  We put forward the idea that in addition to diffeomorphism invariance of
general relativity (GR) the gravitational interaction is invariant under
arbitrary scale-deformations of the metric field. In addition, we assume that
the scaling field has an internal symmetry. The global charges that are
associated with this symmetry could potentially source the gravitational field.
In the case that isotropic deformations are considered, the theory reduces to a
Weyl-invariant (WI) version of GR. In the case that Minkowski spacetime is
deformed the vierbein formalism is recovered, rendering GR a field theory on
Minkowski spacetime. A few implications of a classical Weyl-invariant
scalar-tensor (WIST) generalization of general relativity (GR) are considered.
As an example, we recast the homogeneous and isotropic
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetime in the WIST form with static space
and monotonically evolving masses.
