Coffee

In a world of high finance, unprecedented technological change, andcyber billionaires, it is easy to forget that a major source ofglobal wealth is, literally, right under our noses. Coffee is oneof the most valuable Southern exports, generating billions ofdollars in corporate profits each year, even while the majority ofthe world's 25 million coffee families live in relativepoverty.

But who is responsible for such vast inequality? Many analystspoint to the coffee market itself, its price volatility andcorporate 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 beenwidespread acceptance that the "market" is both the cause ofunderdevelopment and its potential solution.

Against this consensus, Gavin Fridell provocatively argues thatstate action, both good and bad, has been and continues to becentral to the everyday operations of the coffee industry, even intoday's world of "free trade." Combining rich history with anincisive analysis of key factors shaping the coffee business, Fridell challenges the notion that injustice in the industry can besolved "one sip at a time" - as ethical trade promoters put it.Instead, he points to the centrality of coffee statecraft both forpreserving the status quo and for initiating meaningful changes tothe coffee industry in the future.