About Fair Trade

[BIG BROTHER]

Well I bascially was reading this article from La Verite, the theoretical journal of the 4th International(well one of the many...) and there was an article criticizing fair trade, mentioning that it has been used to privatize industries, promote corporatism, discourage unions, labor legislations, etc.

Now before reading that article for me Fair Trade was just a guilt based product that made those who were able to aford it feel better about themselves and forget about the class struggle, and on top of that, it was a drop in the sea of savage capitalism.

so what i'm getting at, does anyone recomed any other good articles about Fair Trade coming out of a revolutionary perspective? Articles about privatization under the name of Fair Trade, etc (o perhaps you disagre, etc)

[BIG BROTHER]

maybe I need to polarize this a little bit and simplify it. Do you support free trade? and Why?

[BIG BROTHER]

omg...so no opinions? info?

[bailey_187]

Only a tiny amount of the increase in price of fair trade products actually goes to farmers etc

Its a way for a business to fill the consumer surplus(i think that's the right phrase), to root out the people prepared to pay more for a product without having to raise the general price

[bobroberts]

Wiki has a page about studies on the impact of fair trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_impact_studies

It seems better than the existing alternative.

[Boy Named Crow]

Fair Trade is clearly not the answer to the problem. But I think it is perhaps naive to simply rule it out as useless. Even if only a temporary patch that helps alleviate widespread poverty in certain areas, it has to be conceeded that some good is better that no good - again if only on a temporary basis.

It's all well and good people decrying it as a "drop in the sea" but until the oppurtunity, means and people arise to make a more substantial change - it remains an imporant drop.

With regards to it being a guilt based product: You are correct it is. But it serves two purposes. It allows people who care about the issues to buy coffee, etc and steer clear of directly supporting a large corporation. Secondly, it does guilt trip people into buying a more "socially aware" product and I don't see that as a bad thing because let's face it, the people we are talking about are likely gaining from the capitalist system and unlikely to be or become revolutionary socialists.

[ZeroNowhere]

Fair trade? Last I heard, it was supposed to be fought for through organizing pop concerts or some crap. Anyways.


It allows people who care about the issues to buy coffee, etc and steer clear of directly supporting a large corporation.
You seem to be underestimating large corporations. They make use of movements like these for larger profits, for example, with greenwashing and the like.


Secondly, it does guilt trip people into buying a more "socially aware" product and I don't see that as a bad thing because let's face it, the people we are talking about are likely gaining from the capitalist system and unlikely to be or become revolutionary socialists.
Eh? Only 4-5% of the population shop for things?

[Iowa656]

Fair Trade. A step in the right direction. But still a long way of perfect.

Instead of the workers getting $1 a day they get $2. Indeed a huge improvement. But the huge multinational companies are still owned by a few foreign capitalists. The profits still go up to the bosses. I think, for the present at least, we should support Fair Trade, because there is no greater alternative. However, we need to be cautious not to let the capitalists get a monopoly. ALL the profits should go to the local farmers and until that time there will always be improvements to be had.

[Boy Named Crow]

Eh? Only 4-5% of the population shop for things?

I don't think I made myself very clear - I'm not sure what you're getting at? What I was trying to say was in reference to a criticism of Fair Trade that said that the only people who buy it are the people who can afford to pay more to relieve themselves of their guilt.

My arguement is - I don't see that as a bad thing because those people who feel guilty and buy Fair Trade are unlikely to seek out other revolutionary ideas/methods [not that their are any viable ones right now!]. So we may as well milk "the enemy" where possible and whilst it is not a perfect system, it is a stap in the right direction. Something to build on.

Perhaps if popular opinion can force Fair Trade products to be market share leaders - then we can build on that progress and take it further?

I most certainly do not underestimate large corporations and I know they will have their own plans to make the best of FAIR TRADE. But the REALITY is that if people in western countries go to buy coffee they have two main choices:

1) 100% of profits go to the corporation [BAD]
2) FAIR TRADE [NOT SO BAD]

Again, not the ideal choices, but perhaps the only ones available to most people in western countries. If you want to ask these people to boycott coffee all together then be my guest. :)

It is all well and good wanting an instant and perfect solution to these problems, but right now we haven't got one. We barely have any ideas better than Fair Trade. What we need to get past is the attitude that just because a movement or iniative isnt the "ideal" that it is useless.

If we denounce every idea that isn't "ideal" then all we will achieve is a lot of talking and isolating ourselves from positive iniatives.

These are the people that will withdraw their support and when the iniative fails through lack of support will say "see- i told you it wouldnt work". :rolleyes:

We need to support as many initiatives as possible. The enemy has many faces and needs to be punched in every single one of them if there is to be any form of victory.

[ZeroNowhere]

I was referring to this:

because let's face it, the people we are talking about are likely gaining from the capitalist system

Anyways, you seem to be forgetting that fair trade goods are often sold at high prices, so that it weeds out people willing to pay more for the product. Expecting businesses to just accept it and have their profits lowered in return is somewhat unrealistic. This is capitalism, and businesses will only be 'ethical' when there's profit in it, and an increase in prestige is nice, too. You also seem to be forgetting that fair traders want companies to pay governments, rather than the poor. For example, calling for Starbucks to give their money to the Ethiopian Government... Will apparently mean $88 million per year for the farmers? It would also, naturally, if it actually worked, mean that farmers produced more coffee at the expense of other crops. An increase in coffee bean production would mean a lowering of the price of coffee, meaning that the farmers would have to sell their coffee for less. It would also mean that the soil used would be unsuitable for growing other crops, but, according to the environmentalists, this is alright, because the farmers would be too poor to afford to use pesticides, cut down forests, and use chemical fertilizers. Woohoo.
Either way, buying fair-trade products is something that is mainly only possible for the 'middle class', due to their higher expense, so it doesn't make a massive difference either way. Of course, with classic snobbery, many of its proponents are screaming, "Consume less, and buy more expensive goods! Consume less, you consumerist drones!", echoing the reactionary majority of the environmentalist movement. 'Fair trade' ain't anything new: it's old, and it's been done for quite a while, but nothing significant has come of it. It only accounts for about 0.1% of sales in the UK, and is already a prominent enough movement, so expecting it to somehow apply to "most people in western countries", or have much of an effect on anything, is rather unrealistic. So really, wasting our time trying to appeal to the capitalist class to sacrifice profits for the sake of being nice? Nah. I mean, seriously, if socialism is unrealistic, it is no less so than the fair trade movement doing anything significant.
“The fairness of political economy, such as it truly lays down the laws which rule actual society, that fairness is always on one side – that of capital”. Ravana had a left face too.

[JimmyJazz]

maybe I need to polarize this a little bit and simplify it. Do you support free trade?

No.


and Why?

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/1208engler.html

[bobroberts]

You also seem to be forgetting that fair traders want companies to pay governments, rather than the poor.

I thought the point of fair trade was to reduce the amount of middlemen from producer to consumer, allowing the producer to retain more of the money their product earns. With fair trade, the producers are generally worker co-operatives, the farmers themselves, and the right to unionize is a requirement for fair trade labeled goods. Fair trade is also supposed to guarantee a decent wage, no child or slave labor, workplace safety, and environmental standards. The result is supposed to be a sustainable livelyhood, which protects the life and health of the workers, and buffers the producers from the whims of the "free market". The free market which has only acted to impoverish and abuse these people, forcing them to adopt methods of farming that hurt the workers and their land, makes them dependent on the foreign capitalists who produce pesticide and fertilizer, and results in an abundance of product (which drives down the price, and therefor their income) of lower quality and less variety.

But who am I to argue against the superiority of western (and therefor "advanced") agricultural techniques, where the environment their livelyhoods depend on is slowly destroyed, and the workers poisoned and subjigated by parasitic forces who only wish to rip them off, impoverish them, and discard them like refuse whenever it becomes convenient?


Either way, buying fair-trade products is something that is mainly only possible for the 'middle class', due to their higher expense, so it doesn't make a massive difference either way.

Nevermind that the cheap price of other goods is subsidized by making the workers in those industries eat the cost of negative externalities that fair trade is trying to address. Goods are cheap when the workers who produce them are forced to pay. The better solution is overthrowing capitalism altogether, but in the meantime supporting initiatives like fair trade seems valid. More workers will be helped out and empowered by supporting fair trade than by waiting for the revolution. If chipping in a few bucks more a month on coffee, or whatever, is too much of a sacrifice for people to make so that fellow workers are not abused, then I think we can pretty much rule out revolution altogether. Should we also bemoan unions for "driving up the price of goods" because they demand that workers not be treated like slaves?

[Boy Named Crow]

I was referring to this:
It would also, naturally, if it actually worked, mean that farmers produced more coffee at the expense of other crops. An increase in coffee bean production would mean a lowering of the price of coffee, meaning that the farmers would have to sell their coffee for less.

Well I understand what you're saying in terms of supply and demand but the problem with that is that it is a blanket arguement. Coffee [as an example] is not a univesal product like Oil or Sugar - that is to say that not every type of coffee is the same. Fair Trade coffee can offer selling points that a bog standard tub of Nescafe can't.

There is not one single type of coffee but instead many different coffees that are differentiated from one another in terms of production techniques, seasonal or regional differences in quality, blending, packaging, handling, and now also "social responsibility" accounting. Consumer demand and taste define what different market prices are acceptable for each of these products. One of the benefits of Fair Trade coffee is the availability of single origin beans for example.

Again, I stress that whilst this is not the cure for the problem, it is a positive step. I think the situation is too complex to be purist and anal about this stuff. It's all well and good waiting for the revolution to come or some other great solution - and that will be great for those producers when it comes - however the people that are alive now have to work with what they have.

Currently Fair Trade is intelligent and well meaning initiative that works both in theory and in practice. It has a Market share that increasing year on year. It is not a solution but it is real world tool for tackiling a real world problem.

This has kind of given me an idea for a new thread...