• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -101 month ago

    Global trade hasn’t helped anyone except Big Business and Wall St. Small businesses hardly ever prosper under the various tariffs and taxation rules, and the average person never benefits from all the plastic shit (including clothing) that forms a fair portion of trade.

    • @Grimy
      link
      English
      141 month ago

      The only reason our shit is so cheap is because it’s made by children in other countries.

      Of course we’re benefitting from it. The ceos are keeping a big part of the pie but let’s not pretend we aren’t getting some of it too.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        51 month ago

        I’d like to add what I think is probably the biggest benefit. Economies of scale.

        For example, having a mine next to a steel plant next to a manufacturing plant is so much more efficient than shipping the ore to every corner of the earth that it would be impossible to have most of what we have today without doing such things.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        01 month ago

        So the average person doesn’t really benefit then.

        Especially when you remember that the US also has both child and slave labour, microplastics are everywhere-in everything-and everyone, that politicians who are supposed to be looking out for citizens have been bought off by Big Business, and governments often only do something about it when it benefits Big Business.

        • @Grimy
          link
          English
          51 month ago

          We benefit from low prices. Not that we shouldn’t invest in our own manufacturing capabilities, just that we receive benefits from globalization even if it predominantly benefits the corporations.

          Not to mention that everything you said would still happen regardless of where it’s built. As with many things, the actual problem is our economic system. Big business eating the earth, keeping most of the profits and feeding us poison is a symptom that doesn’t go away just by bringing back the factories.

    • Flying SquidM
      link
      English
      71 month ago

      The electronic device you are using is only possible through a global trade network.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      51 month ago

      So you’re good paying 10x-50x more to only use locally sourced, locally made, locally sold products, right? Think all the people in the country are as well?

    • Flying SquidM
      link
      English
      41 month ago

      Hence wanting the world globalized like in Star Trek and not like the way anyone is actually trying to do it.

        • Rikudou_Sage
          link
          fedilink
          English
          41 month ago

          I know it sounds like a blasphemy, but for a few seconds let’s pretend not everyone has seen Star Trek.

          • Flying SquidM
            link
            English
            31 month ago

            Then asking what the person who is referencing Star Trek means seems like a better option.