Lessons from the Cadbury saga
Alison Leonard asks what can be learnt from the Kraft buy-out of Cadbury
Cadbury’s capitulation to Kraft has struck a body-blow at Quaker values. Any of us who saw or took part in the Leaveners’ production of George and the Chocolate Factory; those of us who have watched Cadbury’s laborious and painstaking moves towards Fair Trade; those Woodbrooke course-goers who sit quietly at evening epilogue in the Cadbury room – all of us, surely, must go into mourning at this turn of events. The interests of money-dealers have been placed above the interests of working people, families and communities. The pressures of international casino finance have crushed ideals of localism and common purpose. The shadow of dread hangs over Bournville. And this is only one more example in the ghastly list of sell-offs of livelihoods, traditions, human and planetary resources, all under a government which, in Tony Blair’s words, is ‘constantly seeking to improve life for the people of our country’.
What can be salvaged from this disaster? Two things, maybe – one distant, one nearer home.
The first is Barack Obama’s decision to take on the banks and separate proper, genuine banking from its casino operations. Let us pressurise our government, the present one and whatever government emerges after the election, to listen to the voice of Vince Cable and follow Barack Obama’s lead.
The other is that this battle of Kraft for Cadbury has brought Quaker values into the public arena: values of honesty, community, and the vital connection between the macro-economics of wheeler-dealering with the micro-economics of ordinary people’s everyday life and daily bread. We must capitalise on that. Seize it, keep it alive in the minds of the public. Write to our MPs, write to the papers; stand by the people of Bournville and the Cadbury workforce; and put our strength behind Fair Trade and against the selling of people’s livelihoods for distant profit.
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