Fair-Trade—the very notion of “helping poor people” by stabilizing and guaranteeing steady market prices in arenas rife with flux—is bullsh*t…from the point of view of an idealistic, right-of-the-right libertarian. So what’s wrong with Fair-Trade, according to these hard-righters? The below is a small excerpt. For more, click Doonesbury comic below and go to “lowercase liberty.”

Fair Trade is the same story on a smaller (and yes, voluntary) scale. When you choose to spend your dollars on Fair Trade products, not only are you not helping out the poorest coffee growers or farm workers; you’re actually steering wealth away from them. I don’t know too many leftists who feel sanguine about further impoverishing the poorest of the working poor, and yet that’s what all leftist economic policy amounts to — even, it turns out, when that policy is pursued peacefully.

For another, more on-the-ground and perhaps less philosophical perspective, click the below photo: