Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how buying expensive consumer electronics helps either, given how the excess profits continue to be captured rather than fairly distributed. There's even case studies celebrating these COOs turned CEOs for how well they've "optimised" their supply chains.
Well, my point was more to stop buying consumer electronics we don't really need, that just marginally increase our quality of life. Not that we should buy expensive electronics instead.
The parts of our society that profit off cheap offshore labor are quick to spin stories accusing people of being nationalist/protectionist/racist, but their profit margin is being defended in the process and the issues distracted from.
At the same time, if I lived in a largely agrarian society and factory work offered me the choice to get out of poor farm labor work, I’d jump at it the same way my ancestors did. I feel most of us can appreciate the value and prosperity that the global supply chain has brought, while simultaneously lamenting the destruction of domestic industry and the exploitation that has accompanied it.
We don’t have to be all-for or all-against, though I think when “free trade” agreements come up, they should be regarded very suspiciously, and when accusations fly about nationalism and protectionism, those should be seen as the cheap and distracting rhetorical devices they are.