I think another pertinent point would be that until currency existed poverty did not exist.  Humans have managed to exist (and in many cases thrive) on this planet for at least hundreds of thousands of years, and by some accounts millions of years.  Only the smallest fraction of that time has currency (and thus poverty) existed.  Not that barter &#x2F; exchange did not happen, but official fiat currency certainly didn&#x27;t exist.  And even if people possessed a commodity for trade, they didn&#x27;t need to use it to survive.<p>I don&#x27;t have numbers on it, but would love to know if any studies have been done.  My hunch is that, at the lowest levels of income across the planet, actually &quot;needing money&quot; to survive probably hurts their livelihood more than it helps.