Unfair Trade: How Big Business Exploits The World's Poor And Why It Doesn't Have To

Description

Many of our favourite brands now openly espouse 'ethical' credentials, so how is it that they can import billions of pounds' worth of goods from the developing world every year while leaving the people who produce them barely scraping a living? Are they being cynically opportunistic? Or is it that global commerce will always be incompatible with the eradication of poverty? And, if so, are charity and fair trade initiatives the only way forward? In "Unfair Trade" Conor Woodman travels the world - from Nicaragua to the Congo and from Laos to Afghanistan - to establish the truth. In the course of his journeys he uncovers some truly shocking stories about the way big business operates, but he also sees a way forward that could reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.

Promotion info

Why the world's poor continue to lose out in the global market - and what can be done about it.

Reviews

"Conor Woodman's Unfair Trade""is proof that economics can be both vivid and accessible. By rootling through the developing world's sweatshops, plantations and mines he explores whether Big Business can also be Ethical Business. Read this book and you will never look at the goods in a high street shop window in quite the same way." - Tim Butcher

Author description

Conor Woodman is a former City analyst. In 2009, Channel 4 broadcast his four-part series, Around the World in 80 Trades, in which he sold his property and used GBP25,000 of the proceeds to kick-start his journey through 13 countries.