Poverty and "Development"

After eating lunch with Katie and Khương at a cơm place, we (actually Khương) "interviewed" a man who was sitting at our table. He looked about 50, and seemed very open about answering our two questions about poverty:
1)How do they distinguish between being 'poor' and 'not poor'?; and
2)In the last ten years, has the gap between rich and poor increased or decreased? What specific signs have led them to this decision? Do they think that the current gap is too little, about right, too large? What will happen to the gap in the next ten years?

Interestingly, the man talked about poverty in larger economic terms--ie what makes a country poor or not poor--rather than in more individual terms--ie what makes a person or a family poor. It is possible that he talked about poverty in this way because it may be talked about in more national terms in media and general public discourse. He said that the gap between the rich and poor has gotten bigger, and he linked this to the capitalistic economy and urbanization. The fact that he referenced a "capitalistic" economic system made me wonder about the current "face" of communism in Vietnam. What do the words "communism" and "communist" (in Vietnamese) mean here?

Considering perceptions of poverty, I wonder how people thought about what it means to be poor in the past. Also, thinking back to comments I've heard from many people about how they want a better life (ie a higher paying/less difficult job) for themselves than their parents had, or they want a better life for their children, I wonder if everyone can achieve this. If every cow killer doesn't want their child to be a cow killer (hypothetical situation based on an interview my group did), then who will kill cows in the future? It's hard for me to not think about the US, where a lot of jobs like this are filled by undocumented immigrants who are easily exploited by their employers. I wonder who will be killing cows in 2050...will giant meat processing plants replace family butchering businesses? Who would be working in them?

Anyway...I hope to learn more about poverty and upward mobility in Vietnam during my time here.