Riches unto Death: Poverty's the Lack of More Than Money

We know this intuitively: True prosperity is not the possession of mammon, nor is the commonwealth of a nation its GDP. Likewise, true poverty is the want not so much of money as of those things that make life sweet; no one has to struggle to see the poverty of Dickens's Scrooge, rich though the miser is, or to realize the tragedy of Midas's golden touch, as he loses the joy of food and drink and even his daughter's embrace ...