Archive for the 'Wolfie' Category
Free trade…
I have just watched the excellent Alex Singleton on the London News, speaking on behalf of the Adam Smith Institute in a head to head on the subject of Fair Trade. It seems that London Boroughs are being encouraged to promote FairTrade™ products to their residents. As Alex pointed out, there are some problems with the FairTrade™ model that mean it may do more harm than good. For example, farmers are encouraged to form co-operatives and so individual owner occupation of farms is discouraged.
While I fully accept the economic and moral argument that free trade is superior to “Fair trade” and Alex did well to avoid being painted as some sort of nasty Tory, I can’t help thinking that there may be a better way to play this than simply attacking “Fair Trade”.
True, they are wrong, misguided and damaging in aspects of their implementation. However, I think we free-marketeers should start any debate on this subject by welcoming the fact that both we and the FairTrade movement share a passion for the unequalled potential of international trade to lift poor people out of poverty and improve living standards all round. Adam Smith wrote of the “invisible hand” raising the general welfare of people but perhaps now his message is so well spread that the hand is no longer invisible. We know that doing business does good – the thing that is exciting about this is that now some people are trying to do good by doing business.
OK, so these people don’t have a high regard for the scruples of regular businessmen but there are a hell of a lot of far worse things they could be doing than promoting trade with the Third World – opposing trade, for one. The point we should be making is that the Fair Trade supporters have their hearts in the right place but the way the movement works needs fixing.
In going beyond good honest trade with poor farmers, the FairTrade(m) movement is using their purchasing power as rich Westerners to pursue their own agendas. It is a sort of cultural imperialism. Western lefties might think poor farmers need to be guided down the route of collective farming and using the extra money they get from FairTrade™ for building “schoolsnhospitalz.” The farmers might have other priorities and who are we to say otherwise.
It is free trade and not the fair Trade movement that really respects the dignity and autonomy of the poor of the world.
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