Health & Fitness
What's So Unfair About Trade? Awful Hidden Cost Behind Cheap Products
The first in a series of essays that examine the question: "What's so unfair about the way we buy and sell things in our economy? Why is 'Fair Trade' even necessary?"
I was talking with a friend the other day about the living conditions of migrant farm workers in Maneadero, Mexico. I had just made a trip to the Baja California town, and described people living in tin shacks, packed ten to a room.
Some folks sleep on the ground, in the dirt, under shanties made from plastic tarps. Children walk around naked, bellies distended from parasites, hair bleached blond by malnutrition. Mothers cradle babies who were born with birth defects and deformities, because of the chemicals that were sprayed on the field while the pregnant women were working.
As I described this scene to my friend, she looked at me with suspicious indifference. “That’s too bad, David,” she said. “But we can’t spend all our time worrying about the plight of people who have it rough in life. I mean, if we sit around thinking about all the people suffering in the world, we’ll go crazy. And what can I do about it, anyway? And why should I do anything about it? I mean, what do these poor migrant farm workers in Mexico have to do with me?”
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What indeed?
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This will be the first in a series of discussions about the things that we consume: our clothing, coffee, bananas, chocolate, tennis shoes. The tomatoes and cucumbers on our table. The fruits we eat in the morning. The affordable products that we buy on a daily basis without batting an eye.
The term “fair trade” makes no sense unless it stands in contrast to the current state of trade in our world.
“What’s so unfair about how things are bought and sold now?” we may ask.
Most of us will go our whole lives without ever seeing beyond the walls of our own little world. As long as we keep our vision focused inward, we will never have to deal with questions about how “fair” the products we purchase may be.
“What do you mean, I’m buying unfair products?” we may ask. “I work hard for my money. Then I go into the store and use that money that I earned to buy coffee and bananas. I didn’t steal the coffee from the store. It was sitting on the shelf; I picked it up, dropped it in my basket, and gave it to the cashier. She scanned it and told me how much it cost. I gave her the money and left with my coffee.
What’s so unfair about that?”
Many of us never stop to think whether or not the products we buy might be contributing to the suffering of another human being. In part, this is because we are not encouraged to think about where these products come from. We walk into a store, and all the products are just sitting there with price tags on them…like magic.
Who knows where they come from?
“The coffee is sitting there, and I have money to buy it,” we say. “End of story.” Some have called this mentality the “fetishism of commodities”—a product just appears out of nowhere, and as long as I can afford it, that’s all that matters in my mind.
Let’s call this:
Myth Number 1: The myth of the magical commodity.
Some people, of course, are aware that our food and clothing comes from other places. In fact, some products have to come from another country. Coffee, bananas and cocoa won’t grow here in San Diego, or anywhere else in the continental United States for that matter.
But surely, suffering wasn’t involved in the production of the products that come to us from abroad, was it?
I call Myth Number 2 the belief that our companies, our government and our consumers would certainly not participate in exploitation, slavery or reinforcing poverty.
I’m referring to people who believe, with the blind faith of the religious fanatic, that everything we consume was fairly bought and sold. That our food, clothing and consumer goods are not stained with the suffering of other people. That everyone who is given the privilege to work for the companies that fill our shopping malls and supermarkets will, if they work hard, get ahead in life.
The myth of the glorious, spotless global economy.
A third approach, adhered to by many people, recognizes that injustices and poverty exist in the world. But for the folks who hold to this mentality, these injustices have nothing to do with us.
“If anyone is abused or exploited,” according to adherents of Myth Number 3, “it must be because of something that’s wrong with their culture, or their country, or their community. Or it’s a fluke accident. But it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with U.S. corporations.” This is the myth of injustice as a foreign phenomenon.
Unfortunately, none of these three myths can be backed up with reality. The fact of the matter is, much of the poverty in our world is no random, lamentable accident: it is directly related to the prosperity that many of us enjoy.
The cheap consumer goods that we buy come with a hidden price—but other people are paying that price, not us. Cheap labor is what subsidizes much of what we buy.
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So what about the farm workers of Maneadero? What about the poverty, misery, illness, birth defects, malnutrition? Is this all just some lamentable (but uncontrollable) situation that has nothing to do with us?
No.
See, most of the vegetables grown in Maneadero are grown to be consumed not in Mexico but in the United States. In spite of the fact that Maneadero is located in northern Mexico, the agricultural fields are a part of the U.S. economy. The products are harvested and immediately shipped northward, across the border, to distributers in Los Angeles and Oakland.
These people are harvesting the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, jalapeños and strawberries that we consume. The enormous factory farms they work on employ them for their cheap labor. Which makes it easier to grow lots of vegetables and ship them north, across the border, into California.
The vast majority of these vegetables picked by their hands come into our supermarkets. Our fast-food restaurants. It’s the lettuce on our Taco Bell taco, the tomato on our Burger King whopper.
Why don’t these supermarkets and restaurants just source locally, using vegetables grown in community gardens and bought at farmer’s markets?
Because it’s cheaper to exploit people in Maneadero and spray chemicals on them. As we’ll see in upcoming installments, this situation is the norm rather than the exception—and it applies to many of the products that we consume.
There is a hidden cost behind cheap products.