Talk:Fair trade
The counterarguments section gets confusing. The text would benefit, I think, if the ethical purchasing form of fair trade and the tariff form of fair trade were debated separately. --Jan Tångring 17:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I removed the following paragraph from the article introduction, as it is unintelligible as it stands. Also, it is not NPOV.
I propose the person who write it makes another try. Or even better, to save the pros and cons to the main text, the introduction is long enough:
- The main ["The main" by whose ranking? How about a simple "An"] argument against fair trade is that the term [you mean "the concept"?] in practice is primarily intended to protect [intentionally? someone wants this?] inefficient industries and that fair trade as conceived of by its proponents would do little to help [to help what?] as fair trade still remains a niche and indeed would aggravate problems of global poverty and social injustice, as not everyone [who, exactly, needs one?] can get a fair trade certification. [why not?]
--Jan Tångring 17:50, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand the last line in the first paragraph that reads "These critics of fair trade argue that a growing economic inter-reliance of all nations globally also contributes to peace, as suppliers rarely wage war on their customers.". Why would someone be a critic of contributing to peace? Please consider revising.
Can someone tell me why free trade is in quotes, like "free trade" or "free" trade. I don't understand why that's done. Is it suppossed to be some sort of political statment?
there's some dorky typos in this, but how about you flame me first, and tell me this stuff doesn't exist, or that you hate it and want it to all go away, or something, as usual? Then I'll know what to change and to attribute. 24
This isn't quite true......
- Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, most economies worldwide embraced varying degress of free trade, and rejected fair trade measures on the grounds that charging higher prices than the global commodity markets for the goods exported by developing nations would penalize them unduly, denying them hard cash, and preventing them from gaining market share and trusted positions in a supply chain (since varying tax and tariff rates, or worst, complex trade law, would prevent them from competing on an equal basis with developed-nation suppliers). Critics of fair trade argue that a growing economic inter-reliance of all nations globally also contributes to peace, as suppliers rarely wage war on their customers.
Most of the anti-free trade energy has been focused at manufacturers of finished products. Commodity goods such as agricultural products remain larged protected and there has been very little liberalization in this area. Also the problem isn't the complexity of the tariffs, its the size of the tariffs.
- yes, you're right, it's complexity of trade remedies, e.g. dumping laws, rather than complexity of tariffs themselves. The manufactured, information, and agricultural sectors need to be better differentiated - that paragraph is saying way too much at once. I'd stick by the assertion that these are the excuses used to avoid fair trade, but really, it is being enforced by default, e.g. developing nations and the EU and US refusing to negotiate an end to agricultural tariffs. The commodity-export issue is mostly in timber and non-food crops, which is one reason why rainforests are destroyed: timber is the only exportable they grow... whereas the food crops that could be grown without destroying the forest, are subject to lots of protection. OK, I can rewrite this to be closer to your sense of it. 24
- actually, the big problem with this paragraph, even correctly rewritten, is that it has to assume a political economy to say anything sane at all... it verges on macro-economics, whereas the fair trade arguments are "all micro", i.e. about effects at ground level. So, to be fair, one would need a classical/nationalist, neoclassical/globalist, Marxist/labour-centric and green/resource-centric view of what was going on in the 1980s and 1990s, and that's too much for this article. A separate article on export strategy or industrial strategy should go into this in detail, but not here... if anything is said here it should be along the lines of "how legacy agricultural subsidy and protectionism constitute an informal set of resistance to free trade measures, especially in land and agriculture" 24
I don't think this article is terribly good as it stands. It's largely criticism by nutcase free market-obsessed americans. Could we mention something like this: http://www.maketradefair.com/go/uscotton in the stuff about why fair trade is better? -- Tarquin 09:22, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I agree. Incidentally, "Fair Trade"--capital "F", capital "T"--is in fact the trade mark of Transfair USA, an NGO that certifies products (chiefly specialty coffee, the flagship product chosen because it is the second largest traded commodity in the world next to petroleum) sold directly from farmer cooperatives to distributors at a minimum price that secures a living wage. More information is available at [1]. This capitalized spelling makes "Fair Trade" distinct from the general use of the term discussed in this entry, so perhaps it deserves its own. I don't know Wikipedia's policy on including information on trade marks or certification programs, but consider that USDA_Organic_certification does not have an entry, but RIAA certification does. Perhaps FT deserves a Fair_Trade_Certification entry ... An appropriate place to bring this up would be: ??? -MattEpp (Disclaimer: this is my first ever Wikipedia edit. My sincere apologies if I am not welcome here)
Restructure
Restructured to clarify distinction and relationship between fair trade in general and fairtrade labelling; there's still a case the entire Fairtrade labelling stuff should go into that article (but that's currently short and sweet so I'm reluctant). Also primary-topic disambiguation. There's clearly more to be said about non-fairtrade labelling aspects; but removal of the straw-man discussion of import-taxation is a start for developing something useful. Issues include the role of international standards (eg ILO), including enforcement issues; role of WTO (including nontransparency of dispute resolution); expansion of agricultural subsidy issue (see trade and development); role of developing-country protectionism (eg Dani Rodrik on sequencing and need for institutional development, experience of China and the Asian Tigers, etc); abuse of "fair trade" argument by domestic producers in rich countries (see Cato Institute external link). Rd232 21:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)