All poverty is institutional and societal poverty. People are poor not because of lack of energy, but because the societies they live in lack the inclusive institutions that can create those patterns for energy use, education, healthcare and anything else. When you put those institutions in place, the effect manifests itself as economic growth, energy use, increased education etc., which in turn strengthen those poli…
Was Man of the Hole poor? Was that a social poverty? And if not that specific instance, consider a theoretical lone hermit or tribes (say, the Sentinelese), not subject to any social pressures or constraints, but lacking in the necessities of a thriving life. Or similarly isolated peoples in preindustrial times. I'll allow that much poverty is socially imposed, particularly since the Industrial Revolution. I balk at…
> Was Man of the Hole poor? > Was that a social poverty?
Yes, he was. He may have chosen poverty freely, as was his right, but there is no doubt he was materially poor compared to most his contemporaries.
Furthermore, the main reason for that poverty was social - he lacked the very foundation onto which to build a productive economy, namely other people in his community. He was also constrained by repressive social institutions - his own life experience and culture and the unprovoked aggression by the farmers - and thus excluded from participating in the larger productive economy.
We can of course speculate about his reasons and worldview, but IMHO it's very plausible he may have wanted not to die relatively young of some preventable disease.