Ethical Basis of Criticisms
Consumers are willing to pay more for Fairtrade products in the belief that this helps the very poor. The main ethical argument presented by critics of Fairtrade is that this money is diverted from the very poor farmers to businesses in rich countries, moderately poor farmers, employees of cooperatives, or is used for unnecessary expenses—and that this necessarily results in additional death and destitution. Critics think there is reason to doubt that much of the extra money paid actually reaches farmers, and that there is reason to believe that Fairtrade harms non-Fairtrade farmers. They argue that selling techniques for Fairtrade constitute Unfair Trading under EU law, by making false statements or withholding relevant information on what happens to money that consumers thing is going to help farmers in the Third World. There are also criticisms using many other criteria.
On the other hand, a pro-Fairtrade researcher claims out that while some of these criticisms are grounded in acceptable standards of evidence (and deserve serious attention), others are less well elaborated, and that in a few cases, the criticisms presented are assertions with little or no credible evidence to support them. However, these claims have themselves been criticized on matters of fact, theory, methodology, use of evidence and incorrect citations.
Read more about this topic: Fair Trade Debate
Famous quotes containing the words ethical, basis and/or criticisms:
“Our rural village life was a purifying, uplifting influence that fortified us against the later impacts of urbanization; Church and State, because they were separated and friendly, had spiritual and ethical standards that were mutually enriching; freedom and discipline, individualism and collectivity, nature and nurture in their interaction promised an ever stronger democracy. I have no illusions that those simpler, happier days can be resurrected.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them—whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.”
—Alexander Eliot (b. 1919)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)