tough article. 90% is a tongue in cheek ridicule, with lots of data points, and then the bait and switch at the end, with far less argumentation.

mainly, interventions are experiments, and therefore we need more of them, you never know. but they are not experiments, otherwise we wouldn't repeat failed ones over and over, or let existing failing ones run on and on.

maybe the answer really is more simple, that most programs are indeed politically motivated endeavors, indeed largely signals of a worldview, less programs to bring about material improvement.

fwiw - i dont know the answer, but having your cake and eat it, being perceptive of the absurdity, yet, not daring to call it out, is an author's disposition, less a truth. so maybe, if we do the one hand other hand game, accept the bleak truth glimpsed in the facts, but also accept that there's nothing to be done about it within existing frameworks, and not point at it as something desirable.