Responding to Claire Melamed of Christian Aid

By Alex Singleton | 13 May 2005

The debate on protectionism continues in the new issue of the Church of England Newspaper. There are a number of letters replying to an article by Christian Aid's Claire Melamed who defended protectionism.

This from the Rev. Dr Mark Hart:

Sir, Just because I believe the Church should not back Christian Aid's campaign for protectionism, Claire Melamed (6 May) misrepresents me as believing that the Church should not be concerned for the poor. No area of life is beyond the scope of God's mission, but plenty of areas of expertise are beyond the competence of General Synod. There is wide expert opinion in favour of free trade. To disregard it is to fail to search for what God might already be doing in the world in spite of the Church's officialdom.

This from Dr Andrew Lilico:

Sir, Further to the interesting discussion about free trade and "trade justice" on your pages, since I am actually an economist, I thought I might comment. Be under no illusion: belief in protectionism is not mainstream economics. In many ways its status among economists is similar to the status among historians of the view that men from Atlantis founded all the world's civilisations: long ago it was quite a normal, even majority point of view, and even today there is a small band of believers who sell millions of books to innocent laymen, but among mainstream practitioners it is utterly discredited.

Claire Melamed, writing on May 4, quotes Joseph Stiglitz as a supporter of her view. Stiglitz did win the Nobel Prize, but for his work on economics of information, not international trade. He subsequently wrote a journalistic book attacking the IMF and other institutions and favouring protectionism - a book which was attacked by many experts in the field and which does not represent a mainstream point of view. The opinions of protectionists, like those of supporters of the Atlantis thesis, do not go away and continue to be interesting listening, but for now are definitely somewhere between "quaint" and "fringe".

Now the thing is that if I agreed with the fringe economic opinions of Christian Aid, then I would have little to dispute about their Christian opinions. If I believed that free trade harmed the poor and benefited only rich western multinationals, then I would agree that it was our Christian duty to campaign against it. Since campaigning for such quaint beliefs is the raison d'etre of Christian Aid, I have little criticism of that organisation except to state that its leaders are misguided.

What I do criticise, however, is the attitude of Church of England bishops and of the General Synod, which, by backing protectionism, has chosen to put the Anglican Church's credibility and resources behind a campaign that most experts will tell you would harm the poor of the developing world and favour vested interests and corrupt rulers.

This makes the Church look stupid and naive, and is counterproductive in trade negotiations. How that furthers the Gospel I fail to see.

And, finally, this from me:

Sir, I was disappointed by Clare Melamed's article in last week's newspaper. She feels necessary to blind readers with the term "Computable General Equilibrium Models", which is a discredited economic tool anyway. The most appropriate economists' tool is a much simpler one. The first rule of economics, as Frederic Bastiat pointed out in the 19th Century, is to look at both "what is seen" and "what is not seen".

In trade policy, Christian Aid sees that some are put out of business when trade is liberalised. A good economist, however, looks at the effects in an economy as a whole. In 19th Century Britain, the farmers complained that free trade would put them out of business. The poor hated protectionism because it forced them to pay more for food. Protectionists, much like Christian Aid today, campaigned in favour of the Corn Laws. Yet when the Corn Laws were removed, it was a great victory in the fight against poverty. The poor had a saying: "If I be protected, I be starving."

The article points out the Rev Mark Hart is not an economist. But the point he was making does not require him to be one. His argument was simply that many economists disagree with Christian Aid's line, and therefore it is inappropriate for the church to give a one-sided perspective. Christian Aid would like all churchgoers to believe that it is the final authority on all matters economic. The fact that free trade is supported by almost all of the world's prominent trade economists, and also by the British government, points to a different conclusion. It is time for Christian Aid's monopoly on Christian economics to be broken.