Towards a polanyian perspective on fair trade: Market-based relationships and the act of ethical consumption

Global Society

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 435-451

  Watson, Matthew ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMMODITY MARKET; CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR; ETHICS; INTERNATIONAL TRADE; METHODOLOGY;

HARNESS;

EID: 33750530197     PISSN: 13600826     EISSN: 1469798X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13600820600929788     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time [1944] (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
2. See, for instance, Robert Latham, "Globalisation and Democratic Provisioning: Re-reading Polanyi", New Political Economy, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1997), pp. 53-64;
3. Christine Chin and James Mittelman, "Conceptualizing Resistance to Globalization", in Barry Gills (ed.), Globalization and the Politics of Resistance (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).
4. Keith Hart, "The Idea of Economy: Six Modern Dissenters", in Roger Friedland and A.F. Robertson (eds.), Beyond the Marketplace: Rethinking Economy and Society (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1990), p. 138.
5. Karl Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", in Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberg (eds.), The Sociology of Economic Life (London: Westview Press, 1982), p. 50.
6. See J.R. Stanfield, The Economic Thought of Karl Polanyi: Lives and Livelihood (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 41-47.
7. James Carrier, "Preface", in James Carrier (ed.), Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture (Oxford: Berg, 1997).
8. Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., p. 50.
9. Michael Goodman, "Reading Fair Trade: Political Ecological Imaginary and the Moral Economy of Fair Trade Foods", Political Geography, Vol. 23, No. 7 (2004), pp. 891-915 (p. 891).
10. See, for instance, Laura Raynolds, "Consumer/Producer Links in Fair Trade Coffee Networks", Sociologica Ruralis, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2002), pp. 404-424.
11. Raymond Bryant and Michael Goodman, "Consuming Narratives: The Political Ecology of 'Alternative' Consumption", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2004), pp. 344-366 (p. 348).
12. Marie-Christine Renard, "Fair Trade: Quality, Market and Conventions", Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2003), pp. 87-96 (pp. 88-91).
13. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, op. cit., pp. 43-55; Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., pp. 32-45.
14. On which point, see Michael Hechter, "Karl Polanyi's Social Theory: A Critique", Politics and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1981), pp. 399-429 (pp. 408-409);
15. William Schaniel and Walter Neale, "Karl Polanyi's Forms of Integration as Ways of Mapping", Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2000), pp. 89-104 (pp. 91-93).
16. Ian Hudson and Mark Hudson, "Removing the Veil? Commodity Fetishism, Fair Trade, and the Environment", Organization and Environment, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2003), pp. 413-430 (pp. 426-427).
17. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, op. cit., pp. 56-67; Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., p. 44; for a discussion,
18. see Abraham Rotstein, "Karl Polanyi's Concept of Non-market Trade", Journal of Economic History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1970), pp. 117-126 (pp. 120-121).
19. Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., p. 40.
20. See, for instance, Deidre Shaw and Edward Shiu, "The Role of Ethical Obligation and Self-identity in Ethical Consumer Choice", International Journal of Consumer Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2002), pp. 109-116 (p. 109); Raynolds, op. cit., p. 332; Goodman, op. cit., pp. 891, 906.
21. Gregory Baum, Karl Polanyi on Ethics and Economics (London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996), p. 67.
22. Hechter, op. cit., p. 409.
23. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, op. cit., pp. 47-52.
24. On which point, see Bob Jessop, "Regulationist and Autopoieticist Reflections on Polanyi's Account of Market Economies and Market Society", New Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2001), pp. 213-232 (p. 223).
25. Renard, "Fair Trade: Quality, Market and Conventions", op. cit., p. 89.
26. Goodman, op. cit., p. 898.
27. Hudson and Hudson, op. cit., p. 419.
28. See, for instance, Tony Lawson, Economics and Reality (London: Routledge, 1997);William Tabb, Reconstructing Political Economy: The Great Divide in Economic Thought (London: Routledge, 1999).
29. Samuel Bowles, "What Markets Can - and Cannot - Do", Challenge (July/ August 1991), pp. 11-16 (p. 13).
30. David Harvey, "Between Space and Time: Reflections on the Geographical Imagination", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 80, No. 3 (1990), pp. 418-434 (pp. 422-423).
31. Rotstein, op. cit., p. 126.
32. Hudson and Hudson, op. cit., pp. 417-419.
33. This point is made forcefully in Naomi Klein, No Logo (London: Flamingo, 2000).
34. On this point, see Morris Silver, "Karl Polanyi and Markets in the Ancient Near East: The Challenge of the Evidence", Journal of Economic History, Vol. 43, No. 4 (1983), pp. 795-829.
35. Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., p. 41; for a similar point, see Jessop, op. cit., pp. 255-256.
36. Goodman, op. cit., p. 906.
37. Shaw and Shiu, op. cit., p. 114.
38. Alexandra Hughes, "Retailers, Knowledges and Changing Commodity Networks: The Case of the Cut Flower Trade", Geoforum, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2000), pp. 175-190 (p. 179).
39. Shaw and Shiu, op. cit., pp. 110-111.
40. Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions [1899] (London: Unwin, 1970).
41. This tendency is perhaps most obvious in Karl Polanyi, "Our Obsolete Market Mentality", in George Dalton (ed.), Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1968).
42. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, op. cit., p. 43.
43. The exacting nature of Polanyi's definition of the market economy is discussed in Matthew Watson, Foundations of International Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), ch. 6: "Social Embeddedness within Political Economy: The Work of Karl Polanyi".
44. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, op. cit., pp. 33-129.
45. Polanyi, "The Economy as Instituted Process", op. cit., p. 33.
46. This dimension of the overall fair trade experience is perhaps best illustrated by Bryant and Goodman, op. cit.
47. See, for instance, Nancy Fraser, "Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation", in Larry Ray and Andrew Sayer (eds.), Culture and Economy after the Cultural Turn (London: Sage, 1999), p. 38; Hudson and Hudson, op. cit., p. 419;
48. Renard, "The Interstices of Globalization: The Example of Fair Coffee", Sociologica Ruralis, Vol. 39, No. 4 (1999), pp. 484-500 (p. 484).
49. See, for instance, Oxfam, Mugged: Poverty in Your Coffee Cup (Oxford: Oxfam International, 2002); Harvey, op. cit., p. 423; Raynolds, op. cit., p. 404.
50. I am indebted to one of Global Society's anonymous referees for advising that I follow the line of argument which appears in the rest of this sub-section.
51. Fair Trade Federation, 2005 Report on Fair Trade Trends (Washington, DC: Fair Trade Federation, 2005).
52. Oxfam, op. cit.
53. Renard, "Fair Trade: Quality, Market and Conventions", op. cit., p. 93.
54. Goodman, op. cit., pp. 901, 905.