Less Than Two Dollars a Day: A Christian View of World Poverty and the Free Market

Christian tradition demands basic sustenance for all as a human right. Yet the contemporary capitalist economy makes no such demands, and the free market is not designed to provide basic human sustenance. As Western Christians, how ought we to solve this conundrum? Kent Van Til maintains that the gulf between the two calls for an alternative system of distribution. In this constructively critical work Van Til takes a hard look at the realities of life in a free-market system, including illuminating examples from his own experience in Latin America. He considers how the contemporary capitalist economy guides the distribution of goods around the world, and he examines the inadequacies of this system. Drawing heavily on the ideas of political theorist Michael Walzer and nineteenth-century theologian-statesman Abraham Kuyper, Van Til proposes an alternative system of distributive justice, equalizing the claims to both burdens and benefits.