The two links go to the same place.

I'm getting Starbucks on both links.

Comment directed to Mr. Drezner, if he's got time...

Atrios has a post up that points to an argument by Ezra Klein (who in turn builds off something by Chris Hayes...), the upshot being that unnuanced intro-level econ courses hook students into a kind of free-market fundamentalism.

Core soc. at Chicago was *not* introductory economics but I remember that my instructor was very careful in teaching both Smith and Marx, urging us to consider them as social scientists rather than prophets.

What is your take, as someone interested in both economics and undergraduate teaching.

Sounds like Starbucks is acting better than 99% of the companies in America.

Fair Trade coffee is a nice palative to make western consumers feel better when the buy a $5 latte, but it is no more sustainable than public sector ag subsidies. Did anyone ever bother to think what happens if the coffee buyers decide Fair Trade is no longer the flavor du jour? The farmers will be screwed because their cost structure will have accomodated the higher fair trade price, but they will have to sell at whatever price the market will bear.

The CAFE approach makes a lot more sense from a development perspective. Improve the financing, access to markets and QC and you will improve incomes on a sustainable basis. It avoids wedding the farmer to a particular buyer, thus giving the farmer more control.

Shoot! Forgot to provide the link.

http://haloscan.com/tb/atrios/116318383753434667

Thanks again Dr. D for focusing on this issue. I think it is great that Starbucks is focusing on this area, even if in a slightly different way than other fair trade groups. Fair trade should never be reduced to one exclusive "trademark" concept. I see a real risk that the branded Fair Trade groups might fall into supporting a stale variation of communal socialism that has already failed to produce wealth.

The charm of fair trade is that it seeks to have a major impact while only tweaking the market system (i.e. it embraces the fundamental validity of the market) while at the same time avoiding charity handouts. There is no reason that support provided by middle men, wholesalers, and retailers needs to be purely in the form of paying above market prices. Microfinance, direct infrastructure project support, etc., might even be more efficient in the long run.

Oh yeah, an afterthought: the goal of the fair trade groups (as opposed to retailers like Starbucks) ought to be to put themselves out of business. The concept that a country like Ethiopia might want to brand its coffees and thereby command a higher market price is not reprehensible. If it is OK for Champagne and Napa (ha ha, I can buy wine in my grocery store) it certainly ought to be OK for Africa. Advertizing with "100% Columbian arabica beans" certainly has some clout. Of course locking up varietal names is tough. Chardonnay anyone? Gotta read that Oxfam site.

By the way, one of the most expensive coffees I ever bought at the local roaster was from Ethiopia. That was the first time I ever got a real buzz from a cup of coffee. I was shaking. I can understand why the drink was treated like a trendy drug when it first hit Europe way back when if they were serving it that strong, and I bet they were.

Is Jesse Jackson on the steering committee at Oxfam? It sounds like one of his shakedowns.

Now if we could only get Starbucks to not ROAST their beans into oblivion....

Branding--why not? Don't we already have that with Blue Mountain coffee, supposedly the best in the world?

Interesting thing about (un)Fair Trade coffee. The price to the farmer has been fixed for about ten years. Many market forces have changed in the world coffee market in ten years. All Fair Trade coffee is fair, only it is more fair to some than to others (all apologies to George Orwell).