Twain's clever inversion—flipping the familiar "love of money" formulation—actually cuts deeper than it first appears: he's observing that desperation itself breeds the worst in human nature, not greed. A person without resources becomes capable of things their better self would never attempt, not out of wickedness but from the raw mathematics of survival. When you watch someone steal food for their children or commit fraud to cover medical bills, you're witnessing poverty's terrible calculus, not moral bankruptcy. The distinction matters because it shifts blame from individual character to circumstance—a surprisingly compassionate reframing hiding inside what looks like a cynical quip.