The Nature of Poverty
Human character or human condition? What economists, sociologists, psychologists, historians, philosophers and the spiritual traditions of Asia teach us, and what it means for Africa and Mozambique.
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The short answer
Poverty is mostly a condition people are placed in, not a trait they are born with. Nature, history and institutions create it.
But a condition lived long enough reaches inside a person. Scarcity narrows attention, stress shortens time horizons and repeated failure shrinks hope, which is why poverty can look like character.
Because it is a condition, it can be changed. When people are given productive assets, secure land and a fair chance, they climb out, as experiments from Bangladesh to Ethiopia and the history of China and India show.
Read the introduction free
The opening pages of the book, exactly as printed.
Poverty is mostly a condition people are placed in, not a trait they are born with. That is the answer this book reaches after listening to economists, sociologists, psychologists, historians, philosophers and the great spiritual traditions of Asia. But the answer has a second half that matters just as much: a condition, lived long enough, reaches inside a person and shapes how they think, hope and choose.
I grew up with this question before I had words for it. In Mozambique, poverty is not a statistic you read about. It is the neighbour who sells her seed to pay for a funeral, and then has nothing to plant when the rains come.
Two stories are told about people like her. They are told in villages, in churches, in ministries and in the offices of foreign donors.
Every copy plants seed
$5 from every copy sold buys seed for a smallholder farmer in Mozambique. We publish the seed receipts and field photos in our monthly letter, so you can see where it went.
Five findings from the book
- Nine of the ten economists reviewed place the main cause of poverty in conditions, not in the character of the poor.
- Around 1820 about four in five people lived in extreme poverty; by 2018 it was under one in ten. Human nature did not change; conditions did.
- A Buddhist text more than two thousand years old advises a king to end banditry by giving seed and fodder to farmers instead of punishing them.
- In Bangladesh, the same kinds of households ended up rich or poor depending on whether a livestock transfer pushed them above an asset threshold.
- In Mozambique, about 81% of people live below $3.00 a day; poverty fell from about 70% to 46% between 1996/97 and 2014/15, then rose again after the hidden-debt scandal and repeated shocks.
What is inside
- What is poverty? Money, capability, multidimensional and relational definitions
- Ten economists: Smith, Malthus, Marx, Lewis, Myrdal, Sen, Sachs, Easterly, Banerjee and Duflo, Acemoglu and Robinson
- The sociology of poverty: culture, structure, exclusion and moving to opportunity
- The psychology of poverty: scarcity, stress, hope and what the evidence really shows
- A short history of poverty, from 1820 to today
- Philosophers on poverty: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Rawls, Nussbaum, Singer
- The faiths of Abraham: Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the prosperity gospel
- Buddhism and poverty: the Kūṭadanta and Lion's Roar suttas, karma, Schumacher, Bhutan, Thailand, Sarvodaya
- India: Kauṭilya, the Bhagavad Gītā, Tiruvalluvar, Naoroji, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Ambedkar
- China: Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Mozi, Wang Anshi and the 800 million who left poverty
- The nature of poverty in Africa
- The nature of poverty in Mozambique: forced cotton, war, hidden debts, cyclones and the farmer today
- Character or condition? The answer, and twelve principles for anyone who wants to help
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Planting with the November rains
Help Eugénio M. plant sesame in Zambézia this season
From $25. Your gift buys seed and fertilizer at Eugénio's local seed shop, and you get the receipt and field photos.
Gifts, not investments. See every sponsorship live.
Frequently asked questions
Is poverty a human characteristic or the result of conditions?
The evidence reviewed in this book shows poverty is mainly a condition created by nature, history and institutions. Long poverty shapes behaviour, which can make it look like a personal trait, but behaviour improves when conditions change.
What does Buddhism say about poverty?
The Buddha called poverty suffering for lay people, traced crime to a ruler's failure to provide for the needy, and advised giving seed to farmers and capital to traders. He also rejected the idea that everything a person experiences is caused by past karma.
Why is Mozambique poor?
Forced labour and forced cotton under colonial rule, a civil war from 1977 to 1992, growth that bypassed farmers, the hidden-debt scandal of 2016, and repeated cyclones and conflict. When peace and reform came, poverty fell quickly.
Who wrote The Nature of Poverty?
Anselmo Boaventura, founder of Maputo Bridge Capital, which connects sponsors with smallholder farmers in Mozambique.
Is there a Portuguese edition?
Yes. A Natureza da Pobreza is the full Portuguese edition, written for readers in Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking countries.
About the author
Anselmo Boaventura founded Maputo Bridge Capital in Fort Worth, Texas, to connect sponsors with verified smallholder farmers in Mozambique. Sponsors fund a farmer's seed and fertilizer from $25 and receive the receipt and field photos. Sponsorships are gifts, not investments.