The Importance Of The Fair Trade Movement

The paper Legal Obligations and the Duty of Fair Trade by, John Rawls states an intellectual connection between law and justice and that following the law for some individuals is fair play. Throughout this paper, Rawls strives to get his point across. There were three influential points that Rawls stated that assisted his argument. John Rawls, first I will begin by proving the fact that following a law does not guarantee that we will be producing overall good. The authors next main point was to make it a clear point that laws are similar to obligations. Lastly, I will discuss his topic on how voting has no promises that you will get a respectable result. I believe that the author presents his argument that laws are made for order and that

Fair trade is a market reactive system that wants to abolish global inhumane acts from child labor, poor working environments, low wages, and healthy working conditions. Fair Trade does not control the prices at a local level the producers

Fair-trade is a trading partnership that focuses on sustainable development for poorer producers. they do this by providing better trading conditions and raising awareness of their situation.

In this week’s “Working with Evidence”, the primary focus was on globalization, which is the process of businesses or other organizations developing international influence or operations on an international scale, after World War II. Based on the provided six images and the text of Chapter 23, it presented different ways various groups of people experienced globalization since the end of World War II. To begin, visual source 23.1 (‘Globalization and Work’) shows a Chinese-owned company producing jeans in a small country in southern Africa called Lesotho - this image shows the economic benefits of globalization. Many companies in wealthier countries would often find advantages to build facilities in places where labor is less expensive or environmental regulations are less restrictive. However, some companies would abuse the process of economic globalization as shown in visual source 23.3 (‘Globalization and Protest’). Visual source 23.3 shows a protester in Sao Paulo, Brazil, holding up a sign that reads “A better world according to Monsanto is a world with more cancer.” The company Monsanto is a major producer of herbicides, genetically modified foods, and many highly controversial chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and bovine growth hormones. In dozens of developed/developing countries activists have demonstrated or riot against government policies that removed subsidies raised prices on essential products, frozen salaries, or cut back on social services. Although

Trading fairly is a movement which strives for fair treatment for farmers. In a fair trade agreement, farmers will

Most people from Mexico, just like in Veracruz, lived a simple life. Their means of income was through farming, so obviously this was their bread and butter, but not until when NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement, was implemented between the United States, Mexico, and Canada (The Other Side of Immigration). Urrea states “you’d think that at least there would be beans to eat, but the great Mexican bean-growing industrial farms sold much of their crop to the United States” (45). Since then, most Mexicans, especially those people from Veracruz, was affected. Even though the primary reason for this agreement was to eliminate trade and investment barriers between Canada, U.S., and Mexico to make produce less expensive, this brought a

“Free trade is not passé, but is an idea that has irretrievably lost its innocence” (Krugman, 1987, p.132). In his article, Is Free Trade Passé, Paul Krugman writes that the classical trade theory has been replaced with a new trade theory. The classical trade theory is based on constant returns to scale and perfect competition, is driven by comparative advantage, and endorses free trade. This classical theory emphasized the idea that trade was brought about by differences in tastes, technology, or factor endowments between countries (Krugman, 1987). However, the new theory of international trade is driven by increasing returns to scale, also known as economies of scale, and leads to imperfect competition (Carbaugh, 2011).

58% of Americans agree that foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy because cheap imports have cost wages and jobs here.

Fair Trade’s consumer recognition has tripled in the last five years, proving the company’s sustainability in a global market. As of today, this organization works with more than 800 companies to verify more than 6,000 products as Fair Trade. In 2009, Fair Trade Certified products generated $1.2 billion in retail sales, indicating their large-scale business practices.

2009). This in itself shows the high standards of sustainability can be made from free trade (Gidney, M. 2009). Fair trade provides two key benefits that can help with the current world economic crisis. First it provides sustained benefits for producers that can help maintain their business through fluctuations of the world market (Gidney, M. 2009). Second, fair trade helps to maintain fair prices, additional social premium, and long-term partnerships that help provide better living standards for millions of people in over 60 countries (Gidney, M. 2009).

Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, shows support for free trade and emphasises it as a trade policy which ought to be adopted. Krugman and Obstfeld back Smith's support by stating that the efficiency of trade is increased by free trade and accumulates the national income of countries. Free trade is a theory which suggests that each nation benefits in specialising in an economic activity from which it gains absolute advantage, enjoying absolute superiority over other nations in a specif economical activity (Peng). With free trade follows opportunity, replacing regulation and growth of economic activity. (Rugmann and Collinson).

One of the main goals of free trade agreements is globalization. Globalization, or global free trade, is the creation of trading connections between countries throughout the world ("Globalization"). Globalization stresses free trade. Free trade is when tariffs are reduced or eliminated on exports or imports. Tariff tax percentages added to US imported goods have dropped dramatically from about 60% in the 1930s, to lower than 10% in 2005 ("International"). With less money taxed on products, corporations can expand, increase trade, and generate more revenue. Focusing on just the US, the value of goods traded with Canada was about $562 billion, and Mexico was $347.3 billion, in 2007 ("International"). Although globalization sounds very beneficial to the US economy and other countries ' economies, there are concerns of globalization being 'one-side. ' Due to the increase of free trade between trading countries, globalization was supposed to cause economic growth and improve living conditions in underdeveloped countries ("International"). Yet local business and farmers in countries like Mexico, are not getting a lot of business due to so many imported goods from large foreign corporations entering the market (Globalization). All the profits go back to multi-national corporations in more developed countries like the US ("International"). On top of that, there is the fear that because these multinational corporations are growing wealthier, they will have more influence over

Following Meskela’s journey, the film demonstrates the power held by multinational corporations (MNCs) in setting the price of coffee. He wants a solution, but what happens with commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), he is faced with challenges in finding that. Meskela worked diligently to eliminate the players who tend to come in between the buyers and the sellers. Instead, he went directly to the buyers to ask for a fair price. The fair-trade movement embraced his cause as they work to bring supposedly fairly-traded commodities to grocery stores in America.

”Free trade policies have created a level of competition in today's open market that engenders continual innovation and leads to better products, better-paying jobs, new markets, and increased savings and investment” (Denise Froning). Though Free trade plays a huge role in the economy today because of what and where it is used. Free trade allows for traders to trade across national boundaries and other countries without government interference. Meaning that traders have very few regulations that allow for them to do this without the government intervening. Free trade makes things for traders much easier and also allows for many more jobs in the US, such as exporting jobs, or jobs in the auto industry and plants. Though there are many

The fair trade concept, based on the idea of both economic activity and social development, is replete with ethical and sustainable echoes. Ransom (2002 p 20) asks, 'can the