It's easy to criticize his conclusion when you leave out all the evidence for said conclusion:
> But the subtext is drearily familiar. Globalization: Check. Cheap-labor arbitrage: Check. Tax engineering: Check. High profits: Check. Flat-packing: Check.
Do you deny that any or all of this is happening, today, under capitalism? Do you deny that there are incentives for any or all of this under capitalism today? Do you deny that these things would lead to the inevitable quality decline he's lamenting? Let's not have any more of your straw man attacks. Attack the real issue instead.
He spent $1100 CAD getting his sofa reupholstered, and the sofa itself cost over $3,000 CAD in 1999 according to the article (so about $5,000 today).
Cheap things are cheaply made isn't news. But being able to have them at all, is for a lot of people, very valuable.
What is not in the article is what would $5,000 buy him today? He doesn't know because he didn't go looking. The linked article in the article is someone talking about reupholstering a $1,000 sofa.
EDIT: I mean hell, that article wants to talk about a $300 1965 Sears Sofa... In 2024 USD that's almost $3,000.
He does have some idea what $5k would get him. He mentions that a new, well-made, leather-upholstered sofa would run 5 figures, so, at least $10k. That makes re-upholstering the economically rational choice over both a new $5k sofa and a hypothetical, same quality version of the 1965 Sears sofa.
That the entire context you posted for the conclusion doesn't seem to be based on even an attempt to understand whether the market has truly changed.
For that matter, it's also not clear if his sofa is particularly well made (we never see the frame in the article) or just expensive enough that it's worth re-holstering for the price he was quoted...because the article in question is someone who's $1,200 sofa would distinctly not be worth paying $1,100 to re-upholster.
> But the subtext is drearily familiar. Globalization: Check. Cheap-labor arbitrage: Check. Tax engineering: Check. High profits: Check. Flat-packing: Check.
Do you deny that any or all of this is happening, today, under capitalism? Do you deny that there are incentives for any or all of this under capitalism today? Do you deny that these things would lead to the inevitable quality decline he's lamenting? Let's not have any more of your straw man attacks. Attack the real issue instead.