I believe that “The Reluctant Entrepreneurs” was very in-line with a great deal of the themes we have discussed thus far in our class. Many of the readings we have had so far deal directly with the ways that small movements in the global community can create gigantic returns, particularly for the people at the very bottom of the economic pyramid.
I have said this in previous blog entries, but I still find it very empowering that people can take their stories of living in the gutter and really make something amazing. For instance, Xu Aihua went from advertising garment-making classes via megaphone in the town square to sinking $4.4 million on a piece of real estate because she “had some money lying around.” However, the more I read these fantastic rags-to-riches stories, the more I can’t help but think about the millions more who aren’t mentioned in fair trade and entrepreneurship books who honestly haven’t received the same opportunities as the people who have hit entrepreneuiral gold, so to speak.
Although, just as a programming note, I believe that in the future, I would like to get a wider variety of readings, as many of the assignments we have had in the past few weeks primarily deal with these success stories of people who have economically flourished as a result of fair trade. While I think that these readings have been inspiring, I would like to have a bit more of a wider scope related to the process behind fair trade. Personally, I think it would be more interesting to not just hear about the success stories in fair trade, but also to hear about other facets of the fair trade industry, such as the basic history of the fair trade labeling process, the steps it takes to get something certified, etc.
Overall, I had quite a few conflicting emotion on “The Parable of the Black Sheep.” I find that the piece was a strange choice for this class, considering the author seems to shame the poor for a good deal of his article, to the point where he starts off the piece saying that the poor “love” poverty and cannot stop their pursuit of it, a concept I find a bit ridiculous. Unless the poor have a serious case of self-sabotage, I find it difficult to believe that such a wide margin of people just enjoy a harder lifestyle simply because they to do not pursue any other alternative. The more I think about it, the more I assume that the article was presented as a counterpoint to the more people-centric views we’ve evaluated so far, but I just felt that for someone who was born into poverty, he should have been more thankful that he was able to rise above his less-than-stellar surroundings.
That being said, I do think that it was very encouraging that he was able to supersede his living situation and become one of the richest men in India amidst the Silicon Valley boom of the early 2000s. However, I think that rags-to-riches stories are far more inspiring when the protagonist understands how serendiptious his or her chances were in rising above the incredible limits of a difficult system, and his attitude was a bit disappointing.
‘Game-Playing: Rethinking Power and Empowerment’ has definitely changed my outlook on the nature of how people in current markets can view the role of power in their societies. I am particularly interested in the way that Anna Hutchens divides the various ways that power can be perceived and distributed.
In one sense, I understood how her first form of power (‘Power over’) has become the most prevalent of the four discussed species of power, even though it was a bit disheartening. This one type of power has unfortunately become the main definition of the concept - in the traditional sense, the more standing one person has over another, the more ‘power’ that person has. In this sense, power works mainly as a pyramid, when it doesn’t have to always go that way.
I appreciated that Hutchens admitted that power can take more constructive forms, such as ‘power with,’ ‘power to,’ or ‘power within.’ These types of power allow communities to rise up and truly prosper as opposed to when some members of various communities have to unnecessarily suffer for the unbridled benefit of other members of the same community. As the community grows in strength, everyone profits - not just a select amount of people at the top.
The more I thought about this article, the more it helped me realize why our class is structured as it is. At several points in time, it has been repeated that this class has not been about ‘hierarchy’ and that we all have opportunities to speak our minds on a wide variety of points throughout our time together. As such, I feel that through such a non-typical approach, we have become stronger as a class, both in learning and in our relationships with one another. Not to be a complete sycophant, but this article has made me realize why our non-orthodox class model really works. And I’m definitely a fan.
After reading Foote’s ‘Harnessing Entrepreneurial Energy,” I was particularly struck by a few key points that I will address in this reaction paper.
One of the main issues that particularly moved me was the level of work that it took to move some of these impoverished farmers like Shiwahiade and Quinacho from living on less than $2 a day to living on a stable income - enough to feed and clothe their families. All she needed was a quick loan from Root Capital and she was able to join a co-op and get off the ground, so to speak. As in previous readings, this made me hopeful for our class’ contributions to the Fair Trade movement.
On the same note, the farmers in the vanilla cooperative in Mexico failed because they didn’t gain enough traction to get their model off the ground. Failures like this cooperative demonstrate that working in the fair trade industry is a risky business, and that it does not take an incredible force to topple any of these companies over and put the workers behind them at serious risk.
However, my thoughts have lately shifted from discussing the successes and failures and have moved towards why people have not done more for the movement as it stands. If it does not take a Herculean task to help a disadvantaged worker, why aren’t we doing more to help these people? If they can easily get by on a fraction of our income, why hasn’t there been a stronger movement to help various farmers stay economically afloat? I think that readings like this will be a strong impetus to push forward in my work with fair trade, but the more I hear about the changes this work makes in people’s lives, the more I wonder why there aren’t more widespread programs. For instance, Fordham is the only university with three different fair trade classes. If there are institutions that are based on faith traditions that focus on helping the poor in any situation possible, shouldn’t there be more programs and classes all over the country? It’s just a thought.
After reading “A Brilliant Idea,” I was impacted by several points and made a couple of realizations about the status of our own economy in relation to fair trade products.
Throughout the selection, there was a considerable amount of data on the profitable nature and the mass-market appeal of free trade goods in many countries, which made me very hopeful for the progress of the free trade industry. This passage shows that through the history of fair trade and the buildup of fair trade programs in large chains such as Oxfam, there has been considerable progress with socially-conscious goods and that the fair trade industry only has room to grow in unexpected places. This also was encouraging, as some of the fair trade profits could easily help bridge some of the troubling economic gaps between citizens of the First and Third world.
On the other hand, I was concerned on the comparative lack of American involvement in fair trade. Even though the American economy has a larger amount of possible customers and a wider market opportunity, we are not making a conscious effort to devote more of our spending to more positive areas like the fair trade industry. Hopefully, with greater proliferation of fair trade products alongside deeper education on the fair trade industry, I believe that Americans can definitely turn our lack of fair trade spending around. We just have to make the first few influential steps.
The concept in the selection of Fair Trade: A Human Journey that had the most profound effect on me was the rehabilitative power of the money received from various fair trade companies and programs. Even though women like Nazma and Shilpi were only making around $40-$50 per month - under $2 a day - they were able to easily take care of themselves and their children without going to any other means. Less than $2 a day could very easily help women like Shilpi move away from degrading, dangerous work such as the sex trade into more self-fulfilling and lucrative work. The positive change that these women were able to make from almost nothing was particularly moving. They did not need some gigantic donation of money funneled in from some eccentric philanthropist. They were able to change their lives for the better on as small an amount as $2 a day. This fact makes me optimistic for the work that we are doing with our various products (T-shirts, blankets, etc) on and off the cart. In this case, little shifts and small economic gains can make a noticeable difference in the lives of workers around the world. Even a few dollars from the sale of a set of bags can really make the financial difference in a worker’s life, which makes me feel like simple tasks like selling various products out of the cart could really make a substantial dent in the various financial problems of workers all over the world.
Another part of the excerpt that interested me was the amount of money that people spent on fair trade across the globe. Countries like the United Kingdom and Switzerland have become considerable centers of fair trade spending, due to the prevalence of fair trade shops such as Oxfam. Seeing that multiple highly industrialized countries can build a considerable fair trade market makes me realize that a strong fair trade market is very possible in the United States and can work, as shown in these other wealthy nations that have adopted various fair trade markets of their own. These country-specific markets show that fair trade markets can easily live in symbiosis with a capitalist system and can even thrive in difficult economic environments like the UK and that there are considerable market opportunities that can make considerable changes in the lives of countless men and women just like the Bangladeshis discussed in the reading.
In the Blood Coltan documentary, I was particularly struck by the continuing issues in the Hutu-Tutsi conflict that have persisted since the original genocide in the 1990s. Through the actions of the militia and the rebels, the documentary definitely affirmed that the conflict was nowhere near over and remained a central part in the darker parts of Rwandan culture.
However, I was most influenced by how far ‘Blood Products’ have spread. For instance, before the class I was unaware that the smartphone industry had blood ties. I originally thought that the blood-stained industries lied mostly in the food and organic products sector, but apparently issues with fair trade span much farther than cocoa beans, Coke, and coffee - which was particularly discomforting to me.
Further, I was touched by the dichotomy in Bandi Mbubi’s message in his Ted Talk. Even though he experienced a lot of strife under the Blood Coltan system, Mbubi also acknowledged the connective powers of the smartphone industry, as well as the inherent good and power of other telecommunications equipment that require such rare earth minerals. I thought it was admirable that he sought to bridge the connection between progress and social awareness through suggesting a fair-trade mobile phone, as opposed to other activists who might advocate boycotting the technology altogether.
Hi, my name is Bobby and I am a student in Kate Combellick’s Fair Trade class this semester. The following few paragraphs are my reactions to a few moments in the film that particularly piqued my attention.
The first section of the film that really struck me was the comparison between the first world and third world children at the beginning of the film. The film showed several clips of children enjoying chocolate and chocolate products as treats, which was especially impactful when contrasted against the images of the children in the Ivory Coast working relentless hours to procure the cocoa necessary for the chocolate for the children and adults that readily consume the goods in first world countries. This comparison only grew stronger as the African children’s plight was more clearly depicted.
When I saw the direct comparison between the struggle of the African children in the cocoa trade versus the giddy consumption of the children in some of the sampled footage, I frankly felt a little nauseous about the whole deal. As the plight of the children who were shipped to the Ivory Coast became more and more clear, the image of the children devouring the chocolate just seemed greedier and more base. Unfortunately, I was sampling from a package of chocolate-covered almonds (part of a care package from home) before I started watching the movie, which honestly made me feel much worse. Even though I thought that the treat was healthy, I am still not sure what went into the candy besides the basic ingredients. There was not any sign of a fair trade label, so I very well could have been eating some goods that were sourced from those farms, which in hindsight was not a very positive choice on my part.
Another section of the film that was particularly impactful to me was the process by which the various child workers were kidnapped. Many children were regularly and easily plucked from various villages across rural western Africa from various countries either through kidnapping or some negotiating with the promise that these children will be able to make money for their families in the cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast.
When I saw the sections of the film that directly dealt with the plight of the trafficking involved in the cocoa farming, I was surprised and concerned by how easy the process seemed. Based on the information from the film, children were basically snatched by these traffickers from various farms with little to no effort. Children could have been quickly kidnapped from their village without any warning to their family whatsoever, which was definitely a discomforting thought. There was not any kind of complex plan involved or some kind of intricate maneuver involving a trained team - these children were randomly kidnapped in broad daylight on a regular basis. Honestly, the fact that that could happen so frequently and suddenly absolutely shocked me.
Tue Nov 19, 2013 4:12 am
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