If the Indian were smart enough to slap an "organic" label on his apple, he'd sell them like hotcakes to NYC yuppies and to anyone in CA, the entire west coast or most of the east coast.
He would have less overhead and would be selling his apple for double!
In fact, this was the very exact advice we were giving nine developing nations that attended a joint FIELD/UNCTAD* roundtable in Geneva when I was interning there.
I remember the delegate from Tunasia saying that EVERYTHING grown there was organic, simply due to the lack of money for fertilizer and pesticides.
Now, these farms and factories in other countries are largely OWNED by US companies (e.g., almost all of Cincinnati-based Chiquita Bananas' farms are in Nicaragua), but that doesn't help the problem. The jobs and benefits of the employed labor force leave this country, and the factories move and pollute more over there. The fact that a handful of corporate fat cats in the US are getting paid $1mil+/yr. to manage this whole ordeal does not help the US population nor economy very much. All it does is serve to widen the gap between the wealthy and the poor in the US.
To extend the example past the apple and use a few real-world examples:
1. On manufactured goods: the VW bug made in Mexico is made under less strict enviro standards yet no one asks "how much soil did you pollute or laborers were injured/underpaid when making this car" when they buy a car.
2. The EU/US banana fight is all about the EU wanting to protect (through tarriff) small island peoples, who grow bananas the beautiful romantic traditional way, from the big bad Chiquita Bananas, grown with intense chemical use by underpaid Central American workers: the "better grown" product again just can't compete.
Ergo, there is no logical connection between the externality and the marketability of the item. Your logic does not follow.
(See, I'm not so bad at chess.
)
* Foundation for International Environmental Law & Development and
United Nations Commission on Trade & Development
[ 09-23-2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]