Well, I think most of the good arguments on both sides are laid out well here.
I’ll only add, as one of those in the pro-globalization camp, that I am very focused on the quality of what I buy, and the total value it provides me. I do favor local products in some cases. For example, wherever I have lived, I seek out the highest quality bakery, and then go to some trouble to buy from them. I deliberately pay more to help them stay in business. Why? Because I love very high quality and very fresh bread, and I will only have that if I and others pay enough for it.
Same with reliability and toxicity of products. I am happy to pay some more for known better quality for me. But I am not happy to pay more, regardless of the quality I am getting, simply because the people making the good happen to live close to me. If some Japanese people can make a better car for the price than Americans, I will buy Japanese (or vice versa). I won’t lose out if that means all cars come from Japan, so I don’t worry about making the right decision. If everyone stops buying from my favorite local baker, I won’t have any local fresh bread. Then I will lose out. So the right decision for me is to support one and not the other. Our personal preferences and circumstances dictate what local support is right for each of us.
But although I support each person exercising their own personal preferences, I remain very leery when that results in simplistic “Buy American” campaigns. Blanket statements tend to follow, like the other people make lower quality goods, or they have barbaric politics or practices. Unless justified by specifics, I think a lot of these blanket statements are misguided, show a lack of respect for others, and are the beginnings of a slippery slope to a very nasty end.
There is that famous Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I would not want New Yorkers to boycott San Diego in favor of the Finger Lakes for their vacations. I would not want Europeans or Chinese to boycott American goods just because they were American. Yes, we can argue about the pluses and minuses of specific goods, and complain about the other guy’s unfair practices, but we are simply making our world a poorer place for us all, and for ourselves, if we allow all that bickering to send us all in the wrong direction.
