It would be interesting to start a poll - how many people thought that they were the same thing at some point, and how many people end up having to clarify the difference to family/friends?

As a Fair Trade Organization we get a lot of local press. It does not matter how often we stress the difference, I would say 50% of the time they get confused and it comes out in print that we support Free Trade. If news reporters get this confused, its no wonder the general public do not know the difference.

We have a lot of work to do.....

I agree with Global Crafts that we have a lot of work to do! Here are the results of my Google searches:

OK - I supposed it's best not to read too much into this :).

Below is an entry that I read from Greg Mankiw's blog, http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/.

It's another interesting take with data on the American public's perception of free trade.

28 % of the American public said globalization is good, while 58 % said it is bad.

Note that even the pro-trade part of the question presumes a mercantilist approach to the issue. In actuality, trade is not primarily about more or fewer jobs but about allocating labor among industries toward those in which we have a comparative advantage. I doubt, however, that a more economically literate rewording of the question would have found the American public sympathetic to globalization.

I still hear people using the term "free trade" when they mean "fair trade," even when they consider themselves supporters of the movement. No wonder people are confused! I've been working on a polite way to correct someone when I hear them mis-using these terms because after all, this is all about education.

There is definitely a lot of confusion over definitions! Hopefully terminology will become more consistently applied though as Fair Trade, ethical sourcing etc become more mainstream business practices.

To take the thread in a slightly different direction though: is there any reason that Fair Trade and Free Trade should not be viewed as complementary, rather than as different schools of thought?