Being from a country as comparatively wealthy as this one, it is easy to assume we have some inherent quality that enables us to remedy the world’s problems. A power bestowed upon us at birth that allows us to, despite all indications to the contrary, mend the problems of those with whom we have never had any contact, while at home millions of our citizens languish in poverty. Such fanaticism mixes optimism with an aggrandized sense of responsibility, often with questionable results.

Nowhere has that optimism been more misguided than in UW-Oshkosh’s recent decision to reinvent itself as a “fair trade” campus. The university’s governing bodies agreed to sell only “Fair Trade Certified” tea, coffee, and chocolate in university dining establishments, as well as to sell fair trade food products and handicrafts in stores whenever possible. The idea, as Oshkosh’s student newspaper noted, was for Oshkosh to “do its part toward ending trade injustices that result in millions of people living in poverty.”

The basic premise of Oshkosh’s decision – that going “Fair Trade” will aid third-world farmers struggling to stay afloat – is entirely wrong – in fact, the opposite is true.

Buying all of its products from organizations that give their workers a “living wage” does several very problematic things to the global economy that Oshkosh’s academics are so concerned with saving.

Firstly, it is important to note that encouraging coffee production in areas where such production is no longer economically viable creates an over-supply of coffee, as growers in areas such as Vietnam, where wages and costs are much lower, produce coffee of the same quality at prices superior to those offered by “Fair Trade” groups. As coffee consumption in the United States continues to plummet, such a policy of Fair
Trade can only encourage growers in targeted areas such as Guatemala and Honduras to continue to produce while the market for their products is shrinking.

Additionally, the notion that fair trade coffee, for example, is sustainable – when coffee prices have been steadily declining – is likewise fundamentally absurd. It is a colossal act of bending one’s reason to believe that the wage floor pushed upon us by fair trade advocates will be remotely feasible when other growers can undercut at-risk growers to an ever greater degree.

Nonetheless, there is reason for optimism. While a total of 600,000 workers have lost their jobs in Central America due to the falling price of coffee in recent years, 4-5 million Vietnamese citizens are now employed in some aspect of coffee production, up from 300,000 ten years ago.

However, such an interconnected supply chain means that only way to save impoverished coffee farmers in Central America would be to mandate that an ever larger number of citizens in America and abroad buy Fair Trade products – thereby driving those millions of Vietnamese producers out of their newfound jobs. There is simply not large enough of a market to accommodate both the subsidized Central Americans and the more market-oriented Vietnamese.

Another glaring hypocrisy in the myth of fair trade stems from the fact that, despite worsening economic difficulties at home, it seems as though the coffee farmer 1,000 miles away has more of a claim to the heartstrings of our consumers than the anecdotal single mother that serves us our Big Macs on the way to work. The idea that Oshkosh must go abroad to find economic demons to destroy is as impractical as it is deliberately negligent.

On a more basic level, it is also a whimsical idea to assume that when two private individuals contractually agree to something without any outside interference, it is not “fair.” By claiming to have a monopoly on fairness, Oshkosh will ensure that the debate is not one over rational methods to help those most at risk in society, but rather a question of who “cares” more about the world’s poor. After all, if you don’t buy fair trade products, you are, in some obscure way, supporting “unfair” trade.

Therein lies the underlying cynicism in the whole sham of Oshkosh’s new policy – while it is nice to think about economically viable ways to help society, it is much more entertaining to imply that everyone else is guilty of its demise.