<p><pre><code>   the poverty line as the 40th percentile 
   of income [...] was absurd.
</code></pre>
It&#x27;s best understood not as a honest attempt at understanding poverty, but as a political manoeuvre.<p>In the past (19th century and before), the socialist&#x2F;communist tradition had a real point in that large swathes of the population were poor in an absolute sense (e.g. going hungry, cold, no adequate health-care, pension etc). The socialist&#x2F;communist tradition was in some sense about abolishing absolute poverty (whether the proposed methods were helpful or not is another discussion). If you read e.g. the communist manifesto [1], that is clear.  Most of socialist&#x2F;communist politics centered around politicising and radicalising the absolute poor with a view towards taking them out of absolute poverty.<p>However, modern industrialised society has (simplifying a bit) abolished absolute poverty.<p>This leaves socialist&#x2F;communist politics in a conundrum: how to continue to politicise&#x2F;radicalise people to become followers. The concept of relative poverty is the answer: all the old political tools can be reused by changing what is meant by poverty.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marxists.org&#x2F;archive&#x2F;marx&#x2F;works&#x2F;1848&#x2F;communist-manifesto&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.marxists.org&#x2F;archive&#x2F;marx&#x2F;works&#x2F;1848&#x2F;communist-m...</a>