Wealth is conventionally defined in terms of possessions and market value, but money and gold are not part of Fuller's definition.
Wealth is "the measurable degree of forwardly organized environment control."
(Reader, p.248)
Its two components are energy (including associative energy patternings: matter) and knowhow. Since the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and since practical-technical knowledge tends to accumulate, it would follow that:
"wealth which combines energy and intellect can only increase, and that wealth can increase only with use and that wealth increases as fast as it is used."
(Utopia Or Oblivion, p.373)
Such an accumulation of wealth is of course counteracted by war:
"In war, the army is not merely a pure consumer but a negative producer: that is to say, it produces illth , to use Ruskin's excellent phrase, instead of wealth - misery, mutilation, physical destruction, terror, starvation and death characterize the process of war and form a principal part of the product."
(Mumford, 1933, p.93)
Thus, illth is to wealth as weaponry is to livingry.
Accounting in terms of gold is discussed in "Continuous Man" (Reader, p.368).
See Energy Accounting.
© Paul Taylor 2001