Three Members of City Council Vote against Fair Trade

After hearing clearly stated arguments against exploitation-based trade and in favor of fair, equitable trade, three members of the La Mesa City Council voted in favor of the former and against the latter.

It sounds too Orwellian to be true, but Council Members Sterling, Arapostathis and Ewin voted against a measure to declare La Mesa a “Fair Trade Town” at a City Council meeting Tuesday evening.

The majority of the arguments presented against the proposed measure were, quite simply, false. Opponents claimed that the proposal would “force people to only purchase Fair Trade products.” That it would “use City money to promote Fair Trade businesses.” That it would “prevent free enterprise.”

None of these claims, of course, were true in the least. The text of the proposed resolution clearly states that it amounts to nothing more than lip service, by City Council, in favor of ethical trading practices.

Had the measure been passed, La Mesa businesses and consumers would still be entirely free to sell and buy whatever products they wished, however much exploitation, child slavery, sweat, blood and violence may have gone into the production of these products.

If we give Council Members Sterling, Arapostathis and Ewin the benefit of the doubt, it appears that they voted based on misinformation. Rather than support exploitation-free trade, they voted against the measure based on unfounded and untrue arguments brought against it.

The greatest irony lies in the claim that government has “no place meddling in business-related affairs.” Of course, this resolution has no provisions that would actually enforce the buying and selling of Fair Trade-certified products. But what if it did? Would that be a bad thing?

“It’s not the government’s place to tell us how to do business,” opponents whine. Now really, does anybody truly believe this?

At one point in our country’s history, it was legal to buy and sell slaves. It was legal to employ children in mines, fields and factories. If past Americans had adhered to this belief that “the government should stay out of business,” we would be living in a country where slavery and child labor were still legal business practices. These (very profitable) practices were outlawed precisely because our government stepped in and, responding to public pressure, brought an end to these horrors.

Are you proud to live in a country where it is illegal to buy and sell other human beings? Are you glad we live in a country where eight year olds are sitting in the classroom, not sweating in a mineshaft somewhere? These would still be the norm today, if the government hadn’t changed the laws at a national level.

The same applies to many areas of international trade in the 21st century. If most Americans could see where many of their consumer products actually come from, they would be horrified. If we could see the conditions in which people live and work, the people sewing many of our garments and growing much of our food, we would become physically sick.

Child labor, debt slavery, literal slavery, exploitation, chemical dumping, price gouging, thug harassment and beatings—these are not isolated incidents lifted from some yellow journalism newspaper. They are the norm, the rule rather than the exception, for many of the products we consume.

So again, I ask—what is so wrong about suggesting that the people who harvest our cocoa, bananas and coffee should be treated with the same dignity we afford ourselves?