You don't get it. This is not a moral argument, it is about economic inevitability.
You can not be long term more prosperous than the rest of the world, while consuming more and producing less. The prosperity in the west is the result of historic circumstance, where mass production of basically every good allowed for an enormous export of goods, while the west was radically innovating in science and engineering and every other field. That is where the prosperity came from.
50 years ago the average American auto worker was genuinely 10x more effective than his Chinese counterpart. That is why he earned so much more. Right now that is no longer the case. American companies can not make money by selling US made cars in China, it is an insane economic proposition. In fact American companies can not really make money selling cars anywhere but America (maybe some in Europe), which means that there is less money that American auto workers can make by producing cars.
>To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract notion of some universal economic efficiency. Though you can easily argue we're headed that way, it's mostly because of government capture by multinational corps.
It is not ridiculous. It is inevitable and begging the government to stop it, is like begging the government to make 1 plus 1 equal 3. There is no economic policy that makes China less of a competitor. Whatever anyone "deserves" is putting a moral spin on something which is not a moral question.
China is just as good as America at making cars, in fact it is much better, especially at lower price points. This significantly lower the economic value any American worker can provide and by that it lowers the prosperity he can gain.
>Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people.
But it is competition between countries.