Fair Trade: An oxymoron

Over the last few years we have witnessed the explosion of a new fad: ethical consumerism and 'fair trade'.

While there are very good reasons to consider and reconsider which brands we buy, where we shop, and what to purchase, it seems that this trend has drifted into a meaningless habit of the middle classes designed to clear their conscience. It seems like an egocentric kneejerk reaction to immediately assuage said guilty conscience without having to address the real issues behind globalisation. Rather than react without thinking in too much depth, we should take Lenin's advice to "learn, learn, and learn". By acting immediately, we run the risk of losing sight of the causes and thus end up merely dealing with the symptoms, or worse: legitimising the existence of free trade. Since fair trade sounds like good trade, the danger of buying into 'fair trade' is all too obvious. 'Fair trade' is an oxymoron. Trade cannot be fair, especially in this globalised capitalist system.

It is safer to simply purchase local beer or orange juice rather than buy coffee at all. Why buy a product that - regardless of whether it has the tag 'fair' attached to it - has been grown on fertile ground often in countries where the general population is undernourished. They should be growing crops to feed their own population, but the 'fair trade' Machiato crowd demand their fix of the day while ignoring local producers of beer, juice, and so on.

Moreover, 'fair trade' products are often co-opted by the very multinationals that make trade so unfair (though this is not to say that the less well-known brands are any better; they just avoid the bad publicity). This means the creation of new elites in those countries that are subcontracted to big business. And anyway, the upshot of 'fair trade' is often just a few pence more for the farmers, while the subcontractors and big businesses take all the money from the more expensively priced coffee in the west.

An interesting and sobering article by Professor Douglas Holt from the Oxford Said Business School offers just a tiny insight into the pitfalls and webs of deceit presented by this new 'ethical' consumerism by exploring so-called fair trade coffee from Ethiopia offered by Starbucks.

It is certainly worth a read. Finally, we must bear in mind that well-meaning gestures of trying to consume ethically can be sound, but we have to be very wary. To quote fellow commenter LesterJones from CiF:

"To change the system you must use political channels, not consumer behaviour."