Ever since its foundation in Oaxtepec, Mexico, in 1978, the Latin American Council of Churches (Clai) has steadfastly accompanied the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean in their search for social justice. At the beginning of the new millennium, it challenges worldly powers "to place the market and the international financial system at the service of all".

Monterrey, Mexico, in March this year was the venue for the International Conference on Financing for Development, the first-ever conference hosted by the UN to address key financial issues related to development. It attracted 50 heads of state, 200 government ministers, officials from all the major global financial, trade, economic and monetary institutions, leaders from the private sector - and representatives of civil society, including the churches.

At the core of the Clai contribution to Monterrey is a critique of market economy. Clai is impressed by the growth in its region of "poverty, exclusion, misery, unemployment and underemployment, labour instability, the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized businesses, and the deterioration of the environment". It is singularly unimpressed by the currently fashionable cult of a system of self-regulating markets, including financial markets.

Governments must intervene. The point of economic growth is to improve the conditions of all in society, without excluding any; but producing greater wealth does not lead automatically to its equitable distribution. Governments must not renounce the power of intervention: they need to intervene to redistribute wealth.

Globalization must be regulated. Developing countries must have improved access to information and technology. Financial speculation must be curbed. This means strengthening democratic participation in decision-making; promoting codes of conduct to regulate investments, capital flows and loans; creating mechanisms for arbitration and control at the national level; creating mechanisms for the cancellation of foreign debt and an international arbitration agency; and reforming the international financial architecture.

Debt must be cancelled: sustainable development is otherwise impossible. Debt incurred by private corporations or illegitimate public authorities must not become a burden on the people.

The market must not be allowed to reduce people and nature to commodities. Work is concrete participation in society to serve the common good. Natural resources, and their transformation, are at the service of all. Human rights must be respected and cultural diversity honoured. Natural resources must be stewarded with responsibility so as to guarantee life with dignity for future generations.

The free-market model lacks effective mechanisms and agencies to eradicate corruption and end impunity. It reduces the governments of the region to the status of "official beggars" before the governments of the developed countries and the international financial institutions. It inverts "values of equality, solidarity and responsibility", perverts the relationship between capital and labour, and "promotes usury, indolence and speculation".

"The market must not define the life projects of our countries." It is not clear whether the authors of this critique understand how far its implications reach. But if Clai and its churches - many of which are also Alliance churches - are serious in what they are saying, those implications will rapidly become clear.