Irreversible

Chinese netizens, over the past week, released a flurry of videos showing factories producing European luxury goods. Few realize it, but about 80 percent of the priciest luxury items on the market are produced—in the main—in Chinese factories.

- ALEX MAGNO

The fact that much of the mass production on these items happens in China has, heretofore, been a closely guarded trade secret. The final products are tagged as "Made in Italy" or "Made in France" and priced up to a hundred times their actual cost of production.

A week before this, Chinese memes showed the likenesses of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, along with many other obese workers, assembling running shoes and smart phones in presumably American workshops. By one estimate, an iPhone entirely made in the US will cost $30,000—a price point only oligarchs can afford.

The smart phones we carry in our pockets are really supercomputers that are accessibly priced because of the magic of globalization—apart from the marvels of microchips. The intricate supply and production chains that makes technology cheaper and broadly accessible defines the hyper-communicative culture that is the hallmark of this century.

The price accessibility of most products we use daily is testament to the power of market forces. Those market forces have produced an intricate and delicate web of supply chains and production processes where things are done where they could be done most efficiently.

This intricate web builds on open trade access and the free movement of capital. China anticipated this global economy decades ago and prepared for it, assembling a highly trained workforce and a massive logistics system. Because of this, China emerged as the world's factory.