Any solutions? Can't really ignore globalization, because you fall behind the rest of the world who's embracing it. The genie is out of the bottle.
Even trade within a nation rarely met that bar in the past.
don't compete with morale-less losers!
you can be a ethical company and let others follow your example
I think people's frustrations with this is part of the reason we currently have a cancel culture.
Part of the risk of unethical behavior IS getting cancelled. Of course as soon as people bring up their pitchforks, a company always backtracks with a "we remain committed to bringing the best experience for our customers"
- Stop money printing globally. Switch to a deflationary monetary system like Bitcoin or other.
- Change the mechanism of money printing globally. Distribute all newly issued currency via UBI indiscriminately to citizens (instead of the current trickle-down approach of currency issuance which gives an advantage to corporations).
We need to get rid of the centralized streams of new currency because it artificially concentrates all of a nation's competition to small areas. Those who are closer to the money printers have a huge competitive advantage over those who are far. We need to get rid of Cantillion effects.
Maybe if globalization was done in a decentralized way, we would have smaller tribes wherein reputation would matter more and competition would be less intense.
Currency printing is essentially a form of government subsidy via dilution. It takes wealth from PersonA, PersonB and PersonC who are on the periphery and uses it to subsidize PersonD who is in the middle. It's not difficult to figure out why PersonA, PersonB and PersonC are not able to compete against PersonD - Their own money is weaponized against them. The subsidy allows PersonD to offer lower prices.
But I agree that it could go a long way if governments would make the distinction between value-creation and value-extraction. The way things are now, people simply do not acknowledge that there is a difference at all.
The reason why I think that monetary policy is the most important thing is that it naturally favors value-extraction (rent seeking). Why bother creating value for consumers when you can just tap into easy money from banks and government contracts?
It looks amazingly profitable from the bank's perspective. You just print money, loan it out to PersonA to buy a house, then collect interest payments on that for 20 years, then PersonB comes along, you print even more money, loan it out to PersonB to buy the same house from PersonA at a higher price, then collect interest payments on that for another 20 years... Repeat ad-infinitum.