Be Righteous!
There's an interesting article in this week's Guardian Weekly - don't know if it was in the regular Guardian as well. The latest trend is apparently Equitrade. They highlighted chocolate production in Madagascar. Apparently even with Fair Trade, a miniscule amount of money goes to the country of origin - eg Ghana for cocoa powder. In Madagascar they are now actually making the chocolate itself and exporting that, which means more money goes to that country, and less to UK manufacturers, trucking companies etc. There are arguments that Fair Trade is not the answer, but I think it's still a good start. If nothing else it creates awareness of economic inequalities. I think the bottom line has to be that everyone along the chain has decent working conditions and a good quality of life. Whether that's called Fair Trade/Free Trade/Equitrade is not really important.
I agree about the awareness-raising aspect being a Good Thing, even if it's not economically ideal. Small steps and all that. There's also a question about how ethical fair traded products are when the small companies that set them up are swallowed up by multinationals. Interesting article on this in last Sunday's Observer magazine - http://observer.guardian.co.uk/
m...1497815,00.html - I'm not sure I share her optimism, but it's an interesting read, not least because I didn't know about all the takeovers she lists.
I'm sceptical about this. Green & Blacks got something like £35million, I don't think they were forced to sell up, apart from greed! Sorry, but it's another example of lazy journalism. The article is peppered with phrases like 'gobbled up/snaffled up/devoured' (hmm, was she hungry when writing this?), but really how much gobbling up was done when they were writing out the fat cheques to to these 'ethical' companies?
There are arguments for and against, but the arguments against Fair Trade do tend to come from vested interests - those who operate within the globalised markets and assume that market forces will eventually correct any imbalances. The only problem being, that a South American coffee producer doesn't operate within the same parameters - he's responsible for feeding his family, not for providing a healthy dividend to shareholders.
That our comfy lifestyles and habits of consumption are predicated on the low incomes of others is something that many find difficult to accept - but true nonetheless. None of us would work for a few pence an hour - yet we think it fair that others do just to keep the price of our goods down.
There was an interesting report on this a while back - farmers in African nations being paid a few dollars for a kilo of coffee beans. This is all sold on at Starbucks for nearly £2 a cup - easy to see why some would promote the idea that Fair Trade is a myth - they've got too much to lose.
Incidently - the Cafe Direct 5065 brand coffee was recently voted as one of the top 50 coffees varieties in the world. It comes in a 70% recycled glass jar and is guarenteed non-GM.
So it's not just a trade issue - many fair trade products are produced by companies with good ethical and environmental policies too.
My most recent ponderance on related matters begins with the question 'What would be the various local (and 'global') economic impacts of 'less consumption'?' I recognise that the response to this from the banking sector would be interesting - I'm guessing lowered interest rates - to stimulate borrowing and spending, and momentarily suppressed inflation. The upshot - increased (though shifted, as in 'by who' and 'on what') spending and consumption. Unfortunately, I tend not to get much further than that. Which is a bit of a bugger.
The conflation of green ethics and economic ethics is also an interesting matter that is worthy of some unpacking, however, I'll spare you from my ill-informed commentary on that.
Here in North America, they like to use the term "Free Trade." When it was first proposed between the U.S. and Canada, opponents said it would represent nothing less than the selling out of Canada's soul.
Indeed, since it was implemented, a number of industries that could not compete globally have gone into the dumper. Others have spring up as well, so in the end it's hard to tell whether the concept is "good" or "bad". It all depends on the individual's perspective.
Nothing will solve all the problems of the world. As long as billions of people have divergent ideas about what makes the most sense for themselves, we'll have strife.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
guardi...1496839,00.html
is your article Claypot I think - its a good article. I guess it confirms what I think which is that its the best we have at present.
Zinnia - it is another interesting article (also not holding my breath) I'm pretty sure that Seeds of Change started off with nestle actually. Odd that wasn't mentioned.
Astolath - agree not purely a trade issue - environmental issues also a Good Thing.
Shane - your thoughts are pretty coherent to me. Which isn't necessarily a good thing...
Carmi - agreed. I guess I don't feel like that's a reason not to try to do something though.
Gotta watch what you do with those bananas as well... tricky purchase.
Absolutely - I have dreadful banana anxiety. The Doctor eats them by the gross - I always get Fair Trade as I guess that helps a bit...
Your mother's acquaintance is probably correct. 'FairTrade' is, on a relatively small scale, a trade subsidy, and the effect of subsidies and tariffs is to favour a specific group (in this case fair trade growers) at the expense of the everyone else: for example other growers trying to compete in the same market.
Regardless of important short term measures such as development aid, the prospects for third world countries, presently dependent on agriculture, are extremely bleak while the agricultural producers of the EU and USA are protected by subsidy. You might like to look at http://www.cne.org/pub_pdf/
2003_...rriers_kill.pdf for a somewhat dramatic, but essentially correct, analysis of the effect of the CAP in sub-saharan Africa.
'Fair Trade' seems, intuitively, to be a good idea, but intuition does not always lead one to correct conclusions. If an issue is really important (and it is hard to think of a more important issue than world poverty) then it might be wise to allow yourself to be guided by the opinions of clever people who have devoted considerable time and energy to understanding how economies work, rather than intuition, emotion and guesswork.
Abolishing EU agricultural subsidies would cause a painful and difficult period of transition in rural communities in Europe. Such a policy would be very difficult to pursue: most European political leader would much rather the debate was focused on aid, which is not politically contentious. It is only natural that politicians in Europe and the US should be concerned with protecting their own rural constituencies but the cost to the developing world of maintaining the current level of protection is way too high.
I am sure that most people want to do the right thing; even Cambridge economics graduates, and perhaps they have a better prospect of knowing what the right thing is than you or me.
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