The term "applied anthropology" is used in both Britain and the United States to refer mainly to the employment of anthropologists by organizations involved in inducing change or enhancing human welfare. In general, applied anthropology has had two dominant ideological positions: the earlier, paternalistic orientation of British colonial-applied anthropology and the egalitarian outlook of the American anthropologists. Applied anthropology in Bastide's terms should be both be an "experimental science," designed to create a new theory of change, and a "practical" science, to help the deprived classes achieve a better life. The origins of much critical commentary was not in the discipline but in left-humanist political ideology. Paradoxically, applied anthropology was identified by these critics with "colonial" and "elitist" postures, probably due largely to the extensive participation of anthropologists in socioeconomic development projects. The intervention issue has some special aspects worthy of extended comment. In the background lie some absolutes common to democratic humanism in Western culture.