> Poverty is the default. For almost all of human history we were dirt poor. I don't know where you get this absurd idea. For many millennia we were commoning,

> Poverty is the default. For almost all of human history we were dirt poor. I don't know where you get this absurd idea. For many millennia we were commoning, herding, living in symbiosis with game- and fruit-bearing wildernesses, etc. It's not since the enclosure of the commons that subsistence outside employment has been made, largely, illegal. For almost all of human history we have been wealthy and free. What we now recognize as "poverty" is induced by the holders of Capital in order to maintain a pool of vulnerable workers obliged to cater. We use military might and policing to undermine economic and political power in the colonies, ensuring we they remain desperate enough to take a bad deal. This isn't free market economics, this is blackmail, extortion, racketeering. If you want to zoom in on a single example and say, "ah, well, this youngster found a pretty flower and smelled it, how can you begrudge him a sniff?" while ignoring the churning, smoke-filled skies above, I suppose it will help you sleep at night, but I'm not fooled. Poverty is a mugging.