Carnivores

Facts about FairTrade

We might think of sub-Saharan subsistence economies when we think of Fairtrade, but the biggest recipient of Fairtrade subsidy is actually Mexico. Mexico is the biggest producer of Fairtrade coffee with about 23% market share. Indeed, as of 2002, 181 of the 300 Fairtrade coffee producers were located in South America and the Caribbean. As Marc Sidwell points out, while Mexico has 51 Fairtrade producers, Burundi has none, Ethiopia four and Rwanda just 10 – meaning that “Fairtrade pays to support relatively wealthy Mexican coffee farmers at the expense of poorer nations”.

The article offers many other points of interest. For instance:

By guaranteeing a minimum price, Fairtrade also encourages market oversupply, which depresses global commodity prices. This locks Fairtrade farmers into greater Fairtrade dependency and further impoverishes farmers outside the Fairtrade umbrella. Economist Tyler Cowen describes this as the “parallel exploitation coffee sector”.

Coffee farms must not be more than 12 acres in size and they are not allowed to employ any full-time workers. This means that during harvest season migrant workers must be employed on short-term contracts. These rural poor are therefore expressly excluded from the stability of long-term employment by Fairtrade rules.

In other words, it’s mostly a marketing gimmick.

(from marginal revolution blog)

 

You are not entitled to your opinion

When anyone claims a right, first ask what duties this right is supposed to impose on others
Jamie Whyte
I DON’T believe in astrology but many people do. About half the women I meet ask me my star sign. I used to try to explain why they shouldn’t believe in it but I have given up. They can never answer my objections, but nor can I change their minds. They usually just get angry with me. Many even suggest that I am attempting to violate one of their rights: namely, their right to their own opinion.

It isn’t only astrology enthusiasts who insist upon their right to believe whatever they like. Type “I am entitled to my opinion” into a Google search and you will see that it is a standard riposte of the frustrated debater, on topics as diverse as politics, religion, music and football.

The idea that everyone is entitled to his opinion is one of those truisms so often repeated that it now goes without saying. Like many truisms, however, it is false.

It is also usually irrelevant. Let us suppose that Jill disputes Jack’s opinion that free trade causes poverty in the Third World. Jack may defend his opinion by producing evidence connecting trade and poverty but he cannot help his case by insisting that he is entitled to his opinion. How could that show that free trade causes poverty in the Third World?

The entitlement would be relevant only if it guaranteed the truth of your opinions. But it can’t do that, because it is an entitlement supposedly enjoyed by everybody. And people disagree. Jack and Jill are both entitled to their contradictory opinions about trade and poverty, but they can’t both be right. So insisting that you are entitled to your opinion cannot possibly give you any proper advantage in a debate.

Especially since there is no such entitlement in the first place. We do not have a right to our own opinions.

To see this, we need only understand one basic point about rights: namely, that rights entail duties. I don’t mean to endorse the new Labour slogan “No rights without responsibilities”, which is supposed to justify policies whereby the Government imposes good-behaviour conditions on the receipt of social welfare. I mean something much more fundamental about rights: they are defined by the duties to which they give rise.

The law gives us all a right to life. Your right to life means that everyone else has a duty not to kill you. This is not something that the Government may or may not decide to associate with your right to life; it is that right. A law that did not impose on others a duty not to kill you would thereby fail to establish your right to life.

Does your right to life mean that others have a duty to feed you, to house you, to provide you with medical care? These are hotly debated questions, but no one doubts that the answers to these questions about others’ duties are what define and delimit the right to life.

So when anyone claims a right, the first question to ask is what duties this right is supposed to impose on others; that will tell you what the right is supposed to be. It also provides a good test for whether there is, or should be, any such right. For it will often be clear that no one really has the implied duties, or that it would be preposterous to claim they should.

I once heard an Australian government minister claim that every child has a right to be loved. But who could possibly have a duty to love every child? Or even a duty to love a single child? Of course, it would be nice if every child were loved. But that is irrelevant. That something would be nice to have — such as long eye-lashes or £10 million — does not mean that anyone has a duty to provide you with it. Nor, therefore, that you have a right to it.

What, then, are the duties that the right to your opinions might entail? What am I obliged to do to respect this right? Let’s start from the boldest possible demands and work down to the more humble.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to agree with you? No, that would make the duty impossible to perform. For I too have a right to my opinion, which you must respect. If we disagree, I must change my opinion to yours, and you must change yours to mine. But then we disagree again, and must change our opinions again. And so on forever, never managing to do our impossible duty.
Does your right to your opinion oblige me to listen to you?

No, I haven’t the time. Many people have many opinions on many matters. You cannot walk through the West End of London without hearing some enthusiast declaring his opinions on our Saviour Jesus or on the Zionist conspiracy or some other topic of pressing concern. To listen to them all is impossible and not therefore a duty.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to let you keep it?

This is closest to what I think most mean when they claim a right to their opinion. They do so at just that point in an argument when they would otherwise be forced to admit error and change their position. This is also the weakest possible interpretation of the right and thus the most likely to pass the test.

Yet, it is still too strong. We have no duty to let others keep their opinions. On the contrary, we often have a duty to try to change them. Take an obvious example. You are about to cross the street with a friend. A car is coming yet your friend still takes a stride into the road. Knowing that she is not suicidal, you infer that she is of the opinion that no cars are coming. Are you obliged to let her keep this opinion?

I say no. You ought to take every reasonable measure to change her opinion, perhaps by drawing her attention to the oncoming car, saying something like “look out, a car is coming”. By so doing, you have not violated her rights. Indeed, she will probably thank you.

On matters such as whether or not a car is about to crush them, everyone is interested in believing the truth; they will take the correction of their errors as a favour. The same goes for any other topic. If someone is interested in believing the truth, then he will not take the presentation of contrary evidence and argument as some kind of injury. He will not invoke an imaginary right that protects him against the revision of his opinions.

It is just that on some topics, many people are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinion turned out to be true — that would be the icing on the cake — but truth is not too important.

Many of my friends, though subscribing to no familiar religion, claim to believe in a “superior intelligence” or “something higher than us”. Yet they will also cheerfully admit the absence of even a shred of evidence. Never mind. There is no cost in error, since the claim is so vague that it has no implications for action (unlike the case of the oncoming car). They just like believing it, perhaps because it would be nice if it were true, or because it helps them get along with their religious parents, or for some other reason.

But truth really is not the point, and it is most annoying to be pressed on the matter. And to register this, to make it clear that truth is neither here nor there, they declare: “I am entitled to my opinion.” Once you hear these words, you should realise that it is simple rudeness to persist with the matter. You may be interested in whether or not their opinion is true but take the hint, they aren’t.

Jamie Whyte is the author of Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking