In a world of high finance, unprecedented technological change, and
cyber billionaires, it is easy to forget that a major source of
global wealth is, literally, right under our noses. Coffee is one
of the most valuable Southern exports, generating billions of
dollars in corporate profits each year, even while the majority of
the world’s 25 million coffee families live in relative
poverty.
But who is responsible for such vast inequality? Many analysts
point to the coffee market itself, its price volatility and
corporate oligarchy, and seek to ‘correct’ it through fair trade,
organic and sustainable coffee, corporate social responsibility,
and a number of market-driven projects. The result has been
widespread acceptance that the ‘market’ is both the cause of
underdevelopment and its potential solution.
Against this consensus, Gavin Fridell provocatively argues that
state action, both good and bad, has been and continues to be
central to the everyday operations of the coffee industry, even in
today’s world of ‘free trade’. Combining rich history with an
incisive analysis of key factors shaping the coffee business,
Fridell challenges the notion that injustice in the industry can be
solved ‘one sip at a time’ – as ethical trade promoters put it.
Instead, he points to the centrality of coffee statecraft both for
preserving the status quo and for initiating meaningful changes to
the coffee industry in the future.
Table of Content
1. The Global Market and Coffee Statecraft
2. Making Coffee
3. Pro-Poor Regulation
4. Coffee Unleashed?
5. Fair Trade and Corporate Power
6. Coffee and the Non-Developmental State
About the author
Gavin Fridell is professor of International Development at St
Mary’s University, Canada.
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