For some reason, after reading this article and a bunch of the comments here, I'm reminded of two quotes from two of my favorite authors:
"Standards of living far below what we would consider to be poverty have been the norm for untold thousands of years. It is not the origins of poverty which need to be explained, since the human species began in poverty. What requires explaining are the things that created and sustained higher standards of living."
from Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell
"Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing."
from The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"Standards of living far below what we would consider to be poverty have been the norm for untold thousands of years. It is not the origins of poverty which need to be explained, since the human species began in poverty. What requires explaining are the things that created and sustained higher standards of living."
from Wealth, Poverty and Politics by Thomas Sowell
"Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing."
from The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms by Nassim Nicholas Taleb