We do not need an explanation for poverty, because that is the starting point for everybody. Poverty is what you have until you create wealth. It is easy to forget the dreadful circumstances of our ancestors’ lives even in the richest countries. The accepted definition of poverty in a country like France was very simple: if you could afford to buy bread to survive another day, you were not poor. In hard times, towns were filled with armies of poor, dressed in rags, begging for something to eat.
