What if poverty is not strictly, solely or primarily defined as decreased access to material resources?
What if poverty and wealth differences are partly defined as the extent of an individual's self-sufficiency and dependence on another for their existence?
This changes the dynamic of what we view as poverty. Subservience to another for our survival can be an extremely limiting and, in some cases, a worse condition than actual material lack because, despite whatever material comforts you might be gaining from the relationship, it might still be a relationship you would not choose, if other means to support yourself were more practical and available. The very act of submitting to the directions of another based on the unspoken threat of poverty, homeless, etc is a poverty in itself. A poverty of freedom. And there are certain artificial conditions society has put in place that make choosing freedom over subservience more difficult. Many people work for others not because they want to, but because they feel they have to because the alternative is too threatening a prospect. They say the best armies are all voluntary. What does it say about a workforce that feels compelled to go into work every day? What is going on here?
I don't follow this. Every living organism has to struggle to survive: to find food, shelter and a mate, at the most basic. Human beings are not magically immune from these needs. So every human has to work, in some shape or form, to obtain the means of survival. (By "work" in this context I suppose I mean doing something out of necessity rather than choice.)
I really do not see a fundamental distinction between doing something for another person or group of people who value your work enough to reward you for it, and being "free", as you put it. I think it is largely an illusory distinction. What does "freedom" mean in this context? If I had resigned and become a consultant, for example, I would have been "self-employed" and my tax return would have looked different, but in the end I'd still need to get out of bed and go and do things to earn money, when I might have rather been singing or rowing, or seducing some bird. Plus, I'd have had the background insecurity of wondering where the next contract would come from. I'd just have traded one employer for a series of short-term "employers", one after another.
I also think one can make too much of "subservience". An employment relationship is
mutual dependence. I've interviewed enough job candidates, and been stuck with the consequences of enough bad employment decisions, to know how vital it is from an employer's viewpoint to engage the right person. Managers spend most of their time worrying about the people who work for them. It's by far the most taxing part of what they do.
More generally, human interdependence is the hallmark of civilisation. We grow richer by specialising and relying on each other for the increasingly complex things we use to function. I pay the fishmonger - who pays the fisherman - rather than going to sea to catch my own fish. We depend on each other.
If you think there are artificial barriers to freedom erected by society, I'd like you to give some examples. Because I think we, in general, have more autonomy as individuals now than people have had in most of recorded history.
(I realise I'm slightly casting myself in the role of Devil's Advocate here, but I think some of your assumptions deserve to be challenged.)