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Fair Trade: Dynamic and Dilemmas of a Market Oriented Global Social Movement

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Abstract

Fair Trade is analysed as a new economic social movement to the extent that it is based on new forms of collective action and directs its demands primarily to the market rather than to the State. In addition, it is intrinsically a global movement harnessing development goals to new market relations. It differs, however, from similar movements (organics, animal welfare) to the extent that it focuses primarily on traditional issues of redistributive justice rather than a new generation of rights and duties. Fair Trade is understood as having three components: (i) the organization of alternative trading networks; (ii) the marketing of Fair Trade labelled products through licensed conventional traders and retailers; and (iii) the campaign-based promotion of Fair Trade to change both purchasing practices and the rules of conventional trade. As a market oriented movement, Fair Trade relies crucially on the emergence of a new politicization of consumer activity comprising not only “consumer-activists” but also the State as consumer and a new layer of political consumers sensitive to issues of social justice in their daily purchasing practices.

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Notes

  1. Already in 1980, Toffler coined the word “prosumer” to capture a new relation between production and consumption, an approach developed more recently by Rochefort (1997). Since then a variety of terms have been used to capture the specifically citizen aspects of consumer practices. In France a play on words transforms consumers into consumer-actors (consom’acteurs). Others approach these same tendencies from the perspective of ethical consumption (Gosseries 2003; Van Parijs 2002).

  2. We refer here to the coordination of production-consumption circuits which, rather than resorting to formal certification schemes, relies on the confidence generated by the movement’s social networks, selling the products in the movement’s own shops. They are also known as “alternative networks.”

  3. The solidarity economy, itself a movement within and alongside Fair Trade, is heavily influenced by the writings of Laville (1994) and colleagues which in turn draw heavily on Polanyi (1944).

  4. For overviews, see Barratt-Brown (1993) and Tallontire (2001); www.ifat.org (accessed January, 2007).

  5. www.ifat.org.

  6. Information in this section draws on data from the sites of the various organizations mentioned.

  7. For an account of the Max Havelaar initiative from the viewpoint of its promoters, see Roozen and VanderHoff (2002).

  8. www.worldshops.org, accessed January, 2007.

  9. In some cases, however, it is retail which redefines consumer options through the conversion of an entire line of products to Fair Trade sourcing, as in the case of the Coop chain in England for sales of coffee and tea in its restaurants (www.cooponline.coop/about_campaigns_fairtrade.html, accessed 02/02/2007). The relation between retail strategy and consumer demand is highly complex. While retail avails itself of consumer surveys, patterns of Fair Trade adoption would also seem to be influenced by intra-sector marketing and/or corporate social responsibility strategies.

  10. http://www.artisansdumonde.org/commerce-equitable.htm, accessed 02/02/2007

  11. For an excellent overview of the different actors and their platforms, see Cáceres Benavides (2006).

  12. Trade unions may have some convergent interests to the extent that they espouse the “social clause” to prevent competition from sweatshop labour. Their motivations, however, have been largely protectionist.

  13. The French Federation of International Cooperation NGOs.

  14. For an excellent comparative analysis of the labelling (FLO) and ATO wings of the movement, see Habbard et al. (2002).

  15. For the Thomist and Christian Socialist roots of the notion of a just price, see Gide (2001).

  16. In a personal communication, Andreas Follesdal drew attention to critiques of Rawl’s initial lack of and subsequently inadequate discussion of issues of distributive justice in an international context (Follesdal and Pogge 2005).

  17. www.bioequitable.com

  18. The resistance to accepting Bio-Équitable into the French Fair Trade Platform (PFCE) highlights concerns that organic production, with its more demanding technique will lead to an exclusion of the more marginalized small farmers who are the raison d’être of Fair Trade (Jacquot 2003).

  19. www.ifat.org

  20. www.fairtrade.net

  21. Oxfam also makes demands on the leading corporations as in the demand that Nestlé dedicate a percentage of its sales to Fair Trade. When Nestlé subsequently adopted this policy (albeit, at least initially, on a more modest scale than demanded) and was duly licensed by the British Fair Trade Labelling Organization, strong opposition emerged among proponents of the alternative trading networks. See Ctm altromercato’s Open Letter on this issue (2005).

  22. Funds for the FLO certification system were included in FINE’s request for support to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005, provoking sharp opposition from alternative traders such as Ctm altromercato.

  23. The complexity of public–private involvement represents a challenge also for governments as can be seen in the case of DFID which wanted to be formally part of the Ethical Trade Initiative (discussed earlier) but found that the WTO rules opposed Governments’ being members of bodies which demanded the adoption of specific social standards (see Redfern and Snedker 2002).

  24. http://www.artisansdumonde.org/commerce-equitable/Accord-AFNOR-AC-X50-340.htm, accessed 04/02/2007.

  25. These systems have now reached a considerable degree of formal sophistication, as in the case of Brazil’s Ecovida model. See Lernoud and Fonseca (2004).

  26. The Welsh and Scottish Assemblies in Great Britain have passed resolutions in this sense.

  27. On the other hand, globalization has been accompanied by outsourcing and the disintegration of global production chains, allowing for the relocation of processing activities in developing countries. In this sense, Fair Trade suffers to the extent that it is still limited to a few commodities where either trade or technical barriers make upgrading difficult.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Edelstein Center for Social Research, Rio de Janeiro, the Center for Fair and Alternative Trade Studies, Colorado State University, and colleagues and students working in the research unit “Markets, Networks and Values” of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq), which I have the privilege of coordinating, for providing ideal intellectual and material conditions for the development of the reflections contained in this text. Special thanks go to the comments of the editors and reviewers which have led to substantial improvements in the final version of this article.

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  1. Graduate Centre: Development, Agriculture and Society, Rural Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Avenida Presidente Vargas 417/8, Centro, 20071-003, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    John Wilkinson

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Wilkinson, J. Fair Trade: Dynamic and Dilemmas of a Market Oriented Global Social Movement. J Consum Policy 30, 219–239 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-007-9036-3

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