The Live 8 concert will be fantastic. It will not raise money to relieve poverty because its aim is to draw the attention of the G8 leaders to the problem. Its organizers want to pressurize them to increase development aid.

The world leaders will most likely say they understand the message, and will increase their development aid budgets. This makes everyone happy. The pop stars have voiced their concern, and the politicians have responded. Pity about the people in poor countries, though. They have been getting aid for years, and are not much better off for it. Some of them are worse off.

The idea that certain industries will be developed and given protected markets at artificial prices might appeal to those who like to manage these things, but it is not the road to riches. Countries achieve growth not by government-planned projects, but by opportunities for their citizens to expand production and trade.

The politicians and the pop stars are performing a little dance together because it suits them both. The effective things are harder to do. It is easy to give more aid. The difficult act would be to stop subsidizing producers in rich countries, and to accept the goods produced by poorer ones. This is harder because it would offend some groups and cause some dislocation of industry and trade.

It would, however, work. It would give the poorer countries a chance to sell their produce to us and grow wealthier by doing so. It would not be nicely planned and managed. On the contrary, it would be chaotic for a time at least. But it would work. The once-poor countries which have become rich did it like this, not through development aid.

The rich countries can pay to fight Malaria and AIDS and to provide clean water. They can cancel debt. This is easy because all it costs is money. The hard part is to let the goods of developing countries compete in our markets and to let them win market niches where they can, even at cost to our own producers. This will not be on the agenda at G8 or Live 8. It should be.