A couple of problems:
1.  The political goals we have, and their relative importance, are also framed by our political understanding. All our political parties want a “prosperous Australia”, but the Liberal and Green picture of what it looks like would be quite different.  I fear it is simplistic to assume we can agree on political end-goals Biblically.
2.  There is an entire Christian subculture across the river from me who sincerely believe that God votes Liberal.  They won’t accept that politics is a wisdom issue unless my wisdom is the same as theirs. What’s the appropriate response?

Hi Ellen

Thanks for the comments. You’re quite right of course—what goals we think are worth pursuing will be decisively shaped by our view of the world, by our core beliefs (not just our political understanding, but our theological understanding). I was more referring to the fact that as Christians we might share the same moral principle (to pursue justice, for example), but find ourselves disagreeing about the best way to do that in terms of public policy.

On your second point, how do you respond to people who turn matters of freedom into matters of righteousness? I would say be patient and accepting of them as ‘weaker brothers’, and keep trying to educate their consciences.

TP

OK, so there’s a difference between a matter of principle on which Scripture gives us no real option (ie, we ought to be generous to the poor) and a particular tactic in response (Free Trade coffee). To often the latter is confused with the former.

Obviously, I’m very late to this party. And, I know that the broader point of the post was not about fair trade as such, but about “means and ends” and legitimate Christian disagreement about the one (fair trade) in the midst of agreement about the other (reducing poverty). However, undaunted:

The Financial Post article you link to seems to make selective use of the original research. You can find the paper, “Profits and Poverty” here: http://mulch.cropsoil.uga.edu/courses/tropag/CR2010/coffeelib/Coffee profits & poverty.pdf

The original research is not particularly positive about the effects of organic and fairtrade certification (not only fairtrade as the article and this blogpost imply), but it is also not as negative as seems to be suggested.

First, it’s a household survey covering a small number of producers in one part of Nicaragua. It shouldn’t be dismissed on that basis, but does mean that more research needs to be done to see if these findings hold up for other groups or on a larger scale – a point the authors themselves make.

On the pro-F/T side, the research points out that organic and organic/FT producers did relatively better than conventional producers during the crash of coffee prices (1998-2001).

On the anti-F/T side, the research points out that they have done relatively worse during a time when world coffee prices have been increasing.

Why? It seems possible (even likely) that the higher labour requirements for families that were already poorer and more vulnerable and working smaller plots of land reduced their profitability. But the authors themselves say they “cannot rule out the possibility that the results are inluenced by selection bias.”

So, in fact, no very strong conclusions there.

But if some certified farmers have experienced increased poverty levels in this region, then F/T schemes need to look in detail at that. And try to fix whatever factors are at work.

Like micro-credit and micro-enterprise, F/T can increase household income, but it can also leave people either no better off, or possibly even more vulnerable under some circumstances it seems.

So, in short, I agree with you that as Christians we need in general to work for close agreement on ends as far as possible, but retain flexibility about means, as these will often be highly context-dependent.

I think the last thing worth noting is that Nicaragua’s coffee trade continues in a global system in which the richest countries provide the largest subsidies to their producers, and over-production is still driven by the export-oriented policies imposed on so many poor countries by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

How you choose to consume (fair trade or not) within a rigged system may not, in the end, make all that much of a difference to the victims of that system.

Though I suggest that the other aspects of most fair trade schemes I know of (support to the poorest producers, guaranteed minimum prices, support for education and training) are worth supporting even in this less-than-second-best world.