Soma Church Blog

People get fired up about fair trade.  Some people (including Christians) will say it is something that must be done, the Christians saying it is sinful not to.  Other say it is does not work and the Christians in this side of the debate say it is sinful to do so.  So what do we make of fair trade?   Let me put the spoiler in up front: I am not going to take one position or another.  I am merely going to say whatever your position (and mine happens to be positive towards fair trade) you need to be able to articulate how you hold that position from the Gospel.

How it works

Let’s start by looking at the principle of how it works.  Essentially fair trade is an ‘ethically regulated market’.  The market is: coffee growers (producers) grow coffee and sell it to business.  Business buys the coffee from the producers and exports it, grinds it and makes a grande latte.  Consumers buy the coffee from business.   When coffee prices go up producers are happy because they get more money.  When coffee prices go down they need to find some other ways of getting by and this can include slavery: virtual and real, sex working: usually leading to HIV inflection and other complications, starvation, etc.  Generally speaking when things go down it is more than a mild inconvenience.

Fair trade comes along and convinces consumers to buy their labeled product.  Because the consumer buys that, business needs to sell it.  But business now has to help the producers that business buys it from to keep standards (regulators) that fair trade police.  In the case of the well known fair trade company, it seeks to make sure that workers have a voice, essentially a union; farmers have a say to business about what is going on and there is a fixed minimum market price guaranteeing income for the farm.

Does it work?

On one hand, the ‘ethically regulated market’ will protect workers from abuse, protect their rights and keep a minimum of the market price.  So, yes it can work.

But there are a number of problems with a regulated market.

1. What do you regulate? Fair Trade the company regulates workers rights.  Rainforest Alliance, seeking also to protect people, seeks environmentally sustainable production systems.  Which ones are right?  Which ones are best?
2. Regulating too many things means people find it hard to get into the market. One observer who worked in a country with fair trade farms observed that it was good for people working on the farms, but for farmers too poor to be able to reach the standards of fair trade, it means that they are left without buyers.  Essentially it can mean the poor are helped, but the poorest of the poor can be left worse off.  Virgin United, for example are tackling the problem from a different direction: helping business compete  in a free trade environment.
3. Regulation can lead to an inferior product. When people buy fair trade they are partly buying it because it is fair trade and not because it is the best thing on the market.  Long term this can make things difficult for producers who want to move into a free market economy, because they are now able to do so economically, but will struggle with an inferior product.
4. A regulated market is open to abuse. Because the system now relies on people policing the system (The companies promoting fair trade) they are also now targets for corrupting and bribery.  This has been a long standing criticism of fair trade companies.  People can use the label when they are not actually adhering to any of the standards

The principle has enough problems that a Christian may feel that this is not the most loving thing to do.  How should we think about it?

Christian Reflections

God is God and He Loves

Bible starts with the idea of God.  God exists and we need to treat him as God.  This is an important point because we currently live in a world where economics can be god.  As one writer put it:

“In an age that is said to distrust metanarratives, the market has been described as “the true metanarrative of our age.” In certain neo-liberal circles, the market has been elevated to a quasi-religious status. For Christian, indeed for ethical people, economic life needs to reflect not just self-interest or a narrow definition of efficiency, but fundamental values.

I.e. we live in a world where we can’t know anything is true except the market.  But that is not the way we think as Christians, which is his point.  Our God is not the market it is the God of the Bible and He is the one to guide what is best.  So we need to do what pleases God, not what works economically

What does please God?  Simply, to love.  God is a God of love.  God shows his love to us at the cross.  His Son dies in our place.  He comes and rescues us, those in need:

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)

And as a response God wants us to take on the family trait of love and do the same:

“If anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to his need—how can God’s love reside in him?” (1 John 3:17)

This is shown clearly in the way that Jesus talks of our accountability to him on the last day:

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry
and you gave Me something to eat;
I was thirsty
and you gave Me something to drink;
I was a stranger and you took Me in;
I was naked and you clothed Me;
I was sick and you took care of Me;
I was in prison and you visited Me.’

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?’
“And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’” (Matthew 25:34–41)

How we treat those in need, whether they be next to us or on the other side of the globe is a reflection on how we treat Jesus, and he sees it clearly as that.

Fair trade is seeking to care for those people.  While it does not do it perfectly, it does do something to help.  So they questions are:

1. If you are not going to buy fair trade because you don’t think it works, what will you do to take on the family trait of God: caring for those in need?
2. If you are going to buy fair trade, what else will you do? You cannot think you can buy a block of chocolate and think “I have ticked the box of caring for the poor”.  It will take a lot more than that.

Man is God’s Image
Man has been made in the image of God  and this effects the way we think of the ‘fair’ in fair trade.  Why is it so important to look after people in the developing countries?  I can answer this as a Christian.  It is because all humans have been made in the image of God, whether we are born in Australia or Africa.  And this effects the way we see each other. And it effects the way we see God.  Humans are the image of God and when you abuse the image it says something about the image holder.  Like if I were to rip up a photo of our PM, what would you say that says about my attitude towards him?  So we need to look after all humans in need.

As I said, I can answer the question Why is it so important to look after people in the developing countries?” but can the Atheist?  Most people will have an innate sense of ‘well this seems fair’, but why? Surely if you were to follow evolution to its end point you would have to say survival of the fittest.  At this point the fittest (and I mean that loosely considering the amount of obesity we have) would be the Western world.  The weakest is the developing world, let nature take its course??

Man is God’s Fallen Image
While man is God’s image, he is God’s fallen image  It is like looking through a fractured mirror.  We should love as God does but we fail to do so.  This is one of the reasons we have the problem of poverty.
Currently, 2 billion people live on less than $2 a day.  It would take something like $90 billion to fix this.  That is a lot of money, but not an impossible amount.  Especially when we consider that $900 billion is spent globally on defense budgets.  For the economically challenged here is what I am saying: take 10% of a budget that is designed to kill people and you can save 100s of thousands of lives.

countries.  I am not the sharpest tack in the box, so why don’t we do it?  We are too selfish to lobby the government.  They are too fearful of invasion.  And for good reason because there are people who want to invade.  All the opposite of a loving ethic  Jesus knew this.  He knew what is in people’s hearts.  So he was able to say this little throw away line in this story:

“While Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon, a man who had a serious skin disease, a woman approached Him with an alabaster jar of very expensive fragrant oil. She poured it on His head as He was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw it, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This might have been sold for a great deal and given to the poor.”
But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a noble thing for Me. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me” (Matthew 26:6–12)

You will always have the poor, because you will always fail to love as you should.  This means that fair trade will fail.  (Actually to the credit of the fair trade employees I spoke to, they understood that this alone will not end poverty).  So is there any reason to support it, if it is not going to end poverty?

Let me give you two reasons.  The first is an Africa parable:

One morning an elderly man was walking on a nearly deserted beach. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean.  Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, “Little boy, what are you doing?”  The youth responded without looking up, “I’m trying to save these starfish, sir.”  The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”  Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, “It will make a difference to that one!”

Buying fair trade will not solve the problem, but in the absence of a solution that will, this is a good idea.

There is another reason I will return to.  But before I do, I want to point out that poverty is a symptom of a deeper problem.   A problem so great that no human system that deal with it.  Only God himself could and does deal with it and He did that by sending His Son Jesus.  The best thing we do for the developing world is not just buy fair trade, but send the missionaries who will tell people about what Jesus has done.  Some organisations like Compassion do both and we should support them.

I wonder if some of us who are passionate and preach about fair trade were just as passionate about Jesus what the world would look like…

God’s Fair Trade Project
Of course the question is what is God doing about the issues that fair trade is trying to solve?  He is doing something, he has it planned out and one day this is what it will look like:

“Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people robed in white, and where did they come from?”

I said to him, “Sir, you know.”
Then he told me:

These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

They washed their robes and made them whitein the blood of the Lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary.
The One seated on the throne will shelter them:
They will no longer hunger;
they will no longer thirst;
the sun will no longer strike them,
nor will any heat.
For the Lamb who is at the center of the throne
will shepherd them;
He will guide them to springs of living waters,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:13–17)

There is a day coming when there will no longer be poverty.  This is the Christian home: heaven, the new creation, the perfect creation.
Let me return the other reason we might want to think about supporting fair trade.  Everyday we do reminds us of the day when it will be done perfectly.  Poverty is something we have in this world.  It is not something we should have, but we do.  Fair trade for Christians is like a postcard from home.  It is just a little glimpse of what things are going to be like.  (Postcards never give you a completely accurate picture, they more just get the mood).  When we support fair trade (if we do) we need to explain why – because this reminds us of our home.

Support Fair trade or Not?

Should Christians support fair trade?  I think we are free to or not to.  But whether do or not we need to be able to explain our position not from economics, but from the Gospel.  The Gospel can give reasons to and not to.  That is not the point.  The point is can you explain your position from the Gospel or not?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Looking at Life, Soma Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.