I will leave our own Alex Singleton to write about it… but I just spotted him (representing the Adam Smith Institute) in a discussion with the Channel 4 News anchor and a representative of the ‘Fair’ Trade organization.
I must admit I have no problem with voluntary ‘fair’ trade. I firmly believe in the PT Barnum principle that no fool should remain unparted from their money. If someone is willing to pay more for a product because it has a certain certification to it, so be it… so long as I am free to buy otherwise if I so choose.
The Fairtrade Foundation wants to make Fairtrade compulsory.
From a strictly libertarian point of view, if people want to pay more for something, that’s their choice. There should be no law telling people how much they can pay. The point I was making on the programme was that the Fairtrade scheme doesn’t actually work, which is a different issue.