Right, even hough that’s a bit of a simplification.
It’s not necessarily “paying more”, looking at the clarified conditions as services (even though of course there’s overhead, and possibility of corruption, in the labeling and certification process).
Imaging some item, let’s say jeans. You can get just jeans from company A, with an unknown profit margin or middlemen, or you can get jeans from company B together with information and conditions on production.
If these conditions were a service you were charged explicitly for, of course the company B jeans would be more expensive than the ones from company A. That’s not necessarily the case, however, since there might be unknown expenses for the consumer involved with company A (like, say, higher profit margins).
Or, for that matter, the jeans from company A could be every bit as “fairly” produced, just you don’t know about it. Nothing says that the labeled (“B” in the example) ones would be more expensive, disregarding the labelling/certification overhead.
I wouldn’t be so quick in lumping these two (fair trade labeling vs agricultural subsidization) together.
I agree that fairtrade has problems.
However, I see merit to the idea to inform consumers about the background of certain products (information is vital to market economy, right?).
Fairtrade certification doesn’t just mean “fair” prices but also some restrictions on slave labor, the right to unionize, and conservation of the environment and some other network externalities.
Product labeling is a classic direct action tactic and I think it’s a great way to concisely provide information that would otherwise be obscure.
This is not a subsidy and it’s not a tariff. It’s (an attempt at) providing information.
It’s not necessarily “paying more”, looking at the clarified conditions as services (even though of course there’s overhead, and possibility of corruption, in the labeling and certification process).
Imaging some item, let’s say jeans. You can get just jeans from company A, with an unknown profit margin or middlemen, or you can get jeans from company B together with information and conditions on production.
If these conditions were a service you were charged explicitly for, of course the company B jeans would be more expensive than the ones from company A. That’s not necessarily the case, however, since there might be unknown expenses for the consumer involved with company A (like, say, higher profit margins).
Or, for that matter, the jeans from company A could be every bit as “fairly” produced, just you don’t know about it. Nothing says that the labeled (“B” in the example) ones would be more expensive, disregarding the labelling/certification overhead.