localism is fine for food a small scale services, but we need to manufacture things to bring wealth to our regions.
Discussion
Industry takes place in a locality. So wherever can build useful things competitively will bring wealth to that region / locality.
One idea I’m absolutely in love with is a world with no fiat currency exchange rates to arbitrage. It would kill globalism immediately and make industrial production a level playing field again.
Industry starts locally, but it almost always requires resource input from diverse places. "I Pencil" does a great job of illustrating this effect. Industry needs a cooperative perspective where different regions contribute to industrialization in unique ways determined by their resources and skill sets.
What we want to see is for those relationships be protected and nurtured and not impacted by inputs from distant locations. Free trade pulls money away from regional producers to cheaper, lower quality distant producers, creating pockets of nearby insufficiency and insecurity, i.e. the rust belt.
Agreed, but there are other things that can be arbitraged, though, such as the cost of labor or the cost of commodity extraction, which in my view, is why limits to entry need to be established.