Rippling: How Social Entrepreneurs Spread Innovation Throughout the World

Chapter 9

A Better Model of Capitalism—United States

Paul Rice is the founder, president, and CEO of FairTrade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States. The organization's mission is to enable sustainable development and community empowerment and to cultivate a more equitable global trade model that benefits farmers, workers, consumers, industry, and the earth.

You know, there's a poverty statistic that sears my brain: 2 billion people on this planet live on $2 a day. I've lived in the global south long enough to know that even on a diet of rice, beans, and tortillas three times a day, $2 is not enough to eat. So in the pale of things, the 1.4 million families representing 8 million people that Fair ...