In some mainstream discourse, poverty is often viewed as a social condition resulting from the inabilities and/or choices of certain ‘types’ of people, who remain entrenched in this condition because of these very inabilities and/or choices. In other words, poverty is sometimes blamed on the poor, and not so infrequently linked to their ethnic and national origin characteristics. Khiara Bridges calls this a ‘moral construction of poverty,’ citing as an example Ben Carson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Development (2017-2021):^[1]

Carson rejected the possibility that individuals may find themselves poor because of large-scale structural forces—like a labor market that no longer contains middle-skill, middle-wage jobs, the fact that women are paid less than men for the same work, or the nation’s choice to pursue mass incarceration as the means for addressing its social problems. Instead, he embraced the idea that poverty is the consequence of a bad “state of mind,” stating, “You take somebody that has the right mind-set, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there….You take somebody with the wrong mind-set, you can give them everything in the world—they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”

How Does the Mainstream Define and Measure Poverty?

According to the United Nations:^[2]

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making. In 2015, more than 736 million people lived below the international poverty line. (emphasis added)

It is the World Bank, another mainstream global institution, that sets the global poverty lines, which are updated following the release of purchasing power parities (PPs) by the International Comparison Program. In 2025, based on 2024 PPPs, the international poverty line is USD 3.00 per person per day, which replaces the previous USD 2.15 poverty line based on 2017 PPPs.^[3] A specific monetary threshold is used by many nations to make a determination of poverty. For example, according to the United States Census Bureau:^[4] “…the Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty. If a family's total income is less than the family's threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty.” In 2025, the U.S. poverty guideline for the 48 contiguous states is USD 15,650 per person (USD 42.88 per day).^[5]

Most ‘interventions’ designed to alleviate poverty emphasize increased monetary income generation, i.e., increase the money each person has available to purchase Commodities and Services (C/S).

The FiveBecomings Framework: An Alternative Approach to Poverty and Its Alleviation 

FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi)^[6] projects have been developed by the Śramani Institute as a non-human-centric (non-anthropocentric) solution to counter the globally systematic ecocide (killing of living and abiotic components of ecological webs (ecowebs)^[7]) and jīvacide (the destruction of the jīvadiversity (diversity in living)^[8] of human peoples) that have caused irreversible biodiversity loss (species extinction), the climate crisis, and widespread inequity (injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, identity loss, hunger, violence).^[9]

Within the FiveBecomings Framework^[10], poverty is defined as the state of being unable to fulfill basic needs.

Therefore, the goal of FiveBecomings projects is to restore the interconnected (ecosymbiotic) wellbeing of diverse humans and ecologies across all bioregions, so that beneficiary communities (Communities) can (re-)establish ecosymbiotic self-reliance^[11], i.e., regeneratively produce the C/S required to fulfill their basic needs (see Box 1) from their own ecowebs. 

In other words, instead of being contingent on monetary livelihoods, i.e., a set of activities undertaken in exchange for money, the alleviation of poverty hinges on restoring/establishing ecosymbiotic livelihoods (see Box 2) for communities.^[12] 

How Are Ecosymbiotic Livelihoods Established?

Each FiveBecomings project serves a Community that (used to) rely on their ecoweb for their survival, necessitating the concurrent revitalization of both the ecoweb of which the Community is a part and also the Ādi-Knowtep^[13] (ecoweb- and ecoself^[14]-rooted ancient Indigenous Knowledge-Technologies-Practices) of the Community. Part of the revitalized ecoweb of the Community becomes a FiveBecomings Commons^[15] that follows a 5-sector design intended to serve all Community members living in a cluster of surrounding villages.

From the restored biodiverse ecological resources of their FiveBecomings Commons (and beyond), Community members undertake a wide variety of regenerative and Ādi-Knowtep-guided activities in each sector that enable them to produce the C/S corresponding to each type of their basic needs. Thus, the impact of the FiveBecomings approach encompasses not only the alleviation of poverty but also the concomitant countering of the other deleterious consequences of ecocide and jīvacide, namely biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, and inequity (injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, identity loss, hunger, violence). Such an integrated local-global impact cannot be achieved by merely increasing monetary income and/or access to state-mediated social services, traditional mainstream remedies to poverty.

[1] K. Bridges, POV: Stop Blaming the Poor for Their Poverty: All Mothers need to be treated with dignity and respect, Boston University (2017) (https://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/pov-blaming-victims-of-poverty/).

[2] Ending Poverty, United Nations (https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/ending-poverty) (last accessed 13 Sep., 2025).

[3] June 2025 Update to Global Poverty Lines, World Bank (2025)
(https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2025/06/05/june-2025-update-to-global-poverty-lines) (last accessed 13 Sep., 2025).

[4] How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty, United States Census Bureau
(https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html) (last accessed 13 Sep., 2025).

[5] Poverty Guidelines, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines) (last accessed 13 Sep., 2025).

[6] K. Mitra, Restoring the Interconnected Wellbeing of Humans and Ecologies Through FiveBecomings, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-010 (26 Aug., 2025).

[7] K. Mitra, Ecological Webs (Ecowebs): Collaborative Creativity Through Adaptation Feedback Loops, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-006 (3 Sep., 2025).

[8] K. Mitra, Beyond Biodiversity: Jīvadiversity — Diversity in Living, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-003 (21 Aug., 2025).

[9] K. Mitra, FiveBecomings: Countering Ecocide and Jīvacide Through a Non-Human-Centric Approach, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-001 (1 Sep., 2025).

[10] K. Mitra, FiveBecomings: A Reimagined Ancient Indigenous Framework for Ecoself-Rooted Wellbeing, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh122024-004 (15 Dec., 2024).

[11] S. Mukherjee & K. Mitra, Ecosymbiotic Self-Reliance: Fulfilling Basic Needs from Ecowebs, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-010 (11 Sep., 2025).

[12] K. Mitra, Ecosymbiotic Livelihoods and Living Livelihoods: New Concepts in Self-Reliance, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-013 (28 Aug., 2025).

[13] K. Mitra, Ādi-Knowtep and Their Importance in Ecosymbiotic Resilience of Human Communities, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-008 (4 Sep., 2025).

[14] K. Mitra, Individual Ecoself and Community Ecoself: Importance in FiveBecomings, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-011 (10 Sep., 2025).

[15] K. Mitra & S. Mukherjee, FiveBecomings Projects for Community Self-Reliance: Design and Implementation, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-001 (18 Aug., 2025).