Author here.

An important distinction between China and The Machine is that a group of people can purchase and wholly own The Machine.

If you can't purchase it, you have to agree to the social contract offered by those who do. For us that means we have to accept the state of the labor conditions in Bangladesh for example, which I would rather not do.

This is a classic problem with capitalism.

If a group of people can purchase The Machine then they can decide for themselves what they are willing to accept. And in general if survival is automated and the knowledge for how to reproduce this is free, we're way less likely to see people in far off places being exploited for manual labor.