I was having a discussion about this with a girl the other day and thought it was quite an interesting topic, might make for some intelligent discussion for once.

Anyway, our discussion was regarding which economic model was better suited to help end the world's poverty. It started when I was telling her about a charity that provides interest-free loans for people in poverty to start up businesses, therefore providing them with security, an income and the prospect of employing other people. Through doing this you are in essence starting up a capitalist economy in the poverised country, and this will be of much greater assistance in bringing people out of poverty than simply handing them food and money. Anyway, that's really where our conversation started.

So what do people think? I myself think that capitalist economies will be of much greater assistance to alleviating and ending the world's poverty, if employed and encouraged properly and thoughtfully, and of course paired with free trade, although there are undoubtably drawbacks to capitalism. I won't really go too in-depth here, I'd like to hear what other people have to say first... I'm not by any means an expert in all this - I do have a fair (if a little rusty) understanding of economics though, so I apologise in advance if I get things wrong.

Go your hardest.