The Issue: Unfair Trade and Exploitation of Poor Countries
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
Karl Marx
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
Karl Marx
As Marx says the developed First World countries being the rich continuously exploit the undeveloped Third World countries for their own profits. They employ a number of methods including handing out loans and then using those loans as a leverage to force the victim to lift trade restrictions and protection on the market as well as cease subsidizing farm produce. This results in the wealthy country being able to dump their subsidized farm produce and cheap goods in the poorer country completely overpowering the market and driving the poorer countries business out since there are no tariffs or quotas protecting the market. The wealthy countries and corporation benefit from this leaving the poorer countries with a captive market. This is nothing less than imperialism in a different form. This is not the only form of exploitation used by richer countries and companies. Sweatshops are used in China and India most prominently where people work for tiny wages, for long hours in dangerous and dirty working conditions. They also have no job security and can easily be fired and replaced. The people remain in poverty as they can barely sustain themselves; the nation’s economy is dominated by foreigners and they remain perpetually in debt as they are unable to pay off their loans and are then sucked deeper in debt. This state of affairs cannot go on as it is nothing but imperialism in a more subtle form.
# While rich countries keep their markets closed, poor countries have been pressurised by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to open their markets at breakneck speed, often with damaging consequences for poor communities.
# The international community has failed to address the problem of low and unstable commodity prices, which consign millions of people to poverty. Coffee prices, for example, have fallen by 70 per cent since 1997, costing exporters in developing countries $8bn in lost foreign-exchange earnings.
# Powerful transnational companies (TNCs) have been left free to engage in investment and employment practices which contribute to poverty and insecurity, constrained only by weak voluntary guidelines. In many countries, export-led success is built on the exploitation of women and girls.
# Many of the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on intellectual property, investment, and services protect the interests of rich countries and powerful TNCs, while imposing huge costs on developing countries. This bias raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the WTO.
The Campaign: Fair Trade
The key messages of this campagain are that the continuing exploitation of the poor countries by the rich cannot be allowed to go on. It puts them in a persistent cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape from. To solve this problem the key goals of the campaign are to end the conditions of the IMF and World Bank which force poor countries to open their markets, improve market access for poor countries, change corporate practices so companies pay fair prices, democratizing WTO so poorer countries have a greater voice, enhancing employment standards, and changing national policies on health education and governing so everyone can have equal opportunities to compete.
# nding the use of conditions attached to IMF-World Bank programmes which force poor countries to open their markets regardless of the impact on poor people.
# Improving market access for poor countries and ending the cycle of subsidised agricultural over-production and export dumping by rich countries. In addition, changing WTO rules so that developing countries can protect domestic food production.
# Creating a new international commodities institution to promote diversification and end over-supply in order to raise prices to levels consistent with a reasonable standard of living for producers, and changing corporate practices so that companies pay fair prices.
# Establishing new intellectual-property rules to ensure that poor countries are able to afford new technologies and basic medicines, and that farmers are able to save, exchange, and sell seeds.
# Prohibiting rules that force governments to liberalise or privatise basic services that are vital for poverty reduction.
# Enhancing the quality of private-sector investment and employment standards.
# Democratising the WTO to give poor countries a stronger voice.
# Changing national policies on health, education, and governance so that poor people can develop their capabilities, realise their potential, and participate in markets on more equitable terms.