I had to admit to myself in embarrassment that, quite involuntarily, the cliches of development philosophy had triggered my reaction. There was no mention of the idea that poverty might also result from oppression and thus demand liberation. Or that a culture of sufficiency might be essential for long-term survival. Or even less that a culture might direct its energies toward spheres other than economic ones. That approach also fails to distinguish between frugality, destitution, and scarcity.
Frugality is a mark of cultures free from the frenzy of accumulation.
In these cultures, the necessities of everyday life are mostly gained through subsistence production. Instead of cash wealth, everyone usually has access to fields, rivers, and woods, while kinship and community duties guarantee services that elsewhere must be paid for in hard cash. Nobody goes hungry. In a traditional Mexican village, for example, the private accumulation of wealth results in social ostracism - prestige is gained precisely by spending even small profits on good deeds for the community. Destitution , on the other hand, becomes rampant as soon as frugality is deprived of its foundation - community ties, land, forest, and water.