Changing the Rules of Trade with Global partnerships: The Fair Trade Movement

As globalization, international trade, and advanced capitalism's consumer culture impact the lives of all people on the planet, concerns as to the monumental increases in poverty, environmental destruction and global insecurity have resulted in the growth of a social movement whose participants reject the neoliberal free trade agenda. Viewing market liberalization, global trade agreements and other top-down policies set by the World Trade Organization, international financial institutions, and transnational corporations as the root causes for many of the dire problems people face today, the grassroots movement calls for "fair trade" -- a decentralized, economically just and environmentally sustainable system of global production and trade. In this chapter, I first examine the essence and history of the fair trade movement and the types of businesses and consumers who support it. I then discuss how the movement fights poverty and creates more equity worldwide with a brief discussion of some of the social services fair traders provide impoverished peoples. Lastly I review many of the difficult challenges this heterogeneous movement faces as it continues to expand, incorporating more diverse civic, religious, and worker groups. The growing support of fair trade proponents versus those pushing the free trade agenda marks one of the most important social struggles we face at the turn of the century.