Choice is a really funny word when it comes to employees. Most employees don't have a "choice" if you look a little further beyond the surface.

By employees, I’m referring to American customers, who opted for the low prices at Walmart versus their local store. My point is employers didn’t have a choice either, if they wanted to stay in business.

This is the end result of arbitrage opportunities due to differences in nations’ wealth.

Walmart isn't really an example of choice.

I've traveled the Midwest and great plains extensively every year since 2009, and have watched it slowly destroy small town life. The locals fought back as much as they could, but saving an extra $50 a week ended up being too alluring, and local businesses died. I've talked to quite a few people that lament how it turned out but are completely resigned to how it happened and that it won't change.

Walmart was a choice at some point in history. And even if it's not Walmart, everyone in the chain of buying and selling is going to have to justify their decisions to a boss or a budget.

You can zoom out of the Walmart vs local store picture, and imagine you're in charge of decision making at a large manufacturing company, and your competitor has moved their production to a country with cheaper labor. Is your company going to be able to sell your products at a higher price if you choose to use more expensive labor? Are you going to be able to convince customers that their decisions now will cause income instability for their children and children's children, and that they should spend $x more on your product because of it?

Poor people don't choose to not support their communities. They've been put in a position to be forced to "choose" between supporting their local store vs having a warm, safe(ish) place to sleep for their families.

It is a situation that snowballs, but even originally when foreign goods started coming in, people didn't consciously choose to not support their community. They were just doing what consumers do, which is choose to purchase at the best (lowest) price they could find.

But due to information asymmetry and limited ability to analyze and understand the consequences of each and every purchase, there was only one inevitable outcome, assuming goods and services are allowed to be transported between borders.

This is a terrible conclusion you've drawn here.

Think about the benefits of saving money, it creates opportunity for growth.

Side note, mom and pop shops made more profit than Walmart. That money is not shared with employees, it makes the family wealthy.

Historically, labor unions.

Maybe something akin to the “buy local” initiative, but on a national level. That said buy local has its issues like not all locales being able to “buy local” and sometimes subsidizing local producers is counterproductive (effort to overcome specialization is too costly), etc.

That said a framework which ensured some minimum requirements (like labor laws and environmental controls, work safety, etc.), could be a place to start.

That very framework is what makes offshoring to countries without that framework so much cheaper and so much more lucrative.

Labor laws and environmental controls would have to be implemented globally, but then we're talking about going to war and taking over other countries.

It can be encouraged via tariffs and other taxes that vary depending on adherence level.