Types of poverty

Here is a matrix I put together on the relationship between different types of poverty (if you're reading this on a computer, you can click the image to enlarge it):

A note on terms. I'm presenting wealth and poverty under two aspects, the objective and the subjective. We could say that one's objective poverty/wealth is measured by the size of one's bank account. It refers to a measurable object outside of the subject (viz., material goods). Subjective poverty/wealth is measured by one's relationship with others and with God, who is the ultimate source of our happiness and meaning. It refers to a relationship intrinsic to the subject.

Obviously there's nothing wrong, in itself, with buying purses.
But there is a type of spiritual poverty that seeks to replace God with things.

According to this chart, the poorest of the poor would be those who are spiritually and materially poor. Ranking the other types of poverty is more difficult and depends in part on your hierarchy of values. Is spiritual or material well-being more important to you?

Consider this thought experiment--to be spiritually rich and materially poor or spiritually poor and materially rich--which would you choose? The question quickly reveals our hierarchy of values. To be fair, there are an infinite number of nuances and qualifications that make answering that question difficult, if not impossible. But if we simplify the choice to this--would you rather be rich without God or poor with God?--I think we can agree that the ideal Christian would choose poverty with God over wealth without God. Thus we have Christ on the Cross.

Mother Teresa often spoke about the difference between spiritual and material poverty, and how people in both situations could be called the poorest of the poor. She also observed that spiritual poverty is much deeper and more painful than material poverty (so there's a good case to be made that the person who is spiritually rich and materially poor is better off than the person who is spiritually poor and materially rich, though this requires an eschatological perspective. "Blessed are the poor...").

In her talks, she often associated material poverty with the developing world and spiritual poverty with the developed world. It would, of course, be dangerous to reify this distinction. Mother Teresa knew that the materially poor also exist in the developed world, just as the spiritually poor exist in the developing world. But it is generally true that development and material contentment can threaten us with a spiritual malaise. Development is good (obviously), as is the material world (obviously), but when we inordinately desire our material good over our spiritual good, sin lurks nearby.