Skeptics in the Pub - Unfair Trade? February 17, 2009

Fair Trade claims to help poor farmers in developing countries. It implies that higher Fair Trade prices help producers, but most of the extra goes to retailers, distributors and marketers. A tiny fraction goes to producers. Fair Trade favours chosen producers in co-operatives, rather than poorer family farmers. The way to help producers in poor countries is not to play favourites, but to end tariffs and subsidies, and to buy as much as possible from poorer countries. Free Trade, not Fair Trade, is needed.

Dr Madsen Pirie is President of the Adam Smith Institute, and was one of three Scots graduates working in the US who founded the Institute in 1977. Prior to that, Dr Pirie worked for the House of Representatives in Washington DC, and was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Logic and Philosophy at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

At the Institute, Dr Pirie was part of the influential team which pioneered privatization and the extension of market choices and incentives. His work in helping to develop the Citizen's Charter led to his appointment to the Prime Minister's Advisory Panel from 1991-95.

A graduate of the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews and Cambridge, Dr Pirie is author of several books including The Book of the Fallacy, Micropolitics, Privatization in Theory and Practice and Blueprint for a Revolution. With his colleague Dr Eamonn Butler, he has co- authored a series of books on IQ, including The Sherlock Holmes IQ Book.

Official Website: http://leicester.skepticsinthepub.org