By WeBuyItGreen:  promoting green living and fair trade

Buying products that pull producers out of poverty is not only good for the producers. It also benefits the consumer.

Consider, for example, Guatemala, where 56% of the population lives below the poverty line (CIA World Factbook). Political stability is very difficult to achieve under such circumstances. The U.S. has already incurred considerable costs in dealing with political instability in that country. Declassified government documents show that up to the 1990's, the U.S. spent three decades involved in covert operations supporting military dictators in Guatemala that killed tens of thousands of people (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB32/index.html). Doesn't it make sense to support trade practices that help to mitigate the underlying economic causes for such instability rather than relying on the CIA or U.S. military to deal with the "leftists and terrorists" that it generates? Widespread poverty doesn't remain contained within a vacuum. It has educational, health and political consequences that spill beyond borders. Any narrow economic analysis that fails to take this into consideration is misleading.

Fair trade is a way (though, admittedly, perhaps not the only way) to bring free market forces to bear on these problems. When you choose to buy a gift from women who are paid decent wages in Guatemala, and they can then afford to get health care or an education for their children, you are doing a small part to pull a country out of a desperate economic situation that is not conducive to stable democracy.

In June of 2008, I will begin a monthly series of blogs that are intended to help people connect the dots between the goods they buy and the lives of the individuals who produce them. You may view these by going to fair trade blog and selecting the green blog button. A free market is not completely free without full disclosure of the impact of our consumer choices. Most of us make a purchase without any knowledge of who that purchase impacts or how. I want to join the free trade movement in drawing attention to this piece of the equation that we should consider when deciding what we buy.