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.