More Money Please

The AIDS epidemic has once again come to the forefront as Kofi Annan declares that we need to do more to stop it. He is right, something does need to be done, but it seems to me that Kofi has once again taken the usual UN stance of “more money please”.

The root cause of the AIDS epidemic must surely be the poverty and lack of education that comes with it. If it isn’t then why did AIDS not take hold in the west as it has in the third world, after all, we can’t deny that it was a problem here. If we tackle poverty in the third world, then surely the epidemic will begin to subside as the area grows more prosperous. The only reason AIDS didn’t wipe out the western world in the 80’s was the availability of education and protection. People were able to protect themselves once they learned what the dangers really were. So the question becomes, not how do we tackle AIDS (the symptom) but how do we tackle poverty (the cause).

Being a capitalist and a free market advocate, I believe that we need to lift all restrictions on trade with the third world and help the people in these areas become free. The huge economic growth that could come from trade with these countries would lift the living standards in these areas dramatically within just a few years, with this lift in living standards education will become ever more available, and so will the resources for people to protect themselves. Only then will the blight of AIDS be lifted from these nations. Throwing money at the problem will not solve it, throwing away trade barriers will.