尽管贴有公平贸易(Fairtrade)标签的产品所占的市场份额很小，但招致的批评可不少。最新的批评来自位于伦敦的经济事务研究所（Institute of Economic Affairs，简称IEA）——该机构前些天发布了一份长达132页的分析报告：《Fair Trade Without The Froth》。
鉴于该机构55年来一贯倡导自由市场，因此你可能以为，它的抨击还会延续以往的套路：由于向种植从咖啡到棉花等各路产品的农民提供一个最低价格保证，公平贸易扭曲了所处的市场；这实际上是对种植者的一种补贴，因此，该运动是在鼓励生产过剩，阻止穷人转向更有前途的生计。
但该报告的论证却略有不同。该报告作者、经济学家苏希尔•莫汉(Sushil Mohan)有着长期与茶叶和咖啡行业、以及印度工商部打交道的经历。
他承认，公平贸易产品的购买者与其他消费者一样，不过是在做一个选择。"公平贸易与传统贸易一样仰仗市场力量，"他写道。"公平贸易之所以有效，不是因为它为没人要的商品提供补贴，而是因为一些自由市场的消费者乐意支持它。"
这当然没错。购买公平贸易巧克力对巧克力市场的扭曲，不比购买一个路易威登(Louis Vuitton)手袋对手袋市场的扭曲作用大。在这两种情况下，购买者都在发出同样的信号：他们乐意花更多的钱，购买一个名牌包，或是购买可以让可可种植者生活得好一些的巧克力。
手袋能彰显身份，前提是所有者属于相关的圈子。而公平贸易能让购买者获得帮助最需要的人的满足感。正如莫汉所言，真正的问题在于：公平贸易是否真的帮助了那些最需要的人。他此言不差。
消费者越来越相信它真的管用。尽管2009年，公平贸易产品仅占全球食品和饮料销售额的0.01%，但在1998年至2007年间，这部分收入每年增加逾40%，而2008年和2009年的增幅分别为22%和15%。在某些领域，该运动产生了相当大的影响。尽管去年公平贸易咖啡仅占全球咖啡市场的1%，但却占到英国咖啡粉零售额的20%。
公平贸易消费者是否带来了他们心目中的那种改变？莫汉怀疑，他们是否在帮助世界上最贫穷的人。获得公平贸易认证的费用相对较高：第一年1570英镑。莫汉表示，其结果就是，这一运动帮助的更有可能是中等收入国家的农民。2007年，排在公平贸易认证国家前四位的分别为墨西哥、哥伦比亚、秘鲁和南非。
他还质疑到底有多大比例的公平贸易价格溢价真正流进生产者的腰包。他所引用的研究显示，这一比例介于10%至25%之间。他质疑公平贸易体系是否得到很好的监控，他提到2006年英国《金融时报》的一项调查发现，秘鲁几家公平贸易咖啡农场付给临时工的工资低于该国最低工资。
公平贸易组织反驳道，这项运动在最贫穷的国家也收到了效果，例如在马里、民主刚果、埃塞俄比亚、坦桑尼亚、阿富汗和其它国家。它表示，对于那些无力负担认证费用的人，相关方面会提供援助。对于英国《金融时报》关于秘鲁的那篇报道，公平贸易组织没有给我一个结论性的答案，但该组织表示，工人在报道所涉农场挣得的收入，比他们在秘鲁其它地方能够挣得的收入高出25%。
到底有多大比例的溢价流进生产者的腰包？公平贸易组织表示，莫汉把零售价格溢价与"社会溢价"(social premium)混为一谈，社会溢价是指生产者可用来建造学校、诊所或打井的一笔款项。零售价格溢价并不总是存在。卖公平贸易产品的一些企业，例如卖香蕉的森宝利(J Sainsbury)、卖冰淇淋的Ben & Jerry's、以及卖巧克力的吉百利(Cadbury)，在转投公平贸易阵营时，并没有上调相关产品的价格。公平贸易组织强调，尽管如此，生产者依然享受到了最低价格和全部社会溢价。2006年英国《金融时报》另一项针对马里公平贸易棉花的调查发现，社会溢价已用于建造学校和混凝土粮仓，该体系看上去运转良好。
莫汉提出的其它批评是：自由贸易和市场开放让数百万贫困人口摆脱了贫困，公平贸易永远不可能做到这一点。这的确是事实。他还表示，公平贸易并非一项普世发展战略。考虑到公平贸易目前的规模很小，这一点很可能也是事实。但那又如何呢？相对于自由贸易，公平贸易给其受益者带来的更多是促进。而且，它似乎不会造成任何损害。我们有更重要的事情需要关注，例如美国和欧洲的农业补贴，它们真的会损害穷人的利益。在这一点上，莫汉和公平贸易组织意见一致。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001035715
For a movement whose products have such a small market share, Fairtrade attracts more than its fair share of critics. The latest, the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, last week published a 132-page analysis, Fair Trade Without The Froth.
Given the IEA's 55-year championing of free markets, you might expect its attack to follow familiar lines: that Fairtrade, which guarantees farmers minimum prices for products from coffee to cotton, distorts the markets in which it operates. By effectively subsidising growers, it encourages over-production and discourages poor communities from shifting to more promising ways of supporting themselves.
The IEA's author, Sushil Mohan, an economist with long experience in the tea and coffee industries, as well with India's commerce ministry, is more nuanced than that.
He accepts that a Fairtrade buyer is, like any other consumer, simply making a choice. "Fairtrade rests as much on market forces as conventional trading does," he writes. "Fairtrade works not because it subsidises goods no one wants, but because some free market consumers are willing to support it."
This is surely true. Buying Fairtrade chocolate no more distorts the chocolate market than buying a Louis Vuitton handbag distorts the handbag market. In both cases buyers are sending signals: that they are prepared to spend more on a bag with a prestigious label, or on chocolate that provides cocoa growers with a better life.
The handbag confers the prestige, provided the owner mixes in the relevant circles. Fairtrade gives the buyers the satisfaction of helping those who need it most. As Mr Mohan rightly says, the real question is whether Fairtrade really does help those who need it most.
Increasingly, consumers believe it does. Although Fairtrade products represented only 0.01 per cent of worldwide food and beverage sales in 2009, their revenues rose by more than 40 per cent annually between 1998 and 2007, by 22 per cent in 2008 and by 15 per cent in 2009. In some niches, the movement exercises considerable clout. Although Fairtrade accounted for only 1 per cent of the worldwide coffee market last year, it captured 20 per cent of UK retail sales of ground coffee.
Are Fairtrade consumers making the difference they think they are making? Mr Mohan questions whether they are helping the world's poorest. The cost of obtaining Fairtrade certification is relatively high: £1,570 in the first year. The result, he says, is that Fairtrade is more likely to help farmers in middle income countries. In 2007, the four leading Fairtrade-certified nations were Mexico, Colombia, Peru and South Africa.
He also asks how much of the Fairtrade price premium actually goes to the producers. He cites studies that put the figures at between 10 per cent and 25 per cent. He questions how well the system is monitored, referring to a 2006 Financial Times investigation that found several Fairtrade coffee farms in Peru were paying casual workers below the country's minimum wage.
Fairtrade counters that the movement operates in the poorest countries too: Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Afghanistan and others. It says there is support for those who cannot afford the certification fees. Fairtrade did not provide me with a conclusive answer to the FT's Peru article, although it said the farm workers concerned were earning 25 per cent more than they could elsewhere in the country.
How much of the price premium goes to producers? Fairtrade said Mr Mohan had confused the retail price premium with the "social premium", a sum that producers use to build schools, clinics or dig bore holes. There isn't always a retail price premium. Several sellers of Fairtrade products, such as J Sainsbury (bananas), Ben & Jerry's (ice cream) and Cadbury (chocolate), switched to Fairtrade without charging consumers extra. Fairtrade insists that producers still receive the minimum price and all of the social premium. Another 2006 FT investigation into Fairtrade cotton in Mali found that the social premium had built schools and concrete grain stores and that the system appeared to work well.
Mr Mohan's other criticism is that free trade and the opening of markets has lifted many more millions out of poverty than Fairtrade ever could. That is true. He adds that Fairtrade is not a strategy for development worldwide. Given its small size, that is probably true too. But so what? Fairtrade gives its beneficiaries more of a lift than free trade does on its own. And it doesn't appear to do any harm. There are more important things to focus on, such as US and European farm subsidies. They really do hurt the poor. That is something on which Mr Mohan and Fairtrade agree.
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