Nothing the least surprising in learning that Guthrie started out as rich child, and then became a poor child. That's a pretty typical pattern among people who grow up to be radcal activists of one sort or another.

I was watching a TV programme about Al Sharpton, who had a similar childhood in that way, and he was saying how this meant he grew up knowing that poverty wasn't something natural and inevirable to be accepted as normal, it was something unnatural and imposed on people, something to fight against, because he knew it didn't have to be thta way.

The interesting thing is why some people in that situation respond by a desperate ambition to get back to where they feel they belong in the world, as an individual, and others respond by trying to fight the system and change it, so it's fairer for all.