Since when has the aggregate human being in one country, been happy with a reduction in income, for the upliftment of millions in another?
The only reason this has happened, is because they got back some of those pennies in terms of cheaper goods.
The issue today, is that the average person is losing their purchasing and earning capacity in the western world.
The only people benefiting are people capable of straddling the complex legal and financial networks that span multiple countries and regulatory systems.
This provides them with a significant arbitrage opportunity, which they are abusing.
You could say that this whole conversation is about how political entities - countries themselves (!) - are now trade barriers.
If we let ourselves imagine - tomorrow every country in the world has some geo adjusted minimum wage, and all countries can compete in any geographic position while creating a single globally valid corporation.
Then, all the infrastructure which the 1% enjoy - lawyers, financiers, legalesse authors - it disappears. Their ability to extract rents from the system drops as their advantage vanishes.
Of course, mercantilism is also bad, but at least rent extraction and arbitrage disappear.
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Thanks, your comment helped me spark off an idea that I didn't know had been nagging me.
I can now give a better example of why brexit is bad for the UK. The biggest loss is to new firms. A firm in the EU can start up and is valid across the entire region. They don't have to make new entities, or spend on lawyers, tax consultants to tap the full range of their market.
A UK firm, has only their own market to target.
When I argue this topic out, most of the focus is on big established firms.