AIDS is a plague as bad as ever known, and the cause is a virus. Researchers claim that capitalism and industrialization have a great impact on the spread of the disease and 8its distribution. The culture of capitalism promotes free sexual relations and free love; it influences globalization processes and improves connections between different parts of the world.
Population growth rates are the highest in most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America due to the high degree of fertility and the dramatic decrease in mortality following World War II. Improved living conditions such as potable water, better nutrition, and medical services have significantly decreased infant mortality rates. This allows for many more children to reach sexual maturity and have families of their own. In African countries, high levels of AIDS are a direct result of population growth and extreme poverty (Robbins 266). Unlike the developed nations of the world, most developing nations are not proceeding smoothly through the demographic transition. The developing regions do not have a major decline in the birth rate and appear to be stuck at the stage of low death rates and high birth rates. In most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, people have not yet enjoyed an increase in their living standard that the industrial revolution has brought to developed nations (Robbins 265).
Poverty is another cause of AIDS. Culturally, there is often prestige for parents to have many children. A lack of education and birth control devices aggravates the impact of extreme poverty. Thus, birth rates remain high while death rates have been decreasing significantly due to advances in science and medical technology. There are connections between vanishing wilderness, pollution, overpopulation, poverty, war, and justice. During the fourth and final stage, some environmentalists see these connections and seek large-scale solutions that involve many aspects of society (Robbins 265). An expanding economy can carry out new programs to minimize poverty and improve environmental quality. In other words, economic growth reduces the problem of scarcity of income. Underdeveloped nations cannot be assisted if the United States endorses a policy of zero economic growth or asks its citizens to share more of their existing resources (Robbins 265).
Environmental degradation is a direct result of capitalism and capitalist culture. In general, pollution or habitat contamination occurs because society lacks some mature, well-developed methods of recycling or reusing resources that would otherwise be disposed of as waste (Robbins 267). One type of pollution is, in reality, nonrecoverable matter or waste heat. In fact, the term waste heat, or thermal pollution, is used to describe a human-induced alteration of natural water temperature. Following Robbin’s destruction of rainforests is a direct cause of AIDS (Robbins 267). In fact, the industrial revolution has barely penetrated some of these continents, where many nations lack the capital to increase their level of industrialization. This type of pollution can have consequences on different organisms in the environment. The solution to pollutants is unlikely to be found within a nation’s borders. It is increasingly becoming apparent that the transport of pollutants over long distances raises the question of global pollution such as ozone depletion, acid rain, and the greenhouse effect.
In sum, AIDS is a result of a careless attitude toward the environment and the planet, exploitation of natural resources, and poverty. Capitalism depletes limited resources of raw materials necessary to make such products, as well as the depletion of “clean air” in the environment. The use of natural resources at a rate higher than nature’s capacity to restore itself will result in the pollution of air, water, and land.
Works Cited
Robbins, R. H. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Allyn & Bacon; 3 edition, 2004.