When I was about sixteen I imagined that I would spend part of my early twenties engaging in noble volunteer work in Africa and, perhaps, meeting some loose hippy chicks while I was at it, (there’s no such thing as a selfless deed apparently). Unfortunately real life got in the way of those dreams and I decided to spend eight months snowboarding in Canada instead, (the Canadians need our help too you know). Last year I was splitting my sides watching Comic Relief so I decided to go and get the phone to make a donation, but I kind of got distracted on the way and ended up making a cup of tea instead. I did donate around £100 a year to the Third World through a scheme at work; but when I changed jobs I quietly cancelled the direct debit. However, just when I was starting to think that I was a complete ethical failure salvation came in the form of a lovely bar of chocolate. One day I was busy doing my shopping in Tesco’s when I noticed a bar of Fairtrade chocolate, its wrapping glistening in the light. Hey, I thought, I love chocolate and people in the Third World love being farmers, everyone’s a winner! I casually tossed the bar into my trolley satisfied that I finally had the Third World’s terrible suffering off my conscience. Or did I?

The Fairtrade logo acts like some kind of lazy panacea for middle class guilt over world poverty. By buying Fairtrade products we can confidently proclaim ourselves to be truly ethical without having to travel to Africa with its dirt and its disease and its horrible, horrible poverty. Fairtrade products must be good for the Third World because it says so on the packet, right? Anyway we can’t busy ourselves with little things like the details of how and why; we’ve got dinner parties to throw.

The Fairtrade project is symptomatic of the patronising and hypocritical attitude with which we view the Third World. It seems that those who have made comfortable and successful lives from capitalism don’t want the ‘innocent’ Third World to lift itself out of poverty through capitalism and industrialisation. The Fairtrade organisation and other well meaning charities view the Third World as a farm. They seem to see the Africans as noble peasants who would be delighted to live as subsistence farmers without prospects or modern amenities as long as we pay them a ‘fair’ price for a banana. Meanwhile we can get along with the filthy business of enjoying the fruits of industrialisation, content that the Africans are happy enough working twelve hour days harvesting crops.

The price of a coffee bean is low because that what it’s worth. There are plenty of coffee producers in the world and comparatively few consumers and supply and demand dictate price. If everyone bought Fairtrade we would only succeed in condemning the Third World to subsistence economics for decades to come. Nobody can become rich by spending their lives growing bananas or rearing chickens on a small holding. Furthermore if we encourage a developing country to tie its economy to a cash crop, then if the market price for that crop crashed the developing economy would also crash and burn. And there is a very real danger of that happening if we continue to use Fairtrade products. For example if Fairtrade sets the price of chocolate artificially high, (i.e. above the price dictated by demand) then overproduction would inevitably be encouraged, the market would be flooded and the price of chocolate would crash affecting all farmers and their dependants.

Only landowning farmers who have formed co-operatives are allowed to join the Fairtrade organisation, landless subsistence farmers,who make up the vast majority of the world’s poor, are banned from the project. By encouraging small scale industries Fairtrade is also encouraging the economic inefficiency that has blighted the Third World since 1945. A continuation of this backward economic policy will hold back future generations and prevent the mechanisation and industrialisation that could allow the whole world to be developed. Large scale plantations employing unionised and well paid workers are able to compete on the world market far more effectively and represent true economic development for the Third World.

The Fairtrade organisation claims to have helped around seven million farmers, (out of two billion global poor) but they have not exactly transformed the lives or prospects of these people. Supermarkets use the Fairtrade logo to mark up a huge profit on those products. Only 10% of the profit on Fairtrade product is spent on poor farmers. In reality this means their wages are increased by a few pence, hardly a life changing amount. Undoubtedly Fairtrade has helped to improve the lives of many who participate in the project through the provision of irrigation and clean drinking water but there are many charities that have been performing this task for decades. More than likely there will be one in your home town. Why not donate a pound to these charities rather then buy a chocolate bar for £1 with 90% of that money going to the supermarket? Fairtrade is an incredibly inefficient charity and tends to encourage people to think that they have ‘done their bit’ for the Third World when that is not the case.

The only way individual farmers in Third World can compete with Western farmers is through universal free trade. That would mean the complete abolition of all trade barriers and tariffs in every country. That way every producer would be able to sell their produce at a price dictated by the market. In short everybody would have an equal opportunity to compete on the world market.

Fairtrade is a noble idea but it is fundamentally flawed. We shouldn’t be treating the Third World as some kind of innocent farm while the developed world enjoys the fruits of industrialisation. We should encourage the developing world to follow the principles of capitalism that allowed England to smash its way out of the Malthusian Trap two hundred years ago. Thirty years ago Ethopia and South Korea shared the same level of GNP; now one is kind of doing better than the other, mainly due to the economic decisions made by the two Governments. Even the poorest countries in the world today have the opportunity to achieve a decent and dignified quality of life for their citizens, provided they make the right economic, social and political decisions. We should not be encouraging poor people to live as subsistence farmers, performing back breaking labour in fields with the same fate in store for their descendants. Western charities and Governments need to encourage capitalism, democracy, industrialisation, mechanisation, birth control, education and the provision of basic amenities.

There are many charities out there making a real difference to the lives of the world’s poor. The Rainforest Alliance runs a similar scheme to Fairtrade without the drawbacks, Café Britt helps its farmers to add value to their product by processing and packaging its coffee in Costa Rica. Why not buy cheaper products and donate the money you have saved to a microloan agency like Kiva.org? There are many easy ways that we can make a difference, personally I’m just off to the bank to re-instate that direct debit.