| Aeolus451 said: Those are the leading countries at the time that were industralizing. The source of that data/graph was trying to measure povertry levels for the world for the last 2 centuries based on currency. Depending on the time period and location, looking at currency would be wrong way to determine poverty levels. |
I really don't see it as an issue. Partial-subsidence farming is still poverty. Just because they didn't always starve if they lacked money because they were able to grow food and cultivate cattle does not mean they weren't poor. Living crop to crop, and dying when the weather conditions weren't just right is poverty, probably the worst kind besides hunter-gathering lifestyle. Since that is the only exception to the money rule, we really don't have to speculate about whether or not there were (relatively) middle class or wealthy people not using money. There are no/were never intricate and extensive economic systems that had large-scale production which didn't also have extensive economic activity which involved currencies. Hell, even centrally-planned socialist countries had currencies.
