This post reminds me of a common left/socialist reaction to EA: “Charity is pointless, overthrowing capitalism is clearly the best way to increase human welfare.” This is a subset of the “politics” objection; promoting growth (in the ways economists advise) is much more controversial and uncertain than RCT-based programs. I think “uncertain” is a separate bad from “controversial”. The best reply to the left/socialists is probably that their empirical track record is much worse (although there are successes and failures from both approaches).
This post reminds me of a common left/socialist reaction to EA: “Charity is pointless, overthrowing capitalism is clearly the best way to increase human welfare.” This is a subset of the “politics” objection; promoting growth (in the ways economists advise) is much more controversial and uncertain than RCT-based programs. I think “uncertain” is a separate bad from “controversial”. The best reply to the left/socialists is probably that their empirical track record is much worse (although there are successes and failures from both approaches).