“The most interesting thing to me about the Fair Trade phenomenon is that it is consumer driven. Most of the time we feel we don’t have a choice as consumers, that we get what we are offered and we can’t influence commerce. We whine that we wish there were some sort of ID so that we could be sure our clothes weren’t made in a sweatshop (we used to have that: it’s called a union label). But for the most part we feel powerless. The notion of Fair Trade tells the producer that, as opposed to what the middle man told you, North American consumers, given the choice, will pay a little more to make sure the growers/workers got a good deal. And consumers backed it up. Simple. The notion that people in one country care more about workers in another country than they do about doing everything as cheaply as possible is a positive message for us all.”
Chico schwall, http://www.chicoschwall.net