system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I think "Buy Local" or "Buy American" are unhelpful concepts and, in many cases, even morally objectionable. CMV.

We hear it all the time. People place a large amount of abstract benefit to a purchase made locally. e.g., 'A t-shirt made in the US is more desirable than a t-shirt made in Vietnam.' Or, 'I only buy coffee at local coffee shops and not chains.'

I think you should buy items from wherever in the world that offers you the best combination of price and functionality in the product.

Many people cite a vague concept of keeping money in the local economy but there's not much economic evidence to back this up. I'd love to see it if anyone has it. If the concept of 'foreign-made' is bad, where do you draw the line? Buying American is better than foreign. Buying from your state is better than national. Buying from your local community is better than some company in a state far away. But why stop there? Why buy anything outside of the people on your block or even your own home?  That way, your money never even leaves your home and just keeps recirculating between family members.

Certainly if you believe the quality of a foreign good to be inferior, it can be a reasonable decision to spend your money with a different manufacturer. But many times the foreign product might even be of better quality but gets demerits for not being made locally.

Here's where the moral angle comes in. By choosing to give special privilege to shopping at a local store, you are saying that this person is more deserving of your money than a person in a far-away land. Assume you are choosing between two scented candles of identical quality, one made locally and the other produced by a company in a 3rd-world country. Likely, the maker of your local candle is much better off financially than the foreign worker. Why does this person deserve your money more, especially when it's likely that the person in the 3rd world needs the money more desperately?

Now, some caveats. I recognize that there are some serious human rights issues at stake in this subject. I do not want to turn a blind eye to them but, in my opinion, the best way to confront those is through positive change in working with those companies to better their working conditions as opposed to stopping doing all business with them altogether. A good example of this is Apple. They work with a lot of suppliers and many of them have had some serious ethical issues with their workforces in the past. Apple didn't abandon the suppliers but instead has worked very hard with them to improve wages and working conditions. According to independent auditors, conditions have improved greatly.

If instead of working with them to improve conditions the buyer simply stops purchasing from them, the foreign company very likely will release some or all of their workforce and it's the poorest workers who are the worst off from the drop-off in sales. Many of them choose to work jobs in very sub-par conditions simply because their only other option without that job is outright destitution or starvation. That's the outcome that's never discussed when people rally some big boycott of a foreign manufacturer--what happens to all of those workers when the orders stop coming in? They certainly don't keep getting paid out of the goodness of the company's hearts. And besides, there's a much better social safety net in first-world nations than in third-world nations.

I believe that there is no inherent benefit to buying locally and, in many cases, it is even morally objectionable.

Change my view.
gpt
What about looking at it from a climate change and carbon emissions standpoint? Buying local reduces the travel required for the product to reach you - and thus reduces the overall carbon footprint of that product.