What do you think about ethical purchasing schemes, such as Fairtrade?
Such schemes are often run with the best of intentions, however there are always flaws. Sometimes guidelines are cynically disregarded, and the scheme is nothing more than a marketing ploy for the retailer. At other times the markup on the selling price of the product is grossly out of proportion to the extra wage given to the producer. In cases such as these, a better way to help the poor is to buy the cheapest product and to donate the saved money directly to them. And the same problems with huge enviromental and human costs of transport and waste exist when purchasing goods from remote locations. What is the difference between a Fairtrade banana in the bin and a regular banana? What people in developing countries need rather than our money is the food and resources that are being exported from their own countries. The bottom line is that even the fairest system that involves people being motivated by profit, is still a system built on greed and distrust. Such a system will fail to d
