I am, I am !!!
I hope that this is the start of a cultural shift from zero-sum thinking to abundance mindset: Imagine if instead of people trying to remember to turn off their lights to save energy, people were thinking of ways for everyone in the world to have energy abundance. And if instead of thinking about ways to convince people in rich countries to donate to poor countries to save lives, more people were working on figuring out how to grow the economies of poor countries so that they aren’t poor anymore. This thinking exists in the progress studies and abundance agenda movement, and I hope that it grows into the dominant cultural narrative in my lifetime. And yes, if the point is to build a movement, it does make sense to start in rich countries, because that’s the flow of how ideas (policy ideas, business ideas) tend to spread.
I’m dreaming of a future where Givewell is obsolete because the interventions that are the best are the kind that are eradicating poverty by increasing people’s incomes, and may not even be nonprofits at all. Let’s fcking goooo !!!!
I don’t think it’s as simple as “well low income countries just need to follow the science of development”. And it’s definitely not simple if you’re implying that people in rich countries should be helping poor countries do that. There is a history of even the World Bank giving low income countries bad advice especially regarding free market principles versus intentionally growing local skills and capabilities under protective tarrifs to the point of competitive exports (in the 80s and 90s). And you can also read about how scientifically sound development initiatives fail in books such as The Anti-Politics Machine (also written in the 80s—there’s a review that covers the main concepts here https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-the-anti-politics?hide_intro_popup=true ). Also, low income countries need good leaders who are dedicated to increasing the GDP in a scientific way, but even if they are lucky enough to have elections, the people on the ballot are not that—this is why land reform, an important part of how some Asian countries developed in to releatively rich countries today is not likely to work (https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/intervention-report-agricultural-land-redistribution/). Institutional development economics doesn’t say anything about what to do when a country is stuck in bad political equilibria, which seems to be the main barrier to development right now.
While there’s probably some necessary role for people from high income countries engaging with low countries to get them to try development interventions (especially when it comes to issues like corruption and election tampering where an outside power can make a big difference), i think it would be much more meaningful for high income countries to get their act together and be well run so that there’s a clear north star for what good policy and good governance looks like. It doesn’t work right now because there aren’t any high income countries who have good policy and good governance who are obvious examples for other countries to look up to. And I think a big part of the reason why is that we treat poor people within high income countries the same way we treat low income countries—as an individual failure rather than a policy failure.
Done right this would look like strengthening antimonopoly laws so that anyone who has a good idea can bring it to market. Limiting campaign finance so that corporations don’t have more say over laws and regulations than regular citizens, so that they can’t enrich shareholders at the expense of the public good (Uber and Lyft’s 180M dollar opposition to giving gig drivers employee benefits in California stands out to me). Reducing public input on new developments to prevent home owners from obstructing new construction to raise their own home values (and everyone else’s rent). I live in California and I want to demolish Prop 13 to bring back public school funding so that education can be the great equalizer, instead of transmuting education value from younger generations into wealth for older generations who were lucky to buy their homes before the housing crisis. Essentially, this is about bringing back the American Dream, the idea that if you work hard you will make money and be able to improve quality of life for you and your loved ones. If it works here then it will be much easier to export and make it the global dream.
This isn’t about making rich countries richer, it’s about aligning incentives so that the money you make is more closely related to how much value you add to the world. It’s about having a system that intrinsically maximizes good.