'That's just what I say.

Machinery is the real cause of the poverty.

That's what I said the other day.' 'Machinery is undoubtedly the cause of unemployment,' replied Owen, 'but it's not the cause of poverty: that's another matter altogether.' The others laughed derisively.
'Well, it seems to me to amount to the same thing,' said Harlow, and nearly everyone agreed.
'It doesn't seem to me to amount to the same thing,' Owen replied.

'In my opinion, we are all in a state of poverty even when we have employment--the condition we are reduced to when we're out of work is more properly described as destitution.' 'Poverty,' continued Owen after a short silence, 'consists in a shortage of the necessaries of life.

When those things are so scarce or so dear that people are unable to obtain sufficient of them to satisfy all their needs, those people are in a condition of poverty.