In the "Reluctant Entreprenuers" what I found most interesting was how high the interest rates were for micro finance loans. Many of these people are paying over 5 percent interest on their loans, however many of these people are still paying the interest back on the loans as well as still making profit from their entreprenuership projects. Others however are never able to really expand their businesses and achieve large scale success because they can't cross the threshold of making enough profit to clear their loans while investing in their own business.
This tells me that if these entreprenuers had the right resources and investment they could really change their situations. The reason that we look at entreprenuers as a huge part of the american economy is because many people in America start out as small business owners and expand, creating jobs and revenue for our country. They are able to do this by getting reasonable loans and making smart business choices. This could happen in other third world countries and it is happening as we speak. Micro finance can help achieve this as long as it remains true to it's intial goal of helping poor people start businesses and dosen't abuse the system.
The "Black Sheep Parable" was not a reading I was paticulary fond of. I found that the author was somewhat arrogent and self satisfied with his success. For the first half of the reading he simply told his story in a way that you can tell he wanted you to feel bad for him and understand why he is so much better for being a sucess. I thought it was interesting that he talks about being poor and having little hope to get out of poverty but that dosen't make sense to me. At the same time he told us his father was a professor at a university and his mother had wealthy parents. He also talked about seeing other kids in real poverty and thinking that they wanted to be in it. This tells me that rather he was more of a working class-middle class kid growing up with domestic violence. I'm not saying his life wasn't hard but I think he tried to overexaggerate his difficulities.
I wouldn't care if he exaggerated in his story if it wasn't for the fact that he has, what I find, to be a arrogant view of how to get out of poverty. He thinks that if everyone that is born into poverty just acted like him they could be rich. This is clearly not true. This guy had a educated father, and a mother who pushed him to well in school. He also attended a private school for his early education, thus he had so much more oppurtunity already than most kids born into poverty. Additionally he was top of his class for most of his years in school, not everyone has the intelligence level to be top of their class. I just think that he assumes too much about people in poverty and how difficult it can be to get out. Many people never get the oppurtunities that he did and many people have tried and worked very hard to get out of poverty but just havn't had the same luck.
The first aspect of this excerpt from "The Education of a Patient Capitalist" I found interesting was how she talked about the nature of philanthropy in the late 90's and early 2000's, how it was flawed and needed a fresh perspective. She talked about how it was all "givers" and "takers" and that the money went directly to poor people usually in some form of charity or handout. She also talked about how the "takers" or donatees felt obligated to please the "giver" because otherwise they might lost the donation.
I think this part of the excerpt is a perfect description of how Fair Trade came about. It grew out of the need to create institutions, businesses and communities that care about creating a a better society for people in poor areas. Before Fair Trade and businesses like Acumen, there wass only charity which wasn't adressing the root problem, it was simply curing some of the symptoms. Although Acumen is not itself a fair trade business, it shares the common idea that rather than just providing services for the poor you need to create institutions that generate their own money in order to continue functioning without constant donations. You need to create a self sufficient society that can better itself, rather than just ask rich people to keep helping poor people. You need a fundamental shift in the ideology of philanthropy and that's exactly what the author was trying to do with Acumen Fund.
The second part of this excerpt I found extremely interesting was the hospital in India run by Dr. Aravind. I think that not only was his mission an extremely important and helpful one but he went about it the right way. Dr. Aravind helps people with eyecare, mostly with blindness due the high numbers of the blind in India. When a type of lens called the intraculor lens many patients could regain their eyesight. However these lens cost around $120 when they first came out and were completely unaffordable to the poor in India.
This is what I find brilliant, just as the Acumen Fund wanted to change philanthropy from donations to investments in instituations, this doctor found a way to change his business as well. Rather than attempt to gather donations so his patients could afford these intraculor lens he simple came up with a different business model. With the help of Acumen Fund they started Aurolab and were able to create lens for much cheaper, eventually for only $2 each. Dr. Aravind also helped everyone get care by having two hospitals, one for paying patients and one for non-paying. Even though both hospitals had the same rotating group of surgeons (same level of care) one had nicer commodities for the paying customers. By doing this he was able to take money from the paying customers to alleviate costs inccured by non-paying customers. I think that this whole plan was a perfect example of how to create an institution that continuously helps poor people rather than going around asking rich people to donate so that these patients can pay for surgeuries.
In this article, "Colional Pasts and Fair Trade Futures: Changing Modes of Production and Regulation on Darjeeling Tea Plantations" by Sarah Besky this most glaringly obvious thing that stands out is that Fair Trade is not helping these people. Every case we have looked at this semester has shown the positive aspects of Fair Trade and how implementing it in new places could be beneficial. This article actually talks about how it has had negative impacts and how the Colonial system was actually better for the workers. Besky talks about how the rules and regulations left by the British Colonial system already made it law that plantation worker's had to have access to basic healthcare, housing, food and education. Now with new Fair Trade laws they actually aren't required to fulfill all of those requirements and due to direct access to foreign markets the owners actually make more profit without the middlemen.
I think the problem here is that in a place like Darjeeling, India they already had a system that was working well for them. The workers might not have been getting rich, but they were living under decent conditions. I think that Fair Trade is a system that can only be implemented in it's current form in severely impoverished places. The rules and regulations of the current Fair Trade certification process are actually worse for these workers than their old system. That is because the Fair Trade system was meant to move extremely poor and mistreated workers into a better system. These Darjeeling tea workers were not in that bad of a situation so the Fair Trade system couldn't help them move up to a better life. In a case such as this you need to change the regulations of Fair Trade certification to fit their specific circumstances. You can't expect a one size fit's all kind of deal with Fair Trade. Sometimes you need to change it so that it fits each specific scenario.
Another interesting aspect of the article was when Besky talked about the power of a label. She was referring to the way a label creates, changes and shifts the perceptions of a consumer. When a person buys a product they automatically assume things about how ethical they are and how their products are made and of what quality.
In this case I think the issue is that many consumers may actually think that because this tea is being more ethically produced and that workers are better off now. This can lead to more people buying the tea and the owners making more and more money while workers get less. This is how a Fair Trade label can actually hurt the workers. If consumers could see that the old tea without it's new "Fair Trade" label was actually better for the workers they might use their power through the idea of "buying is voting" to shift their purchases. This is a very unique case but in this circumstance the owners of the Darjeeling tea plantations are actually abusing the positive image and consumer view of the Fair Trade label.
The part of this reading that stood out to me the most was the section in which Hutchens talked about "power with". She defined this as “The capacity to achieve with others what one could not do alone." and also as "a cooperative relationship in which individuals work together to multiply individual talents and knowledge". Both of these definitions are perfect examples of what we are trying to achieve in our Fair Trade and Entrepreneurship class.
I found this whole section extremely relevant to our course and our experiances so far. The idea of "power with" is present in our own classroom as we all work together to achieve a common goal. Although many of us are working on different projects and as a group we work with people overseas whom we have never met, we are still working towards a common goal. By working together we have the capacity to achieve what none of us could do alone. We are also using each of our individual talents and knowledge to create one group of people that collectively has the knowledge and talents of all of us combined. In addition to this we are also a "power with" group because no one person has "power over" eanyone else. Although we have a professor, from what i've seen so far we are able to make decisions as a group to achieve the best possible results.
Hutchens continues on to talk about the competing view points on humananity which are one, the belief that all humans have a desire to gain power by dominating other people, and two, that humans have the capacity to work cooperatively to gain benefits for all.
I think that this debate on humanity could be argued until the end of time but although it may be a futile argument it is still an important topic to discuss. I personally believe that both view points have some truth in them. I think that humans have a natural tendancy to want to improve their own lives before helping others, however some people actually help others before themselves because they believe helping others is helping themselves. For example we as a class are working together in order to make a positive impact on the world. However, we are also doing it as a class in which we will recieve a grade. If we do a good job we will earn a good grade (a positive benefit for ourselves) so one could argue that our motivations are not entirely selfless. Although this positive benefit may or may not be a factor in our cooperative efforts it doesn't change the fact that we can and our working as a group in a "power with" capacity to achieve a positive benefit for people other than ourselves. So at the end of the day, regardless of our motivations or any inherent human instincts we are still able to work cooperatively and not in a "power over" position.
In this week's reading about Root Capital I not only found the benevolent goals of the company to be important and worth learning about but also from an entreprenuerial prespective Foote executed a brilliant idea. He found a gap between small and large loans and addressed the probelm by creating a comapny that provides medium sized loans. As an entrepreneur the goal is to find a problem and create a solution in the form of a business. Foote not only succeded in solving a problem but a social problem, while many business simply solve problems that are in the form of inconviencecs in the daily life of a 1st world consumer.
The stories included in this reading not only show how the company is helping people in poverty across the world but it is creating long term sustainable growth in industries that used to have no future for the workers. For example the coffe growers in Tanzania who had to manually depulp coffee beans reducing their quality and wasting water. Root Capital didn't just provide buyers who would pay a decent price, they improved the farmer's whole process by giving them the loan that allowed them to purcahse new equipment. This company has looked beyond the basic aspect of Fair Trade, which is making sure producers are paid decently for their products, and has created a process that allows farmers and artisans to actually expand their businesses so that they can do more than just get by but actually thrive and turn around the cycle of poverty in many of these rural areas.
One of the aspects of Root Capital's plan that I found paticualry interesting was what he called "preinvesting". Preinvesting involves going in and providing training and other assistance to a cooperative or small business that lacks leaders with traditional business education. One example of this that was provided in the reading was Root Capital's preinvesting in ACPU a cooperative of 3,700 coffee farmers in Uganda. When Root Capital's investment advisor in Uganda thought that the cooperative lacked the techincal skills to manage their cash flow and accounting he went in and spent five days training members of the ACPU.
Root Capital uses this tatic as a way to make sure the business they are lending money to can pay them back and make proper use of the loan they are receiving. I think that this idea of preinvestment is a great way to do business. This strategy helps both parties, it allows the cooperatives to use their loan capital more efficently and profitably so that their businesses can thrive while at the same time helping insure that Root Capital gets it loan paid back. Also the training provided dosen't just help the cooperatives manage their money but actually grow their business and better improve every farmers living situation.
One part of this chapter that stood out to me was the connection the author drew between climate change and fairtrade. The author talked about how climate change only drew attention from millions of people after politicians and large companies began to express concerns. It started out as a little known theory and now people across the world are constantly thinking about it and many working to try and reduce climate change. The author also talked about how fairtrade inherently adds to climate change due to the carbon burning that occurs in any international trading.
I found this to be an extremely interesting point of view. First of all I thought of how global warming drew a lot of critics intially and was seen as a huge controversy. Similarily fairtrade has attracted many critics of whether it is having a postive or negative effects on markets. There are many who believe that fairtrade falsely raises prices and leads to oversupply of goods. I think that as with global warming, more people will start to listen to arguments for increased fairtrade as it is talked about more and more evidence of it's positive effects are proven. As far as the fact that fairtrade adds to climate change through carbon emmisions, I don't see anyway around that as carbon emmissions are an essential part of transporting goods. The only way to change that is to steer away from fossil fuels and that is an entirely different conversation altogether.
Another aspect of this chapter that caught my eye was the anaylsis of how mainstream major companies adding fairtrade foods to their product line may be a double edged sword. While major companies selling fairtrade products might increase the amount of people in devolping countries that recieve the benefits of fairtrade it could utlimately reduce the impact of fairtrade. With mainstream retailers selling fairtrade goods and foods, it provides more access for customers to find and buy fairtrade as well as increase demand for production from producers. The flipside is that these companies work on economies of scale and are all about large scale production. The very nature of large scale production is in fact contrary to the goals of fairtrade. While fairtrade promotes cooperatives and small scale farms that allow for transparancy, democratic decision making and growth for all involved, large scale production does the opposite. It promotes beauracracy and concern for the company's bottom line, not the welfare of all employees or producers. The concerns that many have with big business getting involved with fairtrade is not a simple argument nor is it a question with a right or wrong answer. Most liekly it will take time, anaylsis and ultimately trial and error to navigate around this issue.
First off I'd like to say that it was an interesting switch from documentaries to literature. This excerpt provided a different perspective on fair trade because it talked about the history of fair trade and the people and organizations that kick started it, rather than focus on one specific region or problem, which is what the documantaries did. However it was also powerful and emotional which I think was helped by the photographs the author chose to strategically place. I think the author did a great job of balancing information about fairtrade and telling stories about how fair trade has actually helped real people and the reader can really feel the emotion through the writing and pictures.
The history of fair trade up until now was interesting as well as new information to me, for example I did not know that the United Kingdom was the largest purchaser of fair trade goods or that Germany has one of the fastest rising imports of fair trade goods. The background information not only puts the whole movement in context but helps to show the reader where the movement is headed in the future as well. Fairtrade is an idea that as more people talk about, in more countries it gains momentum and credability.
Another part of the excerpt that I enjoyed reading was when the author talked about the woman Shilpi who was formerly a prostitue in Bangladesh. Due to the work of MCC Shilpi was able work for their soap production company and earn enough moeny to build her own house for her and her children as well as send her children to school. She most likely would not have been able to do either without the MCC.
This kind of story really makes me feel like fairtrade is an excellent way to help people. It's one thing when you buy a fairtrade product and you feel good because some farmer or artisan made an extra dollar that wouldn't have otherwise but it's a whole other thing when you hear the life story of a person whose life is so significantly cahnged for the better due to the work of a few people and a few customers. This is the type of writing and the type of story that makes the reader really think about how much the world would change if all goods were bought through fairtrade. The difference would really be astounding.
One part of the documentary "Blood Coltan" that I found profound was when they talked about the amount of rape and the severity of the attacks in the Congo. The minister Jean Boscol (not sure about spelling) and Christine (can't spell last name) spoke about the rapes that happen constantly all across the Congo, mostly around the mining areas. Christine was helping some of the victims by giving them ten dollars a month to survive. They also talked about how brutal and violent these rapes can be and how some of the victims are actually kept as sex slaves for months or even years.
This portion of the film paticulary digusted me because they did not sugercoat what was happening at all. They talked about how some of these women were raped with bayonets and other weapons and injured or killed in this way. When you hear this you wonder how people could commit these kind of acts and this is where it ties back into the Coltan. These sorts of acts don't happen in first world countries (or at least extremely rarely and not in the same manner) because there is not the same type of poverty, desperation and lack of a morally grounded society. Because you have children mining the coltan, rebels killing them to steal it, soldiers extorting the miners and forigeners taking off with the majority of the profits, a society has been established in which people don't think to consider other's rights as human beings. I believe that due to the terrible circumstances in places like The Congo many of the people living in the worst areas are morphed into the type of person who can do these things by their surrondings. It is not in most people's nature to violently rape women but the way they have been nurtured by their living situation and the violence around them they have become someone who can do these things.
Another part of the film that peaked my interest was when the french journalist investigates the companies who are buying the coltan in countries like Belgium. He asked them questions about whether or not they knew where the coltan was coming from and if they knew that they may be supporting conflicts in The Congo. He also asked one man about the UN inquiries into his coltan dealings. The man replied that he was cleared of any penalities and one of the companies they contacted replied that they were certain that the coltan they bought was not from conflict areas.
This whole aspect of the documentary is specifically interesting to me because it enters into a grey area in between international law and morality. As we are well aware there is a difference between morality and the law. As the owner of one of the coltan distributers in The Congo said, it is hard to determine where exactly the coltan being purchased is from because of the nature of how coltan is collected. Because coltan is collected through such a long supply chain that consists of many different people, groups or organizations is can be very difficult to trace. That leads us to the people buying the coltan abroad and whether they are responsible for funding civil war and contributing to the dire situation in The Congo. It is most defintely a fact that these companies are contributing to the situation, however, how do we address this? If these companies cannot trace the coltan to where it comes from then they are not doing anything illegal under international law. They may not be acting in what most people would consider a moral manner but morality can be ambigious. You cannot make a company change it's protocols based on ethics, you need to use the law because that is what these corporations listen to. There is a huge demand for the coltan because there is a huge demand for the electronics that are a product of it. The demand is not going to go down anytime soon for coltan so the only question that remains is how to change the system so that workers in the mines are being properly compensated, not extorted and that monies from any part of the supply chain are not funding warlords and rebels who cause so much conflict in The Congo. Would an embargo on coltan really work? We cannot possibly know the answer to this but something needs to happen to make an attempt to alter the situation.
After watching the documentary "The Dark Side of Chocolate" it is hard to choose which parts of the video were the strongest, as most of it was equally disturbing. First of all I was shocked by the the man who they referred to as "The right hand of the Ivory Coast's president" and his apparent denial of child trafficking. Similarily, I was shocked by Ali Lakiss's dismissal of the claims of child slavery/trafficking.
I find it unbelivable that these people, who are clearly aware of the crimes that are happening, are playing dumb. To be able to do these things to children and lie about it straight to someone's face takes a serious lack of character and any type of ethics. I can't believe that these are the people who are in power in these countries. Ali Lakiss is making millions of dollars in profits every year off of child slavery, and no one is stopping him. In fact the people who should be looking into solving the problem are denying that there is a problem in the first place. The Ivorian government man tried to explain away the situation by saying that the kids were not being trafficked but were actually on "Vacation"
Another and totally different thought I had about the documentary was when they were interviewing the kids working on the plantation and the kid they found at the bus stop after being trafficked into the Ivory Coast.
Why did these guys making the documentary not try and help these kids? At the bus stop there was a kid who had just been kidnapped and trafficked across the border all by himself and they left him there? That does not make sense to me. I would like to think that if I ran into several children being held as slaves working on a plantation I would try and get them out of there as quickly as possible. I understand that these men are making a documentary but that dosen't relieve you of your duty as a human being to stop slavery that you are witnessing firsthand and any harm that is being done to children.
Tue Nov 19, 2013 4:40 am
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