WoW Moviewatch: Machinima with a conscience
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 10th 2007 at 10:41AM
Hugh Hancock from Strange Company (one of the coolest ideas for a company on the planet: they produce machinima professionally) sent us his latest work, part of a campaign in support of Fair Trade, the foundation that works around the world against inequality and exploitation for Third-World farmers. I wasn't sure what to expect when I first loaded it up, but it turned out pretty good.
That poor troll! What is Runecloth selling for on the AH now? Somehow I doubt the corporations that take advantage of farmers around the world are orcs in suits saying "Monopolies FTW," but it seems close enough. Kudos to Hugh and company for bringing social and economic ethics to the world of Azeroth.
That poor troll! What is Runecloth selling for on the AH now? Somehow I doubt the corporations that take advantage of farmers around the world are orcs in suits saying "Monopolies FTW," but it seems close enough. Kudos to Hugh and company for bringing social and economic ethics to the world of Azeroth.
Filed under: Virtual selves, Economy, WoW Moviewatch
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim Mar 10th 2007 10:52AM
Fair trade = free trade ... the sooner we dissolve all the protectionist barriers and price controls in the agricultural industry, the sooner farmers in the Third World -- and consumers here in the USA -- will benefit. Don't need any "fairtrade" mark at all...
Ephor Mar 10th 2007 11:45AM
Facts:
- Most of the Fair Trade premium you actually pay goes to the distributer who slaps the seal on the box, NOT the worker.
- The low wage Fair Trade workers receive is a consequence of market dynamics
explanation: when workers are many and employers are few, employers have all the bargaining power, because the workers can't organize.
As a consequence, workers in this situation will NEVER be paid a fair wage AND whatever fraction of the Fair Trade premium makes it into their wage will only incite workers in competitive fields to enter a business arrangement in which they are inevitably at the mercy of their employer (unionization being unrealistic for a people who will starve if they strike, and likely be shot by their own government).
- Fair Trade products, at best, do nothing to help the worker and, at most, harm the society they aim to help.
- The people with the most incentive to popularize Fair Trade are the companies that spend over 50% of the premium.
- Consumers are blissfully ignorant, they don't want to understand economics, they want the warm fuzzy feeling they get from imagining they are helping someone, so Fair Trade distributers and consumers get along quite nicely.
The preceding is courtesy of The Economist magazine.
Varja Mar 10th 2007 11:49AM
That's pretty good. I think they could have thrown in some dialouge to explain how fairtrade works, because it's not really clear from that video.
Still, it's for a good cause :)
tolyre Mar 10th 2007 1:54PM
The only fair trade is trade free of government intervention. If a farmer sells at a price he can live with and a consumer buys at a price he can live with, THAT is fair trade. No one is being exploited, unless you believe it is better for him to not trade at all, than to trade for a price you, or someone other than he and his buyer, deem as 'fair'.
Krianna Mar 10th 2007 2:36PM
@1- A large part of the price difference between countries has to do with how much the gov't spends making the food safe.
Remeber that huge e. coli strawberry problem a while back? Imagine that, world wide, without the FDA to track down the source. It's part of the "all natural" fertalizers uses-- including human, ah, leavings. (Hey, kids read this, I'm trying to be polite.)
My folks are on a beef ranch. The price of our calves goes up about 2c/lb, and we see it go up 40c/lb or more at the store in a month or two.
Daniel Axelrod Mar 10th 2007 9:55PM
This might have been more effective if the troll's runecloth didn't sell at the buyout price. For a commodity item, the buyout price is essentially the maximum. I wouldn't call it exploitation if the supplier deliberately sets their asking price too low.
SuperFan Ken Mar 11th 2007 5:10AM
Please. I get enough of this bleeding heart "We must be fair to everyone" crap in RL. I don't need to see it in Azeroth.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 11th 2007 8:44AM
@1 and @4 - The problem here is inequality of power in negotiation. If there's only one buyer for your coffee beans, you don't have a lot of bargaining power - you sell for what he offers, or you don't sell. Hence "Monopolies FTW"
@2 - Interesting. Can you point me to the source? (I've got a friend who works at The Economist, so I should be able to track down a copy if you can point me to the relevant article). I'm normally pretty cynical about charities, but I've heard from a few sources that Fair Trade are meant to be Good Eggs.
(I've also heard directly from a Malawian farmer who works with Fair Trade, and says that it's fantastic for him and his friends. But that's not conclusive, obviously.)
@6 - Good point! We should have spotted that one...
tolyre Mar 11th 2007 10:57AM
Dangerously off-topic on this I suppose, but to #8, there are literally 10's of thousands of buyers of raw coffee beans (and every other product for that matter). The ONLY monopolies that exist are created by governement intervention. As a seller it is in MY interest to seek them out, to get the most I can for what I sell.Should the fact that I am not as smart as the next farmer who DOES go that extra yard, mean my beans are worth less. Absolutely. Life rewards the smart, as it should. If it rewarded the stupid we would still be in the dark ages. Thankfully that is not the case, and we have WoW, so we can just pretend we live in the Dark Ages.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 11th 2007 8:50PM
Yeah, let's not go too away from WoW here!
@9 - That's a classic free trade argument, and that's certainly the way it would work in WoW. (Yes, our metaphor breaks down at some point).
However, classical economic theory like this assumes equal opportunities on all sides. A small African farmer doesn't have these opportunities. It's very easy for a large, well-organised group like the large coffee buyers to exploit small farmers who don't have access to the kind of information and communication resources we do. Hell, I'd find it hard enough to get contact details for all available coffee buyers for a particular region in Africa - for a smallholder without access to the Internet, libraries, extensive information resources, or even a private telephone line, it's darn near impossible.
If you're the only coffee buyer who that coffee grower can contact, or if you're one of a small number who are all trying to undercut each other on price, you effectively have a monopoly. And at that point it's very easy to exploit the farmers, since you almost certainly have more contacts for coffee farmers than this particular farmer has for buyers.
It's easy to see that exploitation does happen, that it doesn't just happen to the foolish, but often to the smart who have limited resources, and that it's probably not a bad idea to try and exert market pressure from the other end to do something about that.
(Interestingly, the presence of Fair Trade organisations in an agricultural area tends to promote the kind of healthy competitive relationship you're describing. Once there's a genuine alternative, farmers will indeed sell to the higher bidder, and this drives improved conditions for not just those who sell to Fair Trade organsations, but also those who don't. Farmers and Vets Without Frontiers did a study on this in 2005.)
Ahem. OK, I now return you to your regularly-scheduled druid nerfing and raid hotfixes!