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你是穷人吗？

如果一个人拼命赚钱，却只能勉强填饱肚子，这个人就是穷人。世界银行(World Bank)对于贫困的标准是：日收入低于1.25美元。买一份晨报都不止花这么多钱的英国《金融时报》的读者们，是没有资格对这个标准提出异议的。过去20年里，随着中国和印度经济的增长，全球贫困人口数量出现了前所未有的减少。这一成就不会因为这两个国家出现了一些超级富豪而被贬低。从本质上来说，贫困就是一无所有。

That is clearly not the end of the story, however. On the World Bank standard no one in North America or western Europe is poor. And very few people in these continents do not have enough to eat. We might observe that obesity is a disease not of the rich but of the poor. In making such a statement, we endorse the notion that poverty is relative not absolute. That principle is enshrined in the UK definition, which rises with the general standard of living.

然而，这个事情显然还没讨论完。按照世界银行的标准，北美和西欧没有一个穷人，也很少有人吃不饱饭。我们可能会注意到，在这两个地方，肥胖病属于穷人而非富人。说出这句话，就是在支持这样一个观点：贫困是相对的，而非绝对的。英国官方的贫困标准就体现了这个原则：贫困的标准随社会整体生活水平的提高而提高。

The median income is the level that equal numbers of people are above and below, so that a rise in Sir Martin Sorrell’s bonus does not lead anyone into poverty – that would confuse poverty and inequality. But the choice of median income as a reference level has a wider significance. It encapsulates the idea that in a rich society, poverty is an enforced inability to participate in the everyday activities of that society. You might therefore be poor if you lack access to antibiotics or Facebook, even though in this respect you are no worse off than the Sun King or John D. Rockefeller, and in other respects considerably better off than most people in the world.