Free trade versus fair trade – the battle wages on…

Pitted against each other from the very beginning,

these two irreconcilable trading models represent polar opposites in the capitalism-socialism spectrum. Free trade is the elder of the two and harks back to Adam Smith’s masterpiece ‘The Wealth of Nations’ of 1776 and has since defined the meaning of economics. In his groundbreaking work, Smith described for the first time the invisible hand of the free market by which business owners freely marketing and selling their products on the open market is the fairest way to trade. It allows market supply and demand to decide how much value to place on a product which then determines the price. And so long as the market is open and large enough to allow everyone in, then that price will be pushed as low as possible by open and fair competition. This is good for us as consumers because we pay the lowest possible price for goods, while the companies producing those goods are spurned on to innovate into better products and more efficient production methods.

And it is upon these principles that the North American Free Trade Agreement and all the multinational corporations were saying when they relocated hundreds of thousands of American jobs overseas where products and services could be offered at half the price compared. This is what Arthur Stamoulis, Executive Director of the Citizens Trade Campaign protests against in the clip at 0:33. And fair enough too, since his organization seeks to protect and uphold American jobs.

But watch carefully what happens next. The clip then looks at the fair trade model as a better alternative to free trade because it offers a safety net (albeit artificial) against unpredictable market prices, while at the same time strengthening local communities through community development projects. And so it seems that what we have here is another piece of fairtrade propaganda touting all the nice things that this model offers struggling farmers. Or is it. Check out 4:08.

And if you think Rink Dickinson, the Co-founder of Equal Exchange has dropped his biggest bombshell by calling fairtrade a lie, then just wait until 4:24. That’s where we start to see some humanity behind the mechanic cogs turning the global economy. And that’s what get Rink out of bed in the morning. He believes that even after the once grand and glorious, frothing-at-the-mouth-rebellious fairtrade model has become watered down to a mere shadow of its former self, it has left behind what he calls ‘it actual people doing the real thing’. And now we’re back onto the topic of FairChain and what Moyee is all about.

Read here about this truly revolutionary trading model that’s allowing the free market be, well yeah, the-FREE-market in which everyone has an equal chance to turn a buck, while at the same time ensuring fair prices paid to farmers. Now THAT’S the best of both worlds!! Impossible you say? Go ahead. We say RADICALLY REVOLUTIONARY!