The poor are approximately in the situation of the stranger to the group who finds himself, so to speak, materially outside the group in which he resides. But precisely in this case a large total structure emerges which comprises the autochthonous parts of the group as well as the stranger; and the peculiar interactions between them create the group in a wider sense and characterize the true historical circle. Thus the poor are located in a way outside the group; but this is no more than a peculiar mode of interaction which binds them into a unity with the whole in its widest sense.

DEFINE: Simmel redefines poverty as a relational position — being outside is itself a mode of interaction that integrates the poor into the wider social totality.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 417