Poverty is the result of systems at every level. Nation, community, individual. At a national level, capitalism, natural resources, poor planning or just plain fiscal dependency on other countries can enable or cause the proliferation of widespread poverty. The classic example here are large parts of Africa, which fight primarily over natural resources and is systemically exploited by wealthier nations for those resources and cheap labor, with a government being semi-complicit in that process by not making use of the (mostly) human resources present.

Communities, if they're not systemically destined into poverty (like black people in Jim Crow America, or even today for a large part), can make poverty a problem through failure of proper integration, individual harmonization and the lack of providing incentive. Turkish and arabic immigrants into Germany are systemically left behind by the structure of the community, making immigrants very vulnerable to poverty. Lack of extended services like mental health institutions or family support can lead to poverty as well.

Individually, all above levels can trickle down to cause poverty for an inidividual person. Additionally, individual misfortunes, personality, genetics and the full range of environmental factors can result in poverty, even for an individual living in an otherwise functional community and properly established nation.

Now, if it were for me then we, as a society, would abandon the concept of possessions¹⁾ and distribute all global resources evenly/according to people's needs. I think that the system the way we have it right now enables extreme, global suffering that is not needed (ie. immoral). I think that we, especially as those with power and influence (ie. being from wealthier nations) are obliged to tear the mechanisms that uphold such injustices. I think that each and every one of us hold partial responsibility for people suffering lives of pain merely because they were too unlucky to get born where they were born. The only reason I cannot turn that into a claim against the whole of our society is because no one individual person is responsible for it, so it would be unfair to expect individual people to give up their possessions. What we need instead is a coordinated movement so that everyone gives up their possessions, as then it would be fair. That way we could guarantee quality of life for everyone or, at the very least, eliminate the rampant unfairness plaguing the current world order.

Until then, however, everyone should be conscientious of the privilege that they have. Having this privilege is inherently unfair and should not be worn proudly. The richer and more privileged you are, the bigger your part in the suffering of other people. This does, virtue of me living in a very wealthy nation, extend to me, hence why I will keep it lowkey and be proactive in making it clear that, yes, my quality of life is unfair.

Now, some businesspeople may see an opportunity in this. Every once in a while there may be some “heartwarming stories” about business owners lowering themselves to living and working like one of their employees for a bit, and then being “changed” by that experience. Experiencing the struggles and problems of their workers somehow made them see more clearly, and they improve the labor rights and quality of work situation for their employees. These are exclusively PR stunts.

The owner of a business is not able to experience the actual struggles and problems of their workers if they know that after their set time they will be returning to a life of riches. Frankly, if I had to work at Amazon for a year in return for becoming the richest man in the world afterwards, that is a deal I would very happily take. It needs to be very clear that poverty is a largely mental process. And while Bezos would be celebrated for his virtues, he would have never actually experienced anything like what his workers actually experience. Poverty is about worrying, the lack of a perspective, not knowing if you'll ever be able to live properly, and the fight against the increasing sense of resignation, the feeling that you should just give up.

And, in the case of business owners, they know what they are doing. They know what happens to their workers and they actively campaign against labor rights initiatives. A business owner will know with exact precision what they are putting their workers through. Signing off on that is a decision, not an accident.