On the details of American Democracy from the Perspective of drinking Coffee

The word "consumer rights" has now taken root in the hearts of the people, especially in contemporary China, where fake and shoddy products are prevalent. By contrast, the word "consumer responsibility" seems strange. "Consumer responsibility"? Isn't it the responsibility of consumers to pay? Most people might say that.

In the United States, there is a group of people who do not see it that way. In their view, consumer behavior is not only an economic behavior, but also a political and social behavior. You are an "irresponsible consumer" when you still buy certain products (services) when you know that they come from sweatshops or their production processes are seriously damaging to the environment, maiming animals, and unethical.

The question is, in an economy where production and consumption have been separated, how do we know which products are "innocent"? Even if we do, why should we care about the "political and social connotation" in these products?

I'd like to talk about an advertisement I saw when I took the subway today.

Sitting on the subway in Boston, there was a big advertisement opposite me, reflecting the smiling face of a Latin American farmer on a thick cup of coffee, with the following line: "A good cup of coffee starts with the farmers" (a good cup of coffee starts with a farmer). Next to it is the name of the company: Equal Exchange (equal trade). Below the company name is a phrase: fairly traded (come from a fair deal).

The word Fairly traded is not a general boast here, but a technical term. The meaning of this term should start from the "Coffee Fair Trade Movement" (Fair Trade Coffee Campaign) in the West.

As we all know, Americans love to drink coffee. At present, 1/4 of the coffee in the world is drunk by Americans. The main producers of coffee are not the United States, but Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil and other developing countries. We buy a cup of "latte" at Starbucks for three or four dollars, but if we take into account the profits of middlemen at market prices, Latin American farmers only get about 40 cents for a pound of coffee beans. Because of this price, many coffee farmers earn only about $600 a year and often cannot make ends meet.

It is against this background that the Coffee Fair Trade campaign came into being. It is jointly promoted by some American labor NGO and "responsible consumers". As a result of their efforts, the United States has established a "fair trade certificate" system since the late 1990s. Under this system, coffee importers who join the system must buy coffee directly from coffee farmers' cooperatives at a price of $1.26 a pound, bypassing middlemen. At the same time, an independent notary called TransFair USA issued a fair trade certificate to the import company. At $1.26 a pound, about three times the previous income, coffee farmers benefited from a significant increase in income and were lifted out of extreme poverty. For coffee importers, what is the advantage of buying coffee at a price much higher than the market price? It can be said that almost none. Except for "Equal Exchange", put a small line in their ads: fairly traded (come from a fair deal).

However, unlike economists' assumption of "perfectly rational man", morality has a place in people's economic behavior. Many consumers with a "sense of consumer responsibility" would rather buy "innocent" products at slightly higher prices than "dirty" products at slightly lower prices, while for businesses, the moral image gained by some economic losses may eventually bring more economic benefits. This is why the Coffee Fair Trade Movement has grown rapidly.

Many other coffee importers also buy "fair coffee" in large quantities. From the introduction of the Fair Trade Certificate system in the United States in 1999 to 2005, 74 million tons of coffee have been traded under the system, benefiting farmers in poor countries by a total of $60 million. At the same time, the fair trade certificate system is also expanding to chocolate, tea, rice, fruit and other primary products. In this era of economic globalization, "fair trade" has increasingly become a counterbalance market force corresponding to "free trade" (free trade).

Consumer activism (consumer activism) is not a completely new thing. There is a long tradition of using collective purchasing power to express political opinions and improve social conditions. Long before the Civil War, some abolitionist activists organized "free product stores" that sold only products produced by free men. In the 1930s, in order to oppose Japan's invasion of China, the United States already had a boycott of Japanese goods. Now, in this era of increasingly globalized economy, many American consumers "do not forget to dig wells when drinking water" and "do not forget to grow coffee" when drinking coffee, which is a continuation of this tradition of "consumer activism". In fact, the Coffee Fair Trade campaign is just one of the larger fair trade movements, echoed by the campaign against clothing sweatshops and so on. Some of these campaigns are aimed at protecting "wage earners" and "working girls" in some sweatshops along the southeast coast of China.

When many people observe American society, they tend to emphasize its hegemonist and commercialist side, but they do not attach much importance to the country's long-standing "idealistic" political and cultural tradition. The fully socially spontaneous fair trade movement fighting for Latin American farmers thousands of miles away is a small note of this idealistic tradition. Of course, idealism to really become a social force requires a certain political and social foundation, such as the highly developed NGO, such as a certain level of economic development.

However, the effects of these movements should not be overestimated. After all, businesses and consumers are mainly "economic people"-they can pay a slightly higher price for "fair coffee", but they cannot be so high as to "lose money" or "unaffordable". Take Starbucks, for example, "Fair Coffee" still accounts for only a small portion of its total coffee purchases, and most of its price differences are passed on to consumers. If it is judged by economists who fully advocate economic liberalism, he can even criticize that the "fair trade certificate" system actually disturbs the price signal in the market economy, thus undermining the optimization of resource allocation.

However, the optimization of resource allocation can not be completed overnight because of the price signal, and the traditional economic model, social structure, endowment of environmental resources, political conditions, information cost and so on may tenaciously resist the price signal. This determines that economic transformation will be a long and painful process. In this process, appropriate moral assistance to relatively vulnerable primary product producers, although not necessarily the most "rational" economic behavior, may be the most "moral" social behavior. After all, in a globalized world where the coffee I drink may be produced by a Colombian farmer and the software you develop may be used by a British scholar whose jeans are about to be worn by Ukrainian college students, moral ties between people should also be adapted to the strengthening of economic ties.

Every time I hear acquaintances and friends in China say that "everything in China is cheap", "it takes only × × money to hire a nanny", "it takes × × money to massage for an hour", and "it takes only × × money to buy a jin of vegetables", I don't know whether to be happy or sad. From the perspective of consumers'"interests", of course I am very happy. However, from the perspective of "consumer responsibility", I am deeply disturbed. Sometimes, I wonder why there are no more consumers in this country when patriotic indignant youths are excited about the specious logic that "buying Japanese goods is to support Japanese militarism". To the more obvious "consumer responsibility", such as boycotting the country's sweatshops, resisting the serious damage caused by certain enterprises to the environment, and calling for improving the living conditions of migrant workers who build houses and roads for us. Show the same passion?