[throwaway2331]

Poverty exists only within industrial societies (and those that interact with industrial societies).

Outside of that scope, poverty doesn't exist. It's a made up concept to describe the relative lack of material compared to some arbitrary, and ever-changing standard.

Did hunter gatherers live in poverty? Or were they plenty content with their lot in life -- spending some of their time on survival in food-resource-rich geographies, and the rest on socializing and primitive leisure?

How about uncontacted tribes in the Amazon Rainforest? Are you going to label them as "living in poverty" so they can be "saved" and "enriched" by Western Industrial Society's values?

"Lifting people out of poverty" is slowly becoming "think of the children"; or even "housewives with nervous ailments should be treated with sedatives and lobotomies. Their conditions are quite saddening, so we should help them post-haste. We know best."

[shakow]

I'd rather argue that poverty only exists in societies developed enough to exhibit stark contrasts between individuals' estates. There was what we would perceive as poverty in e.g. the Roman Empire or Middle-Age Europe.