The exhortation to “buy local” has always seemed suspect to me - something about the reasoning didn’t sound right. But it’s not that big of a deal, so I never bothered to think it through. Fortunately, Art Carden has thought it through and described the problem well. It turns out that the problem in “buy local” is our old friend, comparative advantage. Here’s the money quote:
“Buy local” is, at its logical limit, a prescription for poverty and starvation.
