Britain was one of the wellsprings of the Fair Trade movement (history). Yet the country is about to host the 2012 Olympics in which billions of dollars will be collected for television and live ticket sales and the athletes, many of whom come from poor countries, will be paid nothing. One could argue that the athletes are showing up and therefore the current terms (they get $0 in cash) are sufficiently attractive. But isn’t the whole point of Fair Trade that simply paying a market-clearing price may not be fair?
[Separately, should Olympics souvenirs be boycotted by passionate Fair Traders? The T-shirts and plastic toys are being produced in China by workers who get paid minimal wages and sold in Britain for triple or quadruple what the same item would fetch at Walmart, if not stamped with the “London 2012” logo. It seems doubtful that the Olympics organizers are sharing the extra profit with the workers who make the trinkets.]
I would settle for the Olympics not getting taxpayers’ money. The 1984 Los Angeles olympics showed you can actually break even, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
No way. The Olympics should not be about Fair Trade politics but about great sportsmanship and cultural exchange.
It was my understanding that most Olympic athletes are employed by their respective governments. The USA is among the few “secular” nations in which Olympic teams are supported primarily by corporate sponsorship, possibly because all our “unseemly nationalism” public earmarks go to the military and/or the travelers’ harassment bureaucracy. Perhaps developing economies don’t generate enough marketing funds to support competitive quadrennial athletic clubs.
I don’t know whether Fair Traders concern themselves with the scourge of trademarking, but it would seem to dilute their message. It’s not as though one is forced to buy her T-shirts and track pants from the Olympic Committee.
Your points are well-taken here. There has been a lot of business-as-usual drift. This would be a good topic for a gifted investigative journalist & publication in a venue such as Atlantic or Rolling Stone – if undertaken with the most positive intentions for correcting course to shared Olympic goals.