fair trade<\/a> must come along with a strong domestic safety net, or not at all, and that financial exploitation is only one aspect of a bigger problem.<\/p>\nUnintended consequences of fair trade<\/h2>\n
What were to happen if every developed country in the world simultaneously passed good labor laws that applied not only to workers in the country, but also to workers employed directly or indirectly by companies in that country? In other words, what if the first world would suddenly apply the same standards when it came to those it employs in the third world as it does to those employed domestically?<\/p>\n
Like any change in a complex system, this would have all kinds of different consequences, some of them unintended. For one, this would, with 100% certainty, mean that almost all goods and services sold in the first world would become a lot more expensive to produce, and somewhat more expensive to consume. This would hurt the middle and lower class hard: they would no longer be able to afford to consume nearly as much as before, at least in the short term. In the long term, this would give companies in the first world less of a reason to employ people in the third world, meaning more people in the first world would have jobs. This would, in turn, also mean that the first world would produce more goods and services, increasing exports. So I imagine it might actually balance out eventually. (I’m trying to think like an economist here \u2013 tell me if it’s working.)<\/p>\n
A conclusion is simply where you stopped thinking<\/h2>\n
So in the short term, making world trade fair would harm everyone in the first world but the rich \u2013 massively. This is, of course, a bad thing. Should this be our conclusion then, that fair trade is a luxury and forcing it upon society would punish “our own” poor? No, of course not, that would be near-sighted. Rather, I think fair trade is a good argument for social solidarity and a strong safety net in the first world<\/em>.<\/p>\nAfter all, there is an enormous amount of wealth in the first world. The existence of poverty is not a force of nature but an aspect of our economic system. With tools as simple as progressive taxation and a basic income guarantee<\/a>, we could tweak our system to protect all individuals in society from the chaos of post-industrial life. And if we can make sure that even a large, across-the-board spike in the price of goods would not harm anybody too much, we can afford to trade fairly with the developing world.<\/p>\nIn other words, global solidarity and domestic solidarity are interconnected.<\/strong> Only enforcing fair trade would harm the first-world poor in the short run. Only guaranteeing economic security in the first world would come at the continued cost of the third-world poor. In fact, presenting the two as separate could be seen as a subtle factor in why neither is terribly popular \u2013 if you really care about the basic rights and conditions of all people, why should you want to improve conditions for the poor at home but not elsewhere, or vice versa? But if we consider the two to be one package, one thing, inseparable, suddenly the parts all make sense.<\/p>\nSchooling the world for the wrong jobs \u2013 colonialism is alive, and kicking the third world in the face<\/h2>\n
But fair trade is not enough for the third world, either. The western corporate colonization runs much deeper than that.<\/p>\n
This summer, at IDEC@EUDEC<\/a> in England, I had the opportunity to watch a very difficult film, Schooling the World<\/a>. What I learned is that what we know as conventional schooling in the west is being forced upon communities in the developing world which have no need for this form of education, nor for the content taught in it \u2013 essentially the same content as taught in the first world. Young people there are being trained for western jobs and academic careers where there are none<\/em>, in communities which have their own way of life, requiring neither. The young people subsequently have no real choice but to move to big cities, where there is at least some chance of finding a job they are qualified for \u2013 but there there are still not enough modern jobs for everyone. Imagine being a young adult faced with the choice between poverty in the big city, where you have a chance of finding a job you are somewhat prepared for, and moving back to the countryside, where you might not even speak the language (as many schools forbid native languages and enforce the use of English and\/or the state language) and would have to learn traditional crafts from scratch in order to be useful.