Does Fair Trade Help Poor Workers?

Does Fair Trade help poor workers? Probably not says Don Boudreaux in this excellent, short video from the Everyday Economics series at Marginal Revolution University.

As is well known, however, Don is a rabid, free-market economist with ideological blinders who has been captured by corporate interests. So let’s ignore what Don says and consider what William MacAskill, author of Doing Good Better (reviewed earlier this week) has to say. No one can fault MacAskill’s charitable bona-fides:

MacAskill’s own pledge is to donate everything he earns above about $35,000 per year, adjusted using standard economic measures for inflation and cost of living, to the organizations that he believes will do the most good. Since his bar is roughly at the UK median income—such that half the population earns more each year, and half the population earns less—he’s certainly not condemning himself to a life of hardship; rather, he is pre-committing to staying roughly in the middle of the national income distribution even as his earnings go up over time.

That said, his pledge means giving away 60 percent of his expected lifetime earnings.

When I ask him the inevitable questions about whether this isn’t rather a lot to sacrifice for one person, MacAskill shrugs modestly and smiles broadly. “Imagine you’re walking down the street and see a building on fire,” he says. “You run in, kick the door down—smoke billowing—you run in and save a young child. That would be a pretty amazing day in your life: That’s a day that would stay with you forever. Who wouldn’t want to have that experience? But the most effective charities can save a life for $4,000, so many of us are lucky enough that we can save a life every year through our donations. When you’re able to achieve so much at such low cost to yourself…why wouldn’t you do that? The only reason not to is that you’re stuck in the status quo, where giving away so much of your income seems a little bit odd.”

So what are MacAskill’s views on Fair Trade? Why they are the same as Don’s!

…when you buy fair-trade, you usually aren’t giving money to the poorest people in the world. Fairtrade standards are difficult to meet, which means that those in the poorest countries typically can’t afford to get Fairtrade certification. For example, the majority of fair-trade coffee production comes from comparatively rich countries like Mexico and Costa Rica, which are ten times richer than the very poorest countries like Ethiopia.

….In buying Fairtrade products, you’re at best giving very small amounts of money to people in comparatively well-off countries. You’d do considerably more good by buying cheaper goods and donating the money you save to one of the most cost-effective charities…

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