Poverty is the lack of a buffer between you and entropy. It's rarely defined broadly enough. It's a reduction in the margin for error that we require to exist.

Poverty is the lack of a buffer between you and entropy. It's rarely defined broadly enough. It's a reduction in the margin for error that we require to exist. Entropy is always grinding away at our attempts to order, to organize. Which is a requirement for us to exist for any meaningful duration. Poverty is the lack of a buffer against that force always trying to break down aspects of our organization. If you lack poverty, and your car tire ruptures, you can replace it in order to continue getting to work every day. In poverty, entropy wins that battle, it grinds you down. Now you can't even get to work to try to make ends meet. Every aspect of poverty is similarly encompassed by this principle in action. Would you like nice vacations out of country for rest and relaxation and or new experiences? In poverty you face the daily erosion of entropy, unabated. No break or stimulation for you. Want access to the best medical specialists in the world? In poverty, you won't get it typically. Entropy is trying to kill you (not with homicidal intent, just inadvertently as it grinds away at order), with affluence you have a far better chance of surviving serious medical events (with or without universal healthcare). In the poorest nations, the buffer between people and entropy is almost always very small. That usually covers food security, political stability, human rights. Affluence almost always purchases access to enormous entropy buffers, including access to nations with superior human rights, superior political stability, and so on.