Ironically, western culture today suffers from one of the same falsehoods that Jesus himself preached against: the idea that poverty is a moral failing. They believe that the rich are wealthy because they’ve “earned it” in some way, and therefore must be morally superior for their work ethic. Conveniently, this also allows the wealthy to keep a clean conscience–if everyone was as “good” as they are, they could all be enjoying this life too.

So with this mindset, all “good” people who are poor are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires–they identify with the rich, who actively abuse and suppress them, because they believe themselves to be part of the same “moral party.”