Fair trade markets in everything?

by Tyler Cowen August 12, 2014 at 2:15 pm in

For instance:

Even more intriguing is the use of marketing strategies that mimic corporate social responsibility initiatives. These may take the form of financial sponsorship of organizations likely to be viewed favorably by online drug consumers. For example, one Australian drug vendor recently advertised their enterprise as a: “Proud financial supporter of WikiLeaks and Bluelight.”

At the more extreme end of socially progressive marketing strategies used by online dealers are those that involve the promotion of drugs on the basis of supposedly “ethical”, “fair trade”, “organic” or “conflict-free” sources of supply:

“We are a team of libertarian cocaine dealers. We never buy coke from cartels! We never buy coke from police! We help farmers from Peru, Bolivia and some chemistry students in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. We do fair trade!”

Naturally, it is impossible to verify these claims.

For the pointer I thank Annie Lowrey.