Volition, I have no objections to a market set price, if the market is truly allowed to decide. The problem with the basic duopoly that we have is that two players are allowed to dominate negotiation. Economics 101 teaches very simply that the price is then swayed in favour of the duopoly, rather than being reflective of a number of people competing to both sell and buy. In business valuations we look at a price expected from a sale transaction conducted between a willing and informed buyer and willing and informed seller. The problem in this situation is that the seller is often not willing, but has no other choice. Having one side have the freedom to set terms and hold other market players effectively to ransom, is not an example of free market forces. Nor is having to sell your product alongside others who are free of the market regulation that you are encumbered with. Allow Australian farmers to employ slave labour (or at least only pay a few dollars a week), not provide any leave entitlements or safe working conditions, and let them do as they please to the environment - then you have a true and free market.

Look, I get your point about not boycotting third world products, but how about paying FAIR price for them. Eg, what we'd have to pay for the same Australian product, plus freight. That would give 3rdW countries the chance to achieve economic prosperity, and with means to protect their environment while they do so.

Country Gal, it doesn't matter that the two buyers are in the better position, it is STILL a market. The market is still deciding the price, but you seem to doubt the validity of this process.

"The problem in this situation is that the seller is often not willing, but has no other choice." - The seller obviously was willing to do it if they ended up doing it. They may have WANTED to sell for more, but who wouldn't want to sell their produce for more? I'm sure Woolworths wants to sell it's stuff for more too (assuming we'd all still buy it), are we holding them to ransom?

As for third world products, paying "what we'd have to pay for the same Australian product" isn't a solution. First, the price has to reflect the perceived quality of the good and this is done on price. You're saying people should pay more for the same or inferior good? This truly wouldn't be a market and wouldn't solve anything because this is just inefficient allocation of resources.

Secondly, even if we did start paying them more for the same product, there is no guarantee that things would get better. There is no guarantee that the workers would get paid better, it just means that some of the employers would get to line their pockets with money from our corporations for nothing.

The only way to solve this is to leave it to people's own self-interest(which means 'get out of an industry if you can't compete in it', and generally work to improve your skill set), and as long people from other countries don't boycott them simply because they're "not australian made", we'll see an increase in their living standards. This is the true way to bring them out of poverty.

Hi Volition Pericles, country girl and any one else that is lurking in the background. This thread is obviously one with many aspects. And each of you have very intelligent left brained responses to the siutaions stated, however mostly with mother hood statements.
Where in this picture is there allownaces for care of fellow man, a recognition that some people are born into poverty without the benefit of the great education that you guys have got, where does the buck stop. Do the people with better education and more resources have a duty of care for those less fortunate or not. Or is it always dog eat dog. There seems to be so much justification with intellectual argument as to the righteousness of free market activity, whilct our environment is screwed, our families fall apart, the global population heads towards unsustainable numbers. When are you guys going to use that massive knowledge to help the siuation rather than justify it continuing to be the same to become worse?

A very appropriate Australia Day question, Mungo.

>>Do the people with better education and more resources have a duty of care for those less fortunate or not. Or is it always dog eat dog.<<

I suspect that the immediate gut response is a guilty "I guess we should, really, but where do we start?"

The head then puts in its two cents worth with "heck, I give half of my earnings to the government already, why aren't they doing something?"

Between these two responses lies, I feel, a grain of understanding.

For one thing, there is simply so much suffering in the world that even the Bill Gates Foundation, which has a couple of billion to give away each year, cannot do any more than scratch the surface. I have actually met Patty Stonesifer who is the operational head of the Foundation, and I know her to be a very warm, caring and compassionate person. One of her toughest tasks is dealing with the sheer number of incoming opinions on what her priorities should be. If even she finds it tough handing out Gates' truckloads of moolah, what hope is there for me?

Which automatically leads us to the government. Successive decades of bolstering the welfare state in the pursuit of our votes have led to a situation where most of us believe we have "outsourced" the problem entirely. "No child will go hungry" says Bob, and we all vote for him so that we don't have to worry about it any more. Then he simply tips our taxes into a pit marked "Public Service" and we never see it again.

Nor, unfortunately, do the hungry children.

My personal answer to Mungo's question would probably be yes, I suppose we should try a little harder. But it is really very difficult to know where to start when both the government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with their massive resources both human and financial, can make only token improvements.

So I buy my Big Issue and carry on feeling vaguely guilty.

Mungo in response to the duty of care that we have, I believe it is one that should be carried out with as little government intervention as possible. I'd really prefer that we didn't help people through government social security, and rather we helped people through private charities instead. Everyone would be more inclined to help if they weren't already being taxed to the nose by the government though, with the current system they're much more likely to need the money for themselves.

Volition, let me tell you a story. A friend of mine is a moderate size potato grower. He wishes to sell his produce to the local supermarket so he suggests a price. The supermarket then goes to another local supplier and because he is larger, might be willing to accept a lower price. My friend realises that this will turn into a merry-go-round, so he sells his spuds to the other grower at his price and then the supermarket has to buy from the larger grower at a higher price.

My friend then goes to the local farmers' market and sells some of his crop at a higher price again, which strangely enough, (not really) is still about half the supermarket retail price. He feels that he is asking too much, but the customer thinks it is too cheap.

Country Girl is correct, there is definitely such a thing as an unwilling seller.