I wish English had better grammatical structure. I had to re-parse that sentence 5 times.
> Poor people have clutter not because they're too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.
FTFY.
EDIT: I parsed it wrong. Fixed.
Poor people hoard items because they cannot afford the risk of buying a replacement. Living simply is a virtue given to the wealthy; when necessary they have the income, knowledge, or time available to meet a given task. The poor have only their physical inventory and cannot rely on other sources.
I was really humbled by it because I had been ready to "explain" why carrying all that stuff wasn't helping his cause of living simply. He completely changed my perspective on it. I asked what was the one thing he needed and he said a pocket knife with a can opener. I got him two at a Big Five (which was where he was hanging out), one to use and one to trade for something down the road. More 'stuff', but with a purpose sadly.
That sentence is bursting at the seams. There are too many words between "Poor people have clutter" and "they have it to reduce risk", so the reader loses track of the context.
Maybe a really good writer could make that sentence work. But the rest of us can do just as well by breaking it down into smaller chunks:
> Poor people aren't dumb. They understand the virtue of living simply. But they also know the regret of discarding something, only to find they could have used it. They know the fear of repeating that costly mistake.
(In a later edit you can discard the chunks you don't need, condense the rest and, with any luck, you'll have a much pithier sentence.)
I'd write something like:
> As with carrying, so with owning in general. Poor people aren't too dumb to see the virtue of living with less; they own more to reduce risk.
Keep it focused on ownership (not clutter), with a slight nod back to the original article to which the author is responding.
From my vantage point, 'have clutter' unnecessarily problematizes communicating the core idea--poor people aren't too dumb to appreciate the value of living with fewer possessions. I suggest eschewing 'clutter' altogether, because it implies messiness in addition to more things, increasing the negative tone. This is the only place 'clutter' shows up in the text--a conspicuous word choice in the midst of an article discussing quantity of possessions as a signal of one's wealth (as opposed to the organization and tidiness of one's possessions). A poor person with cleaning compulsions might own more to mitigate risks, but have it neatly tucked away and unobservable, thus making the messy, rich person with fewer possessions look like the one with clutter.
Note: Getting sidetracked by comments on sentence structure may be the signal that I've successfully procrastinated other work long enough.
Tell me about it. Anyway, how's this:
> The rich have savings accounts and insurance; the poor stockpile junk.
I wonder how much longer this will hold true. Irrespective of my financial situation, for quite some time now I've found a rapidly decreasing need to consume stuff. It feels like the internet is all I need now... I moved almost a year ago and have yet to unpack. I actually don't even remember what I own anymore.
Another example is "The horse raced past the barn fell"
What? This is about poor people having MORE clutter, not less.
If this were a podcast, I would have no issue understanding if spoken with the tone you mentioned.
The reason poor people have clutter isn't because they're too dumb to see the virtue of living simply, they have it to reduce risk.