[nicoburns]

I think you've just illustrated the problem with laissez faire economics. It rewards only efficiency (and short term efficiency at that - resilience is often not accounted for), even if that's not what people might choose (they can choose otherwise, but not for long becauss those other modalities will be outcompeted out of existence).

We could have a way out of this if we restructured our economy so that decision making power didn't solely rest with owners of capital, and taxed companies ina more strongly progessive manner to prevent winner-takes-all situations. That would enable companies to make decisions that were not solely for financial reasons and allow for more diversity in business models and practices.

[teataster]

Efficiency is rewarded by consumer buying (voting with money) efficiently produced products.

It's not some abstract evil ideal that drives the market. It's people doing purchases.

Now, good markets need good (perfect to be precise) information. If people knew this is where we would end up (say most production moved to Asia), would they have made different choices (say to preserve manufacturing in US EU with better worker conditions)?

I would argue our economic system is just fine. But we fail in political, educational and ethical issues. Especially ethical, people know about horrible conditions in sweatshops, still there are massive queues to shop at low cost brands. I feel clothing as the most egregious, because there are decent alternative choices.

[nicoburns]

> Efficiency is rewarded by consumer buying (voting with money) efficiently produced products.

Right, but the fact that our economic outcomes are decided by consumers is an artifact of our economic system, not some necessary truth. There are a lot if upsides to such a system, but as discussed in this thread there are also downsides.

> I would argue our economic system is just fine. But we fail in political, educational and ethical issues

I disagree here. Our economic system makes sweatshop clothes cheaper (we could for example regulate or raise tariffs against them). That means that making thw ethical choice becomes a sacrifice of sorts, and not only that but it puts people who don't make that choice at a comparative advantage (they have more money left over), which effectively makes their influence over the rest of the economy greater.

We should be doing better in terms of political and ethical education, but we should also be ssetting up economic incentives to do the ethical thing not the opposite.

[oblio]

> But we fail in political, educational and ethical issues.

What if people just don't care?