I've heard that around 130k people are delivered from poverty each day lately. That's due to markets and such, not the good intentions of people like Pol Pot.

There is some argument to be made along these lines, but it involves changing human beings themselves, e.g. through something like meditation. These kinds of articles never have and never will mention such things that might actually effect the changes they seem to want to make in the world but are unable or unwilling to make in themselves.