Fair trade

Fair trade is a social movement whose stated goal is to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions and to promote sustainability.

Quotes

• Challenging the assumption of free choice in neo-classical economics, Fairtrade redefines not only how value should be calculated, but also what it is it that should be valued and who values. This makes visible the political confrontation at the point of price determination, notably by providing a social arena ... where conflicts of interest between opposing parties are played out. Once the producer enters price formation processes as a person and not only as the alienable owner of a commodity, the social, political and ecological and relations of production come to the fore that are otherwise concealed through the spontaneous market mechanism.
  • Juliane Reinecke, "Beyond a subjective theory of value and towards a ‘fair price’: an organizational perspective on Fairtrade minimum price setting," Organization, vol. 17, no. 5 (2010)