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Towards a Polanyian perspective on fair trade: market-based relationships and the act of ethical consumption
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Watson, Matthew, Ph.D.. (2006) Towards a Polanyian perspective on fair trade: market-based relationships and the act of ethical consumption. Global Society, Vol.20 (No.4). pp. 435-451. ISSN 1360-0826
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13600820600929788
Abstract
Fair trade requires that developed country consumers engage in market-based transactions with developing country producers. Yet this is not market trade in any straightforward sense, because the purchase of fairly traded products brings consumers into two market relationships at the same time. One is the market relationship through which consumers buy the product itself, which enables them to act altruistically by consciously paying the price premium that the producer receives. The other is the market relationship through which consumers buy the socially reputable knowledge of having helped a distant stranger, which enables them to harness their ostensibly ethical consumption to a knowingly self-interested action. This latter relationship adds a new dimension to orthodox commodity fetishism. A Polanyian perspective is developed to investigate the way in which fair trade reworks the commodity fetish. This serves as a prelude to an extended discussion of the moral status of the behavioural motivations that underpin fair trade consumption.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies |
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Competition, Unfair, Free enterprise, International economic relations, Commodity fetishism |
| Journal or Publication Title: | Global Society |
| Publisher: | Routledge |
| ISSN: | 1360-0826 |
| Date: | October 2006 |
| Volume: | Vol.20 |
| Number: | No.4 |
| Page Range: | pp. 435-451 |
| Identification Number: | 10.1080/13600820600929788 |
| Status: | Peer Reviewed |
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access |
| URI: | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2134 |
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