I think the crux here is the “relative” poverty aspect. Comparison with others is actually really important, it turns out. Going to Disneyland isn’t just a net positive; not going to Disneyland can be a negative if your kids expect you to and all their friends are. A lot of human activities are aimed at winning status games with other humans, and in that sense, in our society of abundance, marketing has vastly offset those gains by making sure it’s painfully clear which things make you rich and which aren’t worth all that much. So basically the Poverty Restoring force is “other people”. No matter the actual material conditions there’s always going to be by definition a bottom something percentile in status, and they’ll be frustrated by this condition and trying to get out of it to earn some respect by the rest of society.
I think the crux here is the “relative” poverty aspect. Comparison with others is actually really important, it turns out. Going to Disneyland isn’t just a net positive; not going to Disneyland can be a negative if your kids expect you to and all their friends are. A lot of human activities are aimed at winning status games with other humans, and in that sense, in our society of abundance, marketing has vastly offset those gains by making sure it’s painfully clear which things make you rich and which aren’t worth all that much. So basically the Poverty Restoring force is “other people”. No matter the actual material conditions there’s always going to be by definition a bottom something percentile in status, and they’ll be frustrated by this condition and trying to get out of it to earn some respect by the rest of society.