Political clunkers

We should 'treat people as people,' says economist Victor Claar, and U.S. trade restrictions fail that test | Marvin Olasky
Guy Lyons/Genesis
I asked economics professor Victor Claar (Henderson State University) about . . . ways we can help the poor internationally. Claar co-authored Economics in Christian Perspective (IVP, 2007) and wrote Fair Trade? Its Prospects as a Poverty Solution (Acton Institute, 2010). He earned his Ph.D. at West Virginia University and taught for nine years at Hope College in Michigan.

As a Christian economist, what do you like about markets? Markets can do tremendous good—they lift the poor out of poverty in far more effective ways than people can imagine or arrange otherwise. Markets are phenomenal in their ability to take resources and reallocate them from less-valued uses to more-valued uses.

How does the growth of a worldwide market help the poor internationally—and sometimes hurt Americans?

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