Fair Trade, Sustainability and Social Change (International Political Economy Series) - Hardcover

Hudson, I.; Fridell, M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1137269847 ISBN 13: 9781137269843

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Synopsis

Is fair trade a radical movement aiming to transform global systems of production and exchange, or is it a marketing niche that delivers small benefits to Southern farmers and a clean conscience to Northern consumers? Schisms currently opening between the US-based Fair Trade USA and the rest of the international fair trade movement are reflective of this choice. This book evaluates the extent to which fair trade is likely to be a transformative movement. The authors show that fair trade's most significant, and threatened, contribution is its potential to reveal to otherwise 'blinded' consumers the qualitative aspects of labour and nature embodied in commodities. Integrating insights from economic and sociological theory and research, the book sheds new light on this potential of the movement, its role in producing social change, and, given the recent strategic trajectory of the movement, the serious problems it now faces.

About this title

Review:

'This is an excellent new work and a must read for anyone interested in trade justice and, its antithesis, corporate dominance of the world trading system. The book is broad in its depth, intellectually scrupulous, and a pleasure to read. The authors offer thought-provoking new insights and the challenging conclusion that, despite many bumps on the road, fair trade (at its best) represents an alternative to large scale, capitalist agriculture by altering the relations of production, exchange and consumption.' — Gavin Fridell, Saint Mary's University, Canada

'This book blows the lid off populist ideas that fair trade is necessarily a poverty busting strategy for coffee producers in the Global South. Theoretically rigorous and empirically rich the book explores how fair trade does have within it a deeply transformative potential. Yet for this to be realised it needs to go well beyond the rhetoric of the need for social and economic justice. The authors show that for fair trade to deliver on its slogans of justice and a fairer trade regimes it needs to 'dissolve the cornerstone of capitalist society: the fetishism of commodities'. Capitalism itself needs to be transformed. This is an essential text for students and activists who want to know what the strengths and limitations are of fair trade.' - Ray Bush, University of Leeds, UK

About the Author:

Ian Hudson is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba, Canada. He has previously co-authored (with Robert Chernomas): Social Murder and Other Shortcomings of Conservative Economics, The Gatekeeper: Sixty Years of Economics According to the New York Times, and To Live and Die in America: Class, Power, Health and Healthcare.
Mark Hudson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Global Political Economy Program at the University of Manitoba, Canada. In addition to several co-authored articles on fair trade and ethical consumption, he is author of Fire Management in the American West: Forest Politics and the Rise of Megafires.
Mara Fridell is a member of the Province of Manitoba's Priorities & Planning Secretariat and an affiliate of the Global Political Economy Program at the University of Manitoba, Canada. She researches the neoliberal social politics attending conservative labour market, environmental and financial policy, and is a contributor to the forthcoming Counting on Marilyn Waring anthology.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1137269847
• ISBN 13: 9781137269843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 237