How fair is fair trade?

[El Rojo]

They make a real song and dance about how moral it is ect ect, but to what point is it fair? Besides being apartof the capitalist system - hence immoral - what are its other failings?

[Tjis]

They make a real song and dance about how moral it is ect ect, but to what point is it fair? Besides being apartof the capitalist system - hence immoral - what are its other failings?
It benefits only people that own the products of their own labor, like farmers that own some land, or crafters. Those working for someone else or those that produce something that is not directly sellable are not helped by fair trade at all.

[the last donut of the night]

Besides being apartof the capitalist system - hence immoral - what are its other failings?

Although many of our oppositions to capitalism and exploitation come from moral judgments, we can't really explain capitalism's structures on a purely moral basis.


Apologies if I seem rude. I don't do this to be a prick, I just do it to explain it to other people.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yeah, I had heard a libertarian critique of fair trade not too long ago that sounded legit. Basically, if you're outside the designated fair trade zone (as in not marked fair trade certified by certain fair trade organizations) you're pretty much out of luck. So small farmers have no option but to continue doing business with free traders or they might actually lose business to those companies going "fair". It's basically another form of mercantile protectionism.

While fair trade helps certified farmers out, it leaves a lot of other smaller farmers out cold. Look, this is just another liberal attempt to alleviate but ultimately ignore the major hazard of capitalist free trade itself.

I swear everything liberals do (while kind hearted) is full of PR puff. Friendly capitalism.

As Michael Parenti once said, "Capitalism with a friendly face, is now capitalism in your face".

[Communist Theory]

Lol. I never knew that everything that brushed with the capitalist system
was automatically immoral. :lol:

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

It is no more helpful than Live Aid, or any other neo-liberal initiative aimed towards ending world poverty. It is full of hypocrisy and lies, and that is why coffee farmers the world over are still living in dire conditions.

[Luisrah]

How fair is fair trade?

Very little.

[ellipsis]

plug my fav coffee co (http://www.deansbeans.com/coffee/aboutus.html):

Besides only roasting organic coffees, Dean's Beans® only purchases beans from villages and importers that are committed to Fair Trade and working towards better economic opportunity, improved health and nutrition in the villages. We promote local empowerment and self-reliance through our Fair Trade purchases (http://www.deansbeans.com/coffee/fair_trade_roadmap.html) and our work with local grassroots development (http://www.deansbeans.com/coffee/people_centered.html) and human rights groups. We also sponsor projects here at home with disenfranchised communities such as Native Americans, the homeless and disabled, and many other groups trying to improve their lives and that of their communities. Every cup you drink and every pound you buy contributes directly to the welfare of coffee growers and consumers.
We only purchase beans from small farmers and cooperatives, largely made up of indigenous peoples working hard to maintain their culture and lifestyles in a hostile world. We do not buy beans from large estates and farms. We've been there, and have seen the conditions of chronic poverty and malnutrition within which these farms produce those other coffees.

[ellipsis]

http://www.deansbeans.com/coffee/fair_trade_roadmap.html

There are less than a dozen of us 100% Fair Trade coffee companies in the USA. The other two hundred plus companies that participate at all range from a measly half-percent (Seattle's Best), one percent (Starbucks), twelve to twenty-four percent (Green Mountain - we can't get accurate figures from the company) and so on. Many smaller companies are about fifty percent and thinking about larger commitments. Most of the Big Boys, however, have turned Fair Trade over to their marketing departments. So, instead of seeing the need to pay all farmers a living wage because it is ethical and good for business in the long run, these companies are limiting Fair Trade to just another offering ("Today we have Colombian, Hazelnut and Fair Trade"). At the same time, many of these companies are doing the marketing blitz, placing glitzy ads in magazines expounding their friendliness to farmers with their Fair Trade coffees - but conveniently neglecting to tell consumers that they are only one or ten percent Fair Trade. These companies never tell you about the other ninety percent of the farmers that they are pushing deeper into poverty every day while raking in the highest profits they've ever seen. Recently, Time Magazine did a big piece on Fair Trade, highlighting one of those companies that speaks so profoundly about the importance of Fair Trade (guess they forgot to tell the reporter that they only pay Fair Trade prices to twelve out of every hundred farmers they buy from).
Please don't get me wrong. I am a believer in making money, just not at the expense of children's health and a community's viability. Is there a correlation between the abysmally low price paid to farmers and the astronomical profits of the Big Boys since the crisis began? Hello? Could it be because they are only paying the farmers about half of what they used to pay but haven't lowered their prices to consumers? Does the word GREED have any application here? You be the judge, I'll just keep being 100% and sleep well at night.
Another hidden irony of Fair Trade is that the current Fair Trade price is still about forty cents per pound lower than the market price we all paid for coffee three years ago - and even then we were all profitable. So why are companies so resistant to paying farmers enough to stay afloat when its so much less than they willingly paid three years ago? Five letters, starts with a "G".
It's important to remember that Fair Trade is an economic agreement, it's not a type of coffee. Often, the Big Boys say there's not enough Fair Trade coffee out there. To quote Ronald Reagan, "There you go again!" There's literally tons of available Fair Trade registered coffee out there. Last year less than twenty percent of the Fair Trade eligible coffee was sold that way - if nobody buys it at Fair Trade prices it gets sold as conventional. The Big Boys simply choose not to pay the price for it - then they claim it isn't available. In addition, brokers often bring in containers at conventional prices and then sell them at Fair Trade prices if they can, returning the difference to the farmers. This is called retro-certifying. Until it actually gets sold Fair Trade, it is reported as conventional, so the Big Boys can claim there ain't none out there.

[The Red Next Door]

not very fair in this system.

[Purple]

I think its too easy as communists or socialists to just discard something coming out in the capitalist system as being "bourgeois" or being unsupportive of the working class, but fair trade products can definitely have a significant practical value, and the fact that there has emerged such a market for fair trade products shows that people are becoming more conscious about the labour relations that goes into the production of a product, and when there is that trend in society it can definetly be utilized to distill fairer conditions of the labour process.

[Pogue]

Its better but with alot of flaws. Also, it varies. Alot of Coffee cooperatives aere quite good, but the other food stuffs can basically be bullshit to the workers, but at the end of the day better wages are better wages and should be supported.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

The name is misleading, no trade is fair.