The real problem of poverty is not a problem of "distribution" but of production

From Wealth, Poverty, and Politics by Thomas Sowell. Page 7.

Among the many possible causes of differences in income and wealth, whether among peoples, regions or nations, one of the most obvious is often ignored. As economist Henry Hazlitt put it:

The real problem of poverty is not a problem of "distribution" but of production. The poor are poor not because something is being withheld from them but because, for whatever reason, they are not producing enough.

What seemed obvious to Henry Hazlitt was not obvious to many others, who had alternative visions, with agendas as corollaries for those visions. The difference between seeing economic disparities due to differences in the production of wealth and seeing those disparities due to the transfer of wealth from some people to other people is fundamental.