Poverty is a thief

I've written quite a few times that poverty robs society of the skills of those who are trapped in it (e.g. "how many Michaelangelos, Eleanor Roosevelts, and Albert Einsteins have been lost to the world in extreme poverty?", from here). 

Poverty also robs two groups of people of their dignity. 

The first are those who are suffering poverty - fairly obvious, I would hope, given that they are not in charge of their own destiny, and suffer a range of harms from living in poverty. 

The second - less obvious - group is every one of those repugnant, paranoid misers who oppose aiding the poor or addressing the true causes of poverty. 

The second groups is truly an utterly contemptible group of people ... but they are people, nevertheless, and while the harm they are actively perpetuating MUST be contained and revered, in the long term their need for assistance on their mental and emotional flaws should be addressed - but their victims come first. 

PS - I have come across an eloquent and elegant quote to concisely convey what I am trying to get at in this post: 

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Stephen  Jay  Gould