In a sense, I think that most problems in the world shouldn’t be addressed with philanthropy. My views in terms of structure of society, are in general just fairly mainstream from an economic perspective. I think the default is that you want to have markets. There are certain detectable ways in which markets fail. You want to correct for them, whether by taxes or some amount of regulation. I do think there are certain ways in which I depart from the mainstream, in particular, placing so much value on those who don’t yet exist, people in the future who don’t get to participate in markets, they don’t have a vote politically. So I’d want to structure society a bit in order that we’re kind of more responsible for future generations.

But in general, I think that the ideal is that most of the world’s problems just get solved by markets, and when they fail, by government forces. Philanthropy’s really that last line of defense, as it were, where you’ve both got a market failing and a democratic failing. I think that applies for people in very poor countries who don’t get a vote over who’s US president, even though the president’s actions affect them significantly. They do get to participate in markets a little bit, but because of their impoverished situation, only to a very small extent. It’s also true for future people, as well, more significantly. And so when it comes to those people, who just, structurally speaking, aren’t going to be benefited by markets or by well-functioning governments, then I think it’s like philanthropy kicks in and has a kind of last measure, as it were.

Source: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/william-macaskill/