Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why, 2011 Edition

Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why, 2011 Edition
Author: Barrister and Professor of International Commercial Law Ian Fletcher
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780578082615

Are you wondering how Americans can compete with nations like China? Are you wondering how, if they can offshore call centers, computer programming, and accounting, there will be any good jobs left they can't offshore? Are you wondering how America can keep importing and running up debt without going bankrupt? Are you wondering how America can be a powerful nation without an industrial base? Are you wondering why the politicians keep denying all of these problems? Are you wondering whether the economics you learned in school and hear on TV is really valid? Are you wondering who you can trust? This very readable book is aimed at both ordinary concerned citizens and people with a bit of sophistication about economics. It is a systematic examination of why free trade is slowly bleeding America's economy to death and what can be done about it. It explains in detail why the standard economic arguments free traders use all the time are false, and what kind of economic ideas - well within the grasp of the average American - justify protectionism instead. It examines the history and politics of free trade and explains how America came to adopt its present disastrous free trade policy. It looks at the breakdown of specific industries and how we can rebuild them and bring millions of high-paying jobs back to this country. It examines what's wrong with NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is sharply critical of the current establishment, but from a bipartisan point of view, so it should satisfy progressives, conservatives, and everyone in between. Unlike many past critiques of free trade, it is economically-literate; it also explains New Trade Theory, the hot new area of economics that critiques free trade.

The Politics of Fair Trade

The Politics of Fair Trade
Author: Sean D. Ehrlich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199337632

The Politics of Fair Trade argues that fair trade is more than just labels on specialty coffee products. Nor is fair trade just protectionism in disguise. Rather, fair trade is opposition to unrestricted trade based on sincere concerns about environmental and labor conditions abroad. Fair traders are not trying to protect jobs or the economy at home, but do not want to see workers exploited and the environment degraded in their trading partners. Academics and policymakers are ill equipped to deal with fair trade concerns because they wrongly assume trade preferences run along a single dimension from free trade to protection. This book introduces a multidimensional theory of trade policy preferences, arguing that people can oppose trade for different and unrelated reasons. The book then demonstrates, using public opinion data in the U.S. and EU and Congressional voting data in the U.S., that fair traders are sincere and not simply protectionists. The book demonstrates why fair trade poses a threat to free trade and argues that free traders should include stronger and enforceable labor and environmental standards in trade agreements in order to win the support of fair traders. Doing so will enable free trade to continue while also helping to improve conditions in developing countries, satisfying the concerns of both free traders and fair traders.

Fair Trade Coffee

Fair Trade Coffee
Author: Gavin Fridell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0802092381

Using case studies from Mexico and Canada, this book examines the fair trade coffee movement at both the global and local level, assessing its effectiveness and locating it within political and development theory. It provides an analysis of fair trade coffee in the context of global trade.

The Fair Trade Scandal

The Fair Trade Scandal
Author: Ndongo Sylla
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821444891

This critical account of the fair trade movement explores the vast gap between the rhetoric of fair trade and its practical results for poor countries, particularly those of Africa. In the Global North, fair trade often is described as a revolutionary tool for transforming the lives of millions across the globe. The growth in sales for fair trade products has been dramatic in recent years, but most of the benefit has accrued to the already wealthy merchandisers at the top of the value chain rather than to the poor producers at the bottom. Ndongo Sylla has worked for Fairtrade International and offers an insider’s view of how fair trade improves—or doesn’t—the lot of the world’s poorest. His methodological framework first describes the hypotheses on which the fair trade movement is grounded before going on to examine critically the claims made by its proponents. By distinguishing local impact from global impact, Sylla exposes the inequity built into the system and the resulting misallocation of the fair trade premium paid by consumers. The Fair Trade Scandal is an empirically based critique of both fair trade and traditional free trade; it is the more important for exploring the problems of both from the perspective of the peoples of the Global South, the ostensible beneficiaries of the fair trade system.

Fair Trade Without the Froth

Fair Trade Without the Froth
Author: Sushil Mohan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Anti-globalization movement
ISBN: 9780255366458

The Theory of Fair Trade; Is Fair Trade Free Market?; Benefits & Detriments of Fair Trade; Alternatives to Fair Trade; Fair Trade as a Long-Term Development; Conclusion.

The Fair Trade Handbook

The Fair Trade Handbook
Author: Gavin Fridell
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2021-10-01T00:00:00Z
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1773635085

Framed within the common goal of advancing trade justice and South-North solidarity, The Fair Trade Handbook presents a broad interpretation of fair trade and a wide-ranging dialogue between different viewpoints. Canadian researchers in particular have advanced a transformative vision of fair trade, rooted in the cooperative movement and arguing for a more central role for Southern farmers and workers. Contributors to this book look at the issues within global trade, and assess fair trade and how to make it more effective against the broader structures of the capitalist, colonialist, racist and patriarchal global economy. The debates and discussions are set within a critical development studies and critical political economy framework. However, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers, as it translates the key issues for a popular audience. Includes : A Lively Bean that Brightens Lives: A Graphic Story by Bill Barrett and Curt Shoultz

American Fair Trade

American Fair Trade
Author: Laura Phillips Sawyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2018-01-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108548040

Rather than viewing the history of American capitalism as the unassailable ascent of large-scale corporations and free competition, American Fair Trade argues that trade associations of independent proprietors lobbied and litigated to reshape competition policy to their benefit. At the turn of the twentieth century, this widespread fair trade movement borrowed from progressive law and economics, demonstrating a persistent concern with market fairness - not only fair prices for consumers but also fair competition among businesses. Proponents of fair trade collaborated with regulators to create codes of fair competition and influenced the administrative state's public-private approach to market regulation. New Deal partnerships in planning borrowed from those efforts to manage competitive markets, yet ultimately discredited the fair trade model by mandating economy-wide trade rules that sharply reduced competition. Laura Phillips Sawyer analyzes how these efforts to reconcile the American tradition of a well-regulated society with the legacy of Gilded Age of laissez-faire capitalism produced the modern American regulatory state.

Free Trade Nation

Free Trade Nation
Author: Frank Trentmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199209200

This is the story of free trade in 19th century Britain, its contribution to the development of Britain's democratic culture, and the unravelling of the free trade movement in the wake of the First World War.

Brewing Justice

Brewing Justice
Author: Daniel Jaffee
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2014-09-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0520282248

Fair trade is a fast-growing alternative market intended to bring better prices and greater social justice to small farmers around the world. But what does a fair-trade label signify? This vivid study of coffee farmers in Mexico offers the first thorough investigation of the social, economic, and environmental benefits of fair trade. Based on extensive research in Zapotec indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Brewing Justice follows the members of the cooperative Michiza, whose organic coffee is sold on the international fair-trade market, and compares them to conventional farming families in the same region. The book carries readers into the lives of coffee-producer households and communities, offering a nuanced analysis of fair trade’s effects on everyday life and the limits of its impact. Brewing Justice paints a clear picture of the dynamics of the fair-trade market and its relationship to the global economy. Drawing on interviews with dozens of fair-trade leaders, the book also explores the movement’s fraught politics, especially the challenges posed by rapid growth and the increased role of transnational corporations. It concludes with recommendations to strengthen and protect the integrity of fair trade. This updated edition includes a substantial new chapter that assesses recent developments in both coffee-growing communities and movement politics, offering a guide to navigating the shifting landscape of fair-trade consumption.