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This is a pretty extreme example, but that's what it comes down to. Thanks to the free market, there's always going to be someone willing to do it for cheaper while sacrificing product quality, employee welfare, or environmental impact.
At the cost of seeing people take advantage of the opportunity to add value for their customers.
> This is a pretty extreme example, but that's what it comes down to
It's not what it comes down to. Someone in the market for the cheapest smartphone possible won't buy a $10 phone even though it's cheaper than the next alternative, because quality also matters. Or at least, value for money matters.
> Thanks to the free market, there's always going to be someone willing to do it for cheaper while sacrificing product quality
Someone might be willing to offer something cheaper, but thanks to the free market, that option will only be popular if people believe it's good value for money and buy it.
> employee welfare
This is mostly a competition issue. If it's too expensive to create employers, there's no competition for workers.
> or environmental impact
This happens in all types of agreements. The limiter on non-free market countries for environmental impact isn't ethics, it's inefficiency. Only regulations can solve this.
> If it's too expensive to create employers, there's no competition for workers.
Employees working in a manufacturing facilities in e.g. China and Europe aren't competing for the same jobs. There's one set of standards for employees there, and there's another set of standards for employees here.
We can't compete with that because we've decided that workers shouldn't be driven to suicide while they don't always share the same reservations and deem waivers, "safety netting", company-provided help hotlines, prayer sessions and "no-suicide pledges", to be an acceptable solution to the problem. [1]
What can we do other than add protectionist rules?
> Only regulations can solve this.
Agreed. And if EU enforces such regulations while China doesn't, for example, we need protectionist rules in place to ensure that they can't undercut us by killing our planet.
I think you're excluding the middle[0] here. If you think the EU can't compete, you can't just say it's due to worker protections. There are lots of reasons. E.g. there's load more investment capital available in the US; that's not due to Chinese labour laws.
> What can we do other than add protectionist rules?
Worker protection isn't the same as protectionism.
> And if EU enforces such regulations while China doesn't, for example, we need protectionist rules in place to ensure that they can't undercut us by killing our planet
Much tighter, more specific rules though. Not "free markets bad so protectionism". Making sure specific environment-related rules are followed for certain products coming in is much smaller than just a ban.
So they're simply doing both.
Furthermore, the EU is more expensive than other countries because we have stricter environmental standards and our people don't want to work 50+ hours a week as many in Asia do.
Letting Asian countries simply undercut your own homegrown companies because of these two (dis)advantages seems shortsighted.
How is it like celebrating that?
