I hate Fair Trade. Maybe hate is too strong of a word. Let’s try again. I do not, nor will I ever, agree with Fair Trade. Fair Trade is one of those things that sounds like a good idea at first blush. Instead of paying the lower price for goods produced from “exploited” labor, let’s pay a higher price for the goods and the extra money that will provide higher wages for the laborers.

Fair Trade provides a ready market for goods produced regardless of their efficiency. Because Fair Trade producers charge more the price gets inflated, stimulating increased production which in turn lowers the price for other producers. Those producers lose revenue which means they must either cut wages or employees.

Additionally, it is important to ask exactly how much of the increased spending goes to the actual workers, and how much is spent by the companies. In a 2006 article, The Economist suggested that only 10 percent of this money goes to the workers. Instead they suggest that most of this money goes to retailers, who add huge markups to these products.

I can assure you that there are considerably worse jobs than working as a farm hand or in a sweat shop such as combing through mountains of toxic electronic waste for reusable parts. Worse still, the industries are not allowed to develop meaning that these nations will always remain underdeveloped and impoverished.

These things aside, Fair Trade represents an attitude which is harmful to both developing and developed nations. The underlying principle which Fair Trade represents is that without the help of developed nations, namely the United States and Europe, developing nations cannot achieve economic success. That it is up to the Western World to ride in and save the impoverished nations because they cannot save themselves.

This attitude hurts developing nations, which are not allowed to achieve any sort of independence when they must always rely on developed nations to save them. It also harms developed nations by requiring them to come to the rescue. It places a burden which is neither appropriate nor useful. It builds a concept in the minds of the “rescuers” that the developed nations are a burden and a burden is inherently less than human. We will never see developing nations in a light which allows them to reach their full potential as long as we continue to feel the need to “save” them.

This is made all the more relevant because other nations, specifically China, are working to align themselves as “Champion of the Developing World,” and they are using far more effective means to do so. China has spent some of its tremendous wealth in building infrastructure in African nations. This is very reminiscent of the Marshall Plan. This plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II was, in my opinion, the single best foreign policy move that the United States has ever made.

There are a number of options available to us both publicly and privately to help those in developing nations. Fair Trade, however, is simply not the right choice. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The down-home words of wisdom for the week are: “The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”