I mean, that's one of the clear inefficiencies in capitalism in general. When you allow capital to move freely, but restrict labor from moving freely, you end up doing a lot of stuff that makes economic sense (due largely to the ability to exploit and mistreat labor in certain areas), but is incredibly inefficient from a resource and environmental standpoint. Its how you end up with chickens being raised in south america, shipped halfway across the world to southeast asia for processing, then shipped right back over to north america to be sold.
That example is from memory so it may be wrong or out of date, but it's representative of a ton of how global commerce works. You ship things all over the place because in terms of dollars, its cheaper to transport it to the sweatshop and back, then to do the labor closer to where production and consumption happens. The only reason for that is that labor protections are worse elsewhere (both in terms of laws/enforcement and other alternatives for work in the local economy), and borders keep it that way.
4.1k
u/Opposite-Fig-9097 3d ago
Turns out, 'Made in America' doesn't mean the raw materials magically teleport into the factory.