Libertarians on “Fair Trade”
Alexander S. Peak3 October 2006
The claim was made at the last Towson University College Democrats meeting that everyone supports fair trade except for libertarians. The implication, though, that libertarians are “against” fair trade or are “anti-fair trade” is false and misleading. I wish to set the record straight.
Libertarians are not against anyone engaging in what is referred to as fair trade. If you choose to buy a fair trade product, this is your choice, and libertarians will never stand in your way. If you wish to exclusively buy fair trade, or even go so far as to boycott that which you don’t deem fair trade,
libertarians will support your freedom to choose to do so. Further, if a business wishes to provide fair trade products to its customers, libertarians are absolutely fine with their choice to do so. In fact, libertarians will even argue that business should be free to sell exclusively fair trade products if they wish to do so.
So, clearly, libertarians are not opposed to fair trade. What libertarians oppose is restrictions on free trade, because they, according to libertarians, are patently unfair. Thus, libertarians oppose subsidies, otherwise referred to as corporate welfare; trade embargos, such as the one we have on the dictatorship of Cuba; and high tariffs, what are taxes on imports. If libertarians were opposed to fair trade, as was the clear implication at the Democrats’ meeting, libertarians could easily support tariffs and excise taxes as a means of limiting the proliferation, use, and sale of fair trade products. However, in fact, libertarians do not support any such restrictions. It’s worth noting that such restrictions would infringe not only upon fair trade, but upon free trade, too!
Logically, therefore, it is impossible to be anti-fair trade and pro-free trade simultaneously. Considering that libertarians are ardent supporters of free trade, it would not behoove us to oppose fair trade, and it would be folly for anyone to assume libertarians do. Besides, if it were the case that libertarians oppose what is referred to as fair trade—which we logically cannot—the College Libertarians of Towson would actively campaign against the efforts to bring more fair trade products to our campus. Yet we’ve engaged in no such campaign.
In summation, despite the implication to the contrary, libertarians are not opposed to fair trade. All we oppose are unfair restrictions on free trade.
