6.3.1 The decision was taken on a recklessly altruistic do-gooder basis, but in response to the fact that my Chronofile clearly demonstrated that in my first thirty-two years of life I have been positively effective in producing life advantage wealth‹which realistically protected, nurtured, and accommodated X number of human lives for Y number of forward days-only when I was doing so entirely for others and not for myself. (Fuller, 1981, pg. 25)

6.3.2 Buckminster Fuller shares the motivation and philosophy of much of the new Internet entrepreneurs who have discovered that religious and New Age principle work in business. But he moves much beyond this initial impulse and truly dedicates his life to serving humanity. In contrast, it is not clear where the contradicted motivations of baby-boomer entrepreneurs will end up. For instance, Kevin Kelly, a popular new net economist, believes that the basic economic philosophy on the net is to that the avoidance of proprietary systems will end in generosity being rewarded. (Kelly, 1998, pg. 48) One can only hope that even if entrepreneurs initially enter into this economic model for selfish reasons, it is bound to change their mindsets.

6.3.3 In chapter 2, I addressed briefly Fuller's admiration with Ford's introduction of the assembly line as well as Fuller's refusal to recognise some of the darker shades of this innovation. It is important to face these darker shades however, perhaps most significantly the fact that Fordism had a deep effect on social behaviour and was explicitly connected to a shift in our ideas of community. As early as 1931, Gramsci noted that "the new methods of work are inseparable from a specific mode of living and thinking and feeling." (Gramsci, 1971, pg. 302) This statement holds true with new communication technologies, and it can be applied tenfold in terms of the degree to which this shift applied to these technologies effects us all. Indeed, when observing the military's use of technology and how that trickles down to our lives, it is all too easy to take on the dystopian viewpoints such as those by Paul Virilio. Shoshana Zuboff (1988) projected a decade ago a Foucauldian vision of what the impact of computing power will be in the workplace. With the blurring of the workplace and private lives, one wonders if there are any gains with our loss of privacy.

6.3.4 In Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1973), Fuller explains his philosophy of wealth and holds to it for the rest of his life. Wealth consists of physical energy as matter or radiation, combined with metaphysical energy. Scientists have proved that no physical energy in the universe gets lost, and there is no need to identify wealth with money. The fundamental principle behind World Game is that money and monetary exchange has been instituted and is being perpetuated by the general political and religious assumptions that a fundamental inadequacy of human life support exists on our planet. The fact that there is enough wealth to go around for everyone is "obscured from public knowledge by the exclusively operated money game and its monopolised credit system accounting." (Fuller, 1981, pg.199) For Fuller, economy and ecology go hand in hand. Economics (the management of household affairs) is derived from ecology (the study of human relations). [top]