[GJM] Fair Trade and the global moral order

[Yaseen]

Dear All,
   
As Ros notes below, we believe that many of the ideas we need for the future are already around. Fair trade, of course, is one of these ideas, and it contrasts sharply in its moral foundations with that other idea of free trade. The one is moral, the other immoral.
   
  The morality of fair trade, we believe, is based on principles of responsibility on the one hand, and mutuality on the other. The immorality of free trade is based on greed and justified by a competitive dogma about markets; the winners need feel no remorse for the losers. The struggle between responsible mutuality and irresponsible competition pervades history, and we have the history of moral development to look to for evidence of the moral underpinning of fair trade. To illustrate:
   
  As Confucious put it 2,500 years ago;
   
  "What Heaven has conferred is called The Nature; an accordance with this path is called The path of duty ... When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path. What you do not want to be done to you, do not do to others."
   
  and Muhammad over a thousand years later;
   
  "Woe to every BACKBITER, Defamer!
  Who amasseth wealth and storeth it against the future!"
   
  "The DESIRE for increasing riches occupieth you 
  Till ye come to the grave"
   
  Woe to those who STINT the measure ... in the balance ye should not transgress.
  Weigh therefore with fairness, and scant not the balance."
   
  We are now another 1400 years into history: and the question of the ages is still before us; which ideology will underpin our relations as humanity moves decidedly into an era of global interconnectedness; will it be fair trade or free trade?

  Ian Brown

  Rosamund Stock <restock at cooptel.net> wrote:
          These are the latest details of our conference:
   
    This is our next conference.  We'd really appreciate any help with publicising the event, if you could circulate the details that would be great. 
   
          FAIR TRADE AT THE CROSSROADS
  After Nestle, where next?
   
  A conference at the London School of Economics
  www.thenetworkproject.org.uk/conference.htm
   
  28th OCTOBER 2006, 11-4
  Contact: 0845 458 0610; r.e.stock at lse.ac.uk; or register online.
   
  A conference about the challenges and opportunities that have come with the success of Fair Trade.
   
  Speakers:  Claude Moraes, MEP
  Paul Chandler, Chief Executive, Traidcraft
  Whitni Thomas, Triodos Bank
  Meredith Cochrane, Fair Trade Foundation
   
  The Network Project researches and develops the political dimension
  to recent social innovations.
  We are a small group of enthusiasts who believe that many of the ideas we need
  for the future are already around.
   
    Rosamund Stock
  Conference Coordinator
   
  Attached EleafletFT.doc and FTflyerFT.doc









 




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