who try to comprehend the complex world and take us along for the trial. They look beyond their narrow window on the universe to an ever-expansive view. This is not frivolous pursuit leading to nowhere. Some, such as da Vinci and Einstein left obvious legacies. Others do no less than help us think, create, and pursue our own synthesis. They are skilled people who are generalists and designers.

Generalists:
see pattern
where others see spots,
see hypothesis
where others struggle to see the experiment.
Designers:
see opportunities
where others see problems.

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One generalist designer got me onto this economic tangent. R. Buckminster Fuller formulated the fundamental law of macroeconomics. Wealth is a function of the knowledge and the energy in the universe.

wealth = function of (knowledge & energy)

The amount of energy in the universe is constant. The amount of that energy that we can call wealth, however, is not constant. It varies as the biosphere grows and changes. According to Fuller's Law, then, knowledge is the only component of wealth that can cause wealth to grow or shrink. This makes sense if we adopt a broad concept of knowledge.

We know something about
food, clothing, shelter,
art, and human rights.
They know some things about us.
Each and all is wealth.
Food is energy
made palatable.
Clothing and shelter are energy
reformed into protection and image.
Art controls and molds energy
to please our senses.
Human rights let us control our own energy
(including our own bodies).
Lacking such energy,
and the knowledge to use it,
we are poor.

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Buckminster Fuller's formulation for wealth lead him to make a simple prescription for economic development: Increase knowledge! Since the quantity of energy in the universe is fixed, we create wealth only by increasing knowledge. More important, when we increase our knowledge we cannot fail to increase our wealth.

My own formulation is incidentally different, but it leads to the same conclusions:

wealth = knowledge

On this alone I would like to rest my case. What else I have to say is not so clean and simple. I too need more designer synthesis. However, I believe I can argue well that economic development is inseparable from economics. I can lay down some of the bases for a conscious economic development strategy that equates with a sane use of the biosphere and discards the popular conception of a balanced national budget. The knowledge we need is within us, around us, and ahead of us.


:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 10. Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

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