Unfortunately it's not quite as straightforward as that though.
Let's say I own a store selling widgets, all made in the EU and UK. They range in price from £300 - £500 and are decent quality, expected to give ~15 years of service to the consumer.
I then start selling a widget for £200, made in China. The quality, whilst not on a par with the EU/UK widgets, isn't terrible and they are expected to give ~8 years of service to the consumer.
Bear in mind the average consumer knows nowt about the expected lifecycle and my staff don't go out of their way to advise the public. A sale is a sale after all.
It's reasonable to expect at least some of my customers will start buying the £200 widget. Not necessarily because they're stupid, there could be a number of contributing factors.
Yes, it's true many (most?) of us have played our part in the current consumer market (death of the high street, throwaway products etc) however the reasons are multi-faceted.
Note: this doesn't excuse the folk I refer to earlier in this thread, those folk are stupid!