Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Bumface
I don't disagree, an in fact, even stated the free market is really bad at this 
That's why regulations and standards come into play.
Even if you could track all of this (I've seen some neat applications of block chain in the food supply where every ingredient could be tracked back to it's source, great for tracking foodborne illness), it still relies on inspectors and other bribe-able positions.
I can't think of anything that works other than producing things in countries you trust. But then how do you let the rest of the world grow up into countries that can be trusted if they have no economic leverage? |
You could, perhaps, create a general rating system on countries based on a pool of conditions. So a China import gets a tariff of 27%, and an Italian one might be 18%, or whatever. But that would then be subject to politics, and would probably lead to massive trade wars and trading blocks of countries. And as you say, the less developed countries would be severely handicapped in this type of play. It's a really tough problem, if that's the way we want to go.