Resource

A physical system that a person or society knows how to employ towards a particular end or ends.

The value of a resource is determined by Knowledge of its application rather than its physicochemical properties. Oil was not a resource until people knew how to refine and use it. Resources are created by knowledge, not discovered in nature.

Connections

• •Value determined by Knowledge, not physical properties
• •Created by Knowledge — not inherent in nature
• •Related to Wealth — resources enable transformations
• •Contradicts Spaceship Earth — nature does not "provide" resources; knowledge does
• •The Hierarchy Rule is reversed when knowledge turns small things into powerful resources
• •Progress expands the set of available resources through new knowledge
• •Economics studies the allocation of resources under knowledge constraints