Christian Felber is a writer, lecturer and contemporary dancer. He founded the Economy for the Common Good movement, which has spread around the world.
He has been thinking about how trade could work for humanity for the last decade and published Trading for Good: How Global Trade Can be Made to Serve People Not Money in 2019 and recently published a proposal for reform for the EU with fellow authors Prof. Brigitta Herrmann and Jürgen Knirsch . The Mint spoke with him to get a better understanding of his proposals for Ethical World Trade better and explore how they could be implemented.
Summary
Key Takeaways
- Felber proposes “ethical world trade” as an alternative to the false dichotomy between free trade and protectionism
- He advocates for trade to serve higher goals like human rights, peace, and climate protection, rather than being an end in itself
- Felber suggests reforming international institutions to make noble goals enforceable, not just trade rules
- He sees potential for the EU to lead on trade reform, despite current trade tensions with the US
Topics
Ethical World Trade Proposal
- Positions trade as a means to serve higher goals, not an end in itself
- Aims to align trade with objectives like human rights, peace, democracy, climate protection
- Proposes enforceable agreements on goals, not just trade rules
- Suggests allowing countries flexibility on openness/protection, with balanced trade as condition
Critique of Current Trade System
- World Trade Organization (WTO) makes trade rules enforceable, but not higher goals
- Current system can force countries to be more open than desired
- US-China tensions partly due to large US trade deficit ($1 trillion) with no solution offered
Implementation Strategy
- Spread idea via opinion leaders and academic publications
- Focus on reforming EU trade policy, starting with Article 206
- Increase democracy to allow citizens to mandate trade policy approach
Historical Context
- Builds on previous attempts like Keynes’ Bancor plan from 1944
- References UNCTAD as precedent for trade serving development
- Notes Germany’s 1967 law on balanced trade, recent citizen council recommendation
