Fair-trade is a trade that involves people in developed countries pay satisfactory prices for produced goods and, as a result, help poor countries to achieve better conditions and receive fair pay. In this paper, we would concentrate on the article “The Price of Moral Purity” by Andrew Stark. In his article, Mr. Stark paid attention to the book "The Fair Trade Revolution” by John Bowes.
At the beginning of the article, Stark points out the main idea of Bowes’ book: to give a better understanding of the developed world of consumers for people who are at the end of the supply chain. However, as it becomes clear later, this works vice versa – fair-trade provides well developed world with information about the developing world, of those who are producing, planting, packing and picking goods. Further, Stark develops this point of view by saying that people in Europe and North America will pay more money for fair-trade products if they know that this money would be spent for supplying better conditions for people of the developing country. As a result, the most popular well- paid commodities are coffee, bananas and chocolate. According to Stark, some groups of consumers like to visit places where they take products and check whether workers and their children have better conditions for living and education. Moreover, these organizations testify such products with fair-trade labels. On the other hand, there are groups, such as environmental groups, who do not like fair-trade, because of transportation of goods for a long time and distances or those who are buying commodities for a lower price being non fair-trade consumers.
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At the same time, free market industry provides consumers both with low price goods and costly brand-name goods. Thereafter, some buyers say that it is better for them to find the same product for lower price than pay above-market prices, as fair-trade offers, while some buy commodities because of their loud names. A lot of fair-trade retailers sell products for higher prices too, but explain this phenomenon by position of suppliers but not a bright picture of luxury in customers mind. The important point for fair-traders to remember is that if they “want to expand their movement, they'll have to focus on winning over new consumers, one by one” (Stark, 2011).
To conclude, it should be said that, in his article, Stark gives us a brief review about the book "The Fair Trade Revolution” by John Bowes. He supports his ideas with the citations from the book and provides good examples for better understanding.