Fair Trade and Catholicism

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How would you respond to those who state that they seek to build systems that provide both charity and justice?
 
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I don’t know if I can say the name of the company, but their coffee and chocolate are sold directly to the consumer in many Catholic churches. You see and purchase the products in the lobby or community room or the like. The products are either cheaper or on par with other brands. I have read the farmers benefit as producers whereas as laborers they earn about $1.00 per day. I have been in countries where this is the case and have seen the deplorable conditions in which the laborers live.

I think ideally fair trade is a good system, but this being a fallen world I am sure there are those who do their best to undermine it.
 
How did these deplorable conditions compare to the status quo in that area of the world. Was is worse? If not, I don’t think you can necessarily draw any moral conclusions.
 
po18guy said:
“Fair” anything is leftist code.
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The interesting thing is Trump complains about NAFTA and how it is supposedly “unfair”, but in economics the word unfair has no inherent meaning. The only two parties that have any business determining what is “fair” are the buyer and seller. Everyone else needs to mind their own business, including Trump when it comes to trade between Canada, Mexico and the US.
 
NAFTA was anything but a free trade agreement.

Trumps protectionist policies are garbage too though.
 
To an extent. It basically screwed over the US and Canada in favor of Mexico, at least from what I see in my industry.
 
I am not sure what you mean by “status quo.”

If you mean, are all the people in the same condition, the answer is absolutely not. The few rich live very luxuriously.

If you mean, has it always been this way, I don’t want to get into the quagmire of economic history of these countries, but it has been a very long time. Does that somehow affect our moral judgments of the situations?
 
status quo meaning the general condition of the working population which the fair trade workers belong to. If their lot is better than that of their peers, it’s tough to argue that they’re being exploited.
 
I’m sorry if I was not clear in my first statement that what I observed was not the conditions of fair trade workers but of the laborers who do not participate in fair trade but are hired mostly by landowners. These landowners are the recipients of most of the profits.

From what I have read about the Fair Trade system, the people who produce the food might own their own land or at the least get more profit from what is sold. As I understand it, their conditions are better than the employees of landowners.

Maybe you are referring to someone else arguing that fair trade workers are being exploited, but I am not. Sorry if I am missing your point.
 
I think I initially misread your argument. Thanks for the clarification.
 
Fair trade is overrated as long as we have cavalier management running these corporations. Management is too fearful of losing their jobs/bonus to actually carry out the types of work environments that promote health, safety, environment, good employee relations.

Eventually, these companies linger around, not following regulations, until the government sees to them. But, by that time, it’s too late and the damage has been done.

It’s likened to a snowball rolling downhill.
 
I’m not convinced that the “fair trade” stamp necessarily ensures a juster, more humane outcome. In some cases, it’s unclear whether it ensures any improvements of all at the local production level. In other cases it improves living standards for employees … but arguably by reducing employment overall, increasing net poverty. So, I fear that your question raises economic issues too complex to admit an easy answer.
 
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