It barely existed as a concept in early history.

Poverty in this culture isn't just defined as a lack, but as an unjust experience of relative lack.

And it's loaded with unspoken value judgements - like the common belief that people in poverty shouldn't have an expensive phone, because that's somehow unfair on everyone else.

Why this idea of poverty exists as a concept now, when previously it didn't, is a much more interesting question - and one this piece gets nowhere near addressing, never mind answering.

So this is a very superficial article. You can't ask why people believe true things if you're just going to assume - as the author says no one should, and then does himself - that everyone somehow magically agrees about which truths should be questioned.