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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

This list is about as useful as a list of 'great things still made in Albania'. Commerce is global, better get used to it. Products can be shipped halfway around the planet and 'great things' can be made just about anywhere.

In the early 90's in Poland there was a 'dobra bo Polskie' (good because it is Polish) effort to get people to buy local.

Only nobody did. Those that could would buy the best they could without giving any consideration about the country of origin, everybody else bought simply what they could afford.

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True, you really shouldn’t care that much about where or who made your stuff. People are people. They all need a way to earn a living. Being an American shouldn’t entitle you to some quality of life that is far above what those around the world doing the same thing are (equal pay for equal work and all that, right?).

That said, many of those brands are of exceptional quality. I’ve been wanting a pair of Alden’s for a long time and I was able to buy some just this weekend. I’ve had a pair of Redwings for 5 years, treated them like shit, and they still look great and feel great.

Not every American company makes top quality products, and there are companies in other countries that make top quality products as well.

> That said, many of those brands are of exceptional quality.

but then it's nothing about "being American". I can point you to extremely high quality producers in France, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland... so what does it say? Citizenship has no correlation to greatness.

I strongly disagree. There’s my people and there’s your people, and we can all be responsible for taking care of the people in our own communities. Because it’s impossible to actually care about people a world away in the same way you care about your neighbors, we’ve developed into a society that’s just given up on caring. We buy the cheapest crap we can find from countries that don’t have labor and environmental laws because we don’t care about anyone.

> There’s my people and there’s your people

No, there is just people.

Do you ever prioritize the needs of family members over the average person on the street?

Tricky semantic bits won't get you there. See also: the trolley problem and other interesting mental gymnastics to prove that others are less important than the ones that you know about. Eventually such thinking leads to wars.

All people might have equal objective value.

But some people matter more to me than other people. And what matters to me is what informs my choices and actions.

> And what matters to me is what informs my choices and actions.

Obviously. Now let's hope that 'you and yours' will not be on the receiving end of that stick with someone else wielding it. I'm pretty sure that if that were to happen you would be all up in arms and screaming for the equality that you now wish to deny others.

See also: force protection doctrine, contractors being able to commit war crimes with impunity and other exponents of such thinking.

I certainly don't expect people on the other side of the world to care about me very much. Why would I?

Do you really have that expectation? Has it been your experience of the world?

I share no kinship with a stranger just because they have they carry the same passport, speak the same language or have the same colour of skin. To imagine otherwise is an extraordinarily dangerous error.

> There’s my people and there’s your people

That line of thinking leads to some pretty dark places.

It also leads to happy tight-knit communities.

Tight-knit I can see, I'm not sure it makes any difference to happiness.

Please point one out to me.

> People are people. They all need a way to earn a living.

But governments are not governments. For example, by buying goods from the PRC you support a totalitarian government that draws its legitimacy from the fact that the economy keeps growing. I see it like paying taxes, I live in places that I want to support and then buy local goods.

>better get used to it.

I can’t stand this trope. It borders on nihilism. Yeah I get it, the economy is global and it’s difficult if not impossible to put the car back in the bag. But I’d challenge anyone to justify that it was good for middle class families in this country to price out Family owned mom and pop shops across the nation so you can save $.79 on 39 different brands of toothpaste at Walmart. That is not “great”.

Did you know Crest, the largest toothpaste brand in the US is made in the US? The second largest is also made in the US. I couldn't be bothered to check any more.

Do you honestly think that has anything to do with my point?

Well you did use toothpaste as an example to justify your point.

You may not value local goods/services. Plenty of other people do. And just because good can be shipped globally or be cheaper, or even better doesn't man you have to buy them.

I would suspect you live in a larger city. I know most people view goods this way after recently moving to a rural location I see a big shift in attitude to local goods vs imported. This may not be the view of the majority but it doesn't make this list of no use. On that logic we could say Hacker News forums are useless as most people use Facebook and we better get used to it...

I'll tell you why I try to buy American when I can.

Not everyone is capable enough to work in the information world, its a cold, hard, sad truth, that for some the best they'll ever get in the world is a factory job, that is simply as high as they can rise.

I want all of my fellow countrymen to be productive and happy, so I'd rather spend my dollars at home, than send them overseas to pay someone sweatshop wages.

Globalists are killing the world. Companies making money at the expense of citizens being able to survive are the detriment of society.

Your assertion that we should just lie down and take it like sheep is bullshit.

Choosing to buy local and locally sourced goods is preferred by more people than you think.

> Choosing to buy local and locally sourced goods is preferred by more people than you think.

So where do you buy your locally made iPhone? People don't care about where it comes from as long as it meets their needs. For most items you don't even have a choice to begin with.

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