A setting with
No Poverty has no poor. Take a moment to parse that sentence. Something which has eluded human civilization has been achieved: this is a world where no one is homeless, everyone eats three full meals a day, and society casts no one out. The elderly, physically and mentally ill are cared for, and probably even have jobs. This is not a change to human condition that authors are likely to take lightly; it's usually treated as a pretty big deal. The weight of this idea is such that many writers will use it as the central premise to their setting, and may even pen a full blown
Author Tract about the way their
Utopia came to be.
Maybe
Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome,
The Singularity brought total equality, matter replicators and infinite energy machines made scarcity disappear, or a revolutionary philosopher/economist came along and taught humanity a new way to go about civilization that doesn't marginalize anyone. Whatever the case, someone(s) have made it so that characters can only be poor or indigent by choice, and can almost effortlessly access a support network that would elevate them out of it. If characters native to this setting encounter a vagrant or someone in poverty (this may require
Time Travel, visiting alien worlds, or going to a remote and uncivilized place) they'll be confused and horrified at the concept (and running into active slavery will cause fits).
Expect these kinds of worlds to be called out as
Mary Suetopias. Authors can potentially minimize this trope and use it only as a minor part of the
Backstory of their setting, making only passing references to how it was achieved. This is likely a form of
Conservation of Detail to avoid distracting viewers from the focus of the story (like space exploration or magical adventures). The risk here is that treating it
too glibly may make viewers lose their
Willing Suspension of Disbelief "Wait, you're telling me
nanomachines made everyone rich? How?!"
It's also possible that rather than be applied to humans, this trope be used by aliens, a fantasy races, or a subgroup of humanity. There may be some
Cultural Posturing involved on the part of these peoples.
Compare & contrast
Eat the Rich,
Kill the Poor
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In the anime No. 6 the titular No. 6 appears to have no poverty and be a utopia. It has been designed that way.
Comic Books
Film
- Naboo in Star Wars. The government figures and civilians alike dress like Venetian noblemen from the Renaissance, and even the Gungans, supposedly ostracized from society, live in glittering bubble-cities underwater. It makes Amidala's later claims of widespread economic depression, to the point of starvation, very hard to swallow, as the city always looks unblemished and no such hardship is ever shown.
Literature:
Live-Action Television:
- In Star Trek it's mentioned that poverty is effectively no longer an issue in 24th century Earth. By the time of The Next Generation transporters and replicators make most things so cheap that money is kind of pointless, making this is one of the reasons people of the 24th century tend to question the moral character of anyone from the 21st century.
- Then Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came along and deconstructed this. Because Earth has no money, they've lost the concept of the value of work (Jake at one point asks Nog to give up his entire life's savings for a baseball card, and thinks Nog's the one being unreasonable when he refuses) and they're too much of an ivory-tower utopia to really appreciate the troubles that happen out in the rest of the universe.
Tabletop RPG
- Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium main rules. On the Imperial capital planet of Kaitain, the capital city of Corrinth has no poverty.
Theatre
Video Games
- Hostile Waters has widespread use of nano-assemblers that can create practically everything from its base components and (apparently solar- and fusion-based) energy. This has led to eliminating poverty by ensuring ready access to the assemblers for anyone: Anyone capable of accessing an assembler can obtain food, clothing and basic healthcare needs freely. The other result was the end of capitalism, money and the private market.
Western Animation:
- The Simpsons: in "You Only Move Twice" Homer gets headhunted for a job in a Company Town. In order to encourage the family to move he shows them a video made by the company which displays signs of No Poverty. It shows an ugly suburb transforming into a perfect community; parking meters become trees, abandoned warehouses become coffee shops, and a bum becomes a mailbox.
Marge: I keep expecting to get the bum's rush.
Hank Scorpio: We don't have bums, Marge, and if we did they wouldn't rush, they'd be allowed to go at their own pace.
