[QUOTE=Renob]
So if the economy is doing poorly it makes sense to force consumers to buy goods and services at higher prices?
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Of course not. It’s a free market economy. If you had taken the trouble to read my post in detail, you’d have noticed that I didn’t advocate removing this choice from people at all. I merely stated why I personally dislike WalMart and why WalMart hurts towns like mine.
[QUOTE=Renob]
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
I would rather spend $200 on a pair of boots made in Montana than $150 on a pair made in China or Mexico (or even Texas). Hopefully, the guy that made those boots will stop by and do some shopping in my town. Somehow, I doubt that the Chinese kid who made your WalMart shirt will be buying any American products in the near future.
[/QUOTE]
You really don’t understand much about economics, do you? So you would willingly impoverish yourself by $50 because of some vague sense of loyalty to someone who happens to live near you? The person who lives near you making those boots is inefficient. It is not the best use of money to pay him more when you can buy the same product from somewhere else for less money. If you buy the cheaper pair of boots you have both the boots and another $50 to spend. That’s good for the economy. It rewards those who are efficient and forces those who are inefficient to move to a more productive line of work.
[/QUOTE]
No, it’s you that doesn’t understand. Looking at pure economics on a global scale doesn’t factor in quality of life. I could live better economically if I moved to a city and shopped at WalMart. I could simply ignore the poor people living around me (screw 'em, they’re obviously not efficient). If I did own a house, I could annoy my neighbors by letting the yard go to seed (lawn care isn’t the most economically efficient use of my time) and dumping my old car on the lawn to rust (it costs me less than taking it to a dump–economic efficiency again).
If I want to live where I do, where there’s beautiful scenery everywhere, I know most of the people I pass on the street, and I don’t have to lock my house, then I feel an obligation to help support that community. If I live here and shop at Wal*Mart, I’m nothing but a leech, expecting others to keep the shops going downtown so that when I am in a hurry or I do need a salesperson that understands the products, they’ll be there waiting for me.
I’m not impoverishing myself by $50 by supporting an inefficient local. I’m keeping a way of life going that I quite enjoy. Sure, the Mexican assembly line is a more efficient way to make boots, but the road to your kind of efficiency is the road to the Soviet Union of the 1970s. It was more efficient to have specific states focused on specific industries, and it led to sameness, supply problems, and the eventual collapse of the economy.
[QUOTE=Renob]
And as far as buying from elsewhere, you do realize that we live in a global economy, right? I’m sure that even in Montana there are a lot of products that are sent overseas. I’m sure that a lot of your products are also sent to other states or even other parts of the state. And Montana depends on tourism pretty heavily, too. What if I took your short-sighted attitude and said, “hey, I want to see Glacier National Park, but when I go up there and check into a hotel the Montanan that I give my money to will likely never buy anything from Maryland, so I’m just going to take a boat tour of the Chesapeake Bay”?
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Oh, take your strawman to someone else’s Burning Man party. Tourism and products sold at a Wal*Mart have dramatically different economic structures.
“Global economy” is a handy phrase for people to throw out when they don’t understand that “economy” starts in your household, moves to your community, then to your nation, and then to the world. It’s the interaction of all of these economies that makes up our reality. If those who don’t care about the concept of community would just get the heck out of towns like this, then they could go and be “efficient in the global economy” and we could keep a thriving community going as a part of the global economy in the long term. See?
[QUOTE=Renob]
The comparative advantage you give up by your localist attitude makes both you poorer and makes others poorer.
[/QUOTE]
Pay attention here; this is important. I am not saying (and never did say) that I believe in localism to the exclusion of nationalism or a global economy. Believe me, there are enough short-sighted people buying cheap Chinese shirts that I pose no threat to their economy. But if nationalistic problems arise in the future and trade with China is interrupted, I certainly hope someone other than me will have kept some alternatives alive. And in the meantime, I’ve helped to keep a thriving economy going locally.
How on earth can you feel that I’m making people poorer when I pay $50 extra to support the bootmaker down the road, when others are spending $1,000 extra to support some French or Italian designer? What’s the difference? They’re spending 10 times what I’m spending and doing nothing whatsoever to support their community or country. Go get on their case instead.
On edit, I read your last post, Renob. You should have a chance someday to see that people can and do care about their neighbors sometimes, and that communities like the one I live in exist because we do actually think beyond the narrow confines of our own pocketbooks. Maybe your cynical and selfish attitude would persist beyond that, but I somehow doubt it.
