And it doesn’t

Don’t fall for it.

Rich people promote neoliberalism not because it works, but because they get rich off it’s failure. The “free market will fix it” is just another of those lies. The most hated companies in the world continue to bring in record profits.

X continues to operate despite their frontman being plausibly a neo-nazi and undeniably a fuckstain. Whatever damage has been done wasn’t due to the public, but billion dollar companies.

The free market doesn’t fix shit, regulations do. Everything else is just a pantomime.

Sure, pick another word to describe what you were doing and I’ll update my comment.

So am I, but that’s not what you were advocating.

Without regulations, you won’t get “if you can’t ethically provide fast food then there will be no fast food”, you’ll just get another fast food company that’s even more unethical.

“The free market will fix it” seldom works, which is why it’s still pushed as a solution.

Could this hypothetical someone make a more affordable burger ethically, or would they also have to fuck over their employees and suppliers?

Usually, the answer is “no”. Businesses either use all the same sleazy, “race to the bottom” techniques or they go out of business because they offered a more expensive product to people without the luxury of being able to spend more.

But of course if you start paying people more, the billionaires will just fuck them out of that too. They want every dollar you have and they know people will spend every dollar they have to avoid being homeless or hungry.

A lot of the WASM ecosystem is still pretty rough

Do you have any actual point to make or are you just lashing out because people aren’t fellating multi-millionaires? You definitely never elaborated on the real reason “why we are there”.

Companies moved to China because poverty made labour cheap and corruption made regulations minimal, just as the poster said.

That seemed to have upset you, because apparently it’s still not cheap and exploitative enough for you.

Nor is it cheap enough for the companies you’re leaping to the defense of by claiming it’s moving “countries like Indonesia and other SE asian countries”.

But notice where it isn’t moving? Places like Germany (a country globally recognised for their high standard of engineering) or America (despite it being the richest country in the world and the forefront of many technologies).

Instead, it’s moving to places with more poverty and less bargaining power, because those companies are run by cunts and allowed to do cunt things.

Anyway, what do you do for work?

Looks like the comments are mostly neoliberals saying “nuh uh”.

Munfacturing moved to China for the same reason call centres moved to India and sweatshops moved to Vietnam – labour was cheap and easily exploitable.

For the greedy scumbags at the forefront of this, morality wasn’t an issue. The Chinese government could reduce a Tiananmen Square of people to paste every week, as long as there were a few more pennies for executive pockets.

Domestic governments did nothing but look sad about it, since neoliberals had turned them into managed democracies and standing in the way of profit was not allowed.

But they weren’t just racing to the bottom, they were taking everyone with them. How do you compete on price with a company using functional and literal slaves (not to mention pumping toxic shit into skies and rivers without any consequences)?

The answer that slowly unfolded was “you don’t”. Companies either joined in or went bust, both of which worked just fine for the psychopaths.

Neoliberals will claim “Well that’s just the free market at work and if people didn’t want us using slaves, they shouldn’t have bought our slave-made products” but like every bit of economic wisdom that oozes from their mouths, it’s bullshit.

In fact, it’s never been more bullshitty that it is today. Corporations treat their domestic employees with the same kind of contempt and have been gorging themselves on “stolen by omission” wages, using the sheer amount of cheaply produced tat we can buy as misdirection for their slight of hand.

Now, local and/or ethically produced goods are a luxury beyond the means of anyone in the middle class, if they’re even available at all.

The “free market” never truly had the power to address these issues, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking away the opportunity to even try.

So why are companies starting to leave China? Because the manufacturers realised these companies depend on them, giving them bargaining power.

That’s all it takes to get snouts sniffing around for a new market to exploit. Climate change didn’t matter. The brutal authoritarian government didn’t matter. The destruction of local jobs and industries didn’t matter. Somebody asked them to share a few more pennies, so they reacted like an abusive partner with a “lesson” to teach.

There’s only two ways that we will ever see manufacturing jobs in our countries again.

The first is to pry neoliberals from their positions of power within governments and unions, replacing them with actual progressives who will create regulations to prevent this kind of exploitation.

The second is to vote fascist scumbags to bring slavery back to the US.

Nobody who has actually had to compare the costs of local manufacturing vs “send it to China and don’t ask questions” is going to agree with you.