The analysis in these chapters of trends in world living standards has led to a disturbing conclusion: mass poverty is set to persist and, worse still, to increase. This conclusion can be based narrowly on the harsh conventional standard of the numbers of people found to be below the World Bank's 1985 inflationproofed poverty line, as reported by the Bank's own research staff (see Chapter Fourteen [Table 1] and Chapter Fifteen of this volume; and Milanovic, 2000). Or, more correctly, it can be based on the realistic or dynamic standard of the numbers found to be below a poverty line adjusted according to the institutional conditions and structural demands on individual members of society, and their needs, of today, not yesterday. However, while estimates of an indirect or partial kind can be constructed on this basis, the standard remains to be put firmly in place by the social scientific community.

As in any other era, people's needs are governed by the societies and the institutions in which they live and work, and the kind of conditions they experience themselves – not what prevailed in the societies of a previous generation. Today's necessities may be yesterday's luxuries. Or today's shortages may be yesterday's universals. Inequalities in living standards continue to grow – between groups of countries and within most countries.

Therefore an alternative standard of measuring poverty must be developed. The normative practices, customs and market relationships of ongoing societies change constantly. There are new organisations, goods and services. Modern forms of technology, including transport and communications, alter the priorities of work and life. Wage and pensions systems falter and are replaced. There are corresponding changes taking place in forms of material, social and income deprivation, corresponding with the annually developing distributional norms and policies of the international community and of national governments.

And yet the level of world resources is huge and still growing. In 1985, average world GDP per person per day was $13.6, and, at 1985 prices, approximately $16 in 2002. These figures take account of population growth. They show that considerable scope exists for policies of redistribution to raise everyone above the World Bank's $1 per person per day poverty standard. The difference between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries makes an even stronger case.