Do you buy Fairtrade products?
Why, or why not?
Yes, but I do not concern myself with the “Fair Trade” status. My view is that this is up to the vendor and that person can pay anybody they want their money for some stupid status. If the item does not have Fair Trade status, that will not stop me from purchasing it.
My opinion of Fair Trade is that the poor saps that pay this have gotten conned into a price fixing scheme. And in any price fixing scheme as long as the prices are rising like now with all the QE(n)s then everybody is happy. But when that turns and prices head lower, the Fair Trade folks will be colluding themselves to a higher price and getting undercut by competitors.
I do only because I only eat organic, and a lot of the things re “Fair Trade”.
shrugs
Only if I think it’s a fair trade for me.
PS Fair trade is against child labor. They’re a kind of union.
Being against child labor is nothing wrong. Being union is nothing wrong either. Does Fair Trade trademark imply that all agreements that constitute it were reached in voluntary way? Either way name “Fair Trade” is chosen poorly. What is “fair” can be only determined by subjective preference in voluntary manner not by label on a product, also it may be understood that everything else not labelled as such is not “fair”.
I don’t consciously buy Fair Trade products. It does not alter my purchasing habits in any significant way.
Here is one argument for buying Fairtrade products:
Fairtrade certification guarantees that products have been produced “fairly”. It guarantees that there have not been “unfair trades” involved. Now among the types of trades that Fairtrade calls unfair, some are certainly voluntary and therefore unobjectionable from the libertarian point of view (e.g. voluntary child labor, low-wage/high-hours workers in poor factory conditions, etc). But some “unfair trades” are actually coercive and constitute slavery (e.g. children being kidnapped and forced to work on a cocoa plantation). Therefore, buying Fairtrade sends out a message that slavery is unacceptable as a means of production.
In other words, if “Fairtrade certification” meant ONLY “produced without using slaves” then it would be wise to buy Fairtrade because it would make slave-produced products unviable, and hence reduce third-world slavery.
Fairtrade seems to me a morally condescending lefty racket run by the kind of crooks who would love to use government privelige to exclude their competitors whenever they can get enough public sympathy. I do think their coffee and chocolate products are quite good though, if a bit pricey. The ASI had a good study on them:
http://www.adamsmith.org/images/pdf/unfair_trade.pdf
It seems fairtrade were also pissed off enough to make a rejoinder on their website:
Reading it made me giggle.
How can it guarantee anything? Are these Fair Trade folks running around inspecting every farm, orchard or plantation? And if so then there is no way they could be price competitve. There are thousands of food growing and processessing facilities across the world? Do they get to them all and when? Now the good part: What is the penalty if the product was in fact the product of child or slave labor? Do you get damages? What about the laborers, do they get damages?
Fair Trade is nonsense and I avoid it when I can.
Any one who has lived or been associated with central america coffee farmers knows it’s a complete fraud. It’s mostly marketing. IT doesn’t actually DO anything.
Any how any one who has to make a “fair Trade” slogan probably doesn’t know what trade or exchange is to begin with.
Yeah, Fair Trade is based on economic illiteracy. Conditions in the third world don’t improve because our good intentions to treat them “fairly”. Conditions improve because they achieve higher productivity and get more for their products in the marketplace. Mostly because they finally throw off the yoke of socialism and get to compete on a level playing field. By spreading misinformation about how the economy works, Fair Trade might actually be bad for the third world.
Besides, they’re sustainability wackos. Wiki: Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability.
Yes, I buy their cane sugar from the Philippines because it’s the best available locally.
Fair trade is just internationalized/souped-up minimum wage practices. They do more harm than good and you get to pay more, but people with no economic sense get to feel good about themselves.
Thanks abskebabs for the links. I had not seen the Fairtrade response before, and I see why it made you giggle. Those Fairtrade guys really need some Hazlitt in their lives.
That’s one response, but I don’t think it’s a very strong one. The same argument could be made about any accreditation agency. How can a doctor’s accreditation agency guarantee that it’s members are good doctors? For the sake of a strong argument, we should be generous to our opponents’ position and assume that Fairtrade does what it says it does, reasonably well if not perfectly.
Honestly, it is quite rediculous to limit yourself based on what you believe. Im sure alot of people who complain about the government enjoy much of what it has to offer.n My point is that i dont care if its free trade or not. If i like the product, i buy it.
I do agree that all this fair trade crap just creates a privledged market, in turn increasing costs.
To anyone who does not buy Fairtrade…
What if the Fairtrade product is the same price as non-Fairtrade? For example, apparently in Costa you can request Fairtrade coffee at no extra price over the non-Fairtrade equivalent. In this circumstance would you opt for Fairtrade?
Finally, what if the Fairtrade product is cheaper than the non-Fairtrade equivalent? Would you pay more to avoid Fairtrade?
Ding ding ding we got a winner.
Fair trade is not seeing long term. By setting an artificial higher price and hoping for sympathy - they see short term benifit. It’s a sort of union. It works for a bit, but in 10 years, im not so sure. Fair trade as grown in the last 10 years and it will get more and more sympathy, but if they really want to grow, they need to produce more and offer better product. If they do that, they won’t need a sticky price. People will buy no matter what the price is.
I buy that which is the best deal for me. If you do anything else, you’re sending out wrong/unsustainable signals into the market. All else equal, I will buy non-Fair trade because I know it will go to people who need it more (such as children).
What is a sustainability wacko? Is there something wrong with promoting sustainability?