In the quest of "Cheaper"

It looks like the world has got frenzied about the 'customer' & the customer is believed to need everything 'cheaper' today than what is was 'yesterday'.

Supply Chains of the world undergo a structural to meet the challenge of cost reduction. China being the 'Plant of the World' & India being the 'Back office of the world' made the western geographies set their supply chain nodes in these countries. These countries thrived on the export of work from the West to these countries. As

 inflation in these countries coupled with the infrastructure bottlenecks increase over a period of time the competitive lever of 'cost' would move to some other geographies as these countries may not be the 'least' cost provider of goods & services. Particularly in India where the policies have been such that the cost of electricity, gas or oil along-with the real estate in many parts is more than the cost in US of A. It looks apparent that the cost competitiveness lever would be impacted. 

The acute question to be addressed at a larger scale though is - 'Is Cheap always better for the Standard of Living of the Society'? As a case in point we have seen the dramatic shift of work from West to East just because East is cheaper; leaving a large vacuum in jobs available to the population in West. In turn the lack of sources of income lead those living in those countries with lower standards of living. In turn the economies which got these jobs have no real advantage as they are getting the work just because they are cheaper. This means that the income of workers in those countries doesn't dramatically improve either. In turn, to stay cost competitive these countries have to continuously find ways to reduce cost which in turn makes the jobs get much more demanding, leaves with less wages in the hands in turn society further deteriorates the standard of living. As we move from low cost to 'lower cost' world the problem would aggravate as the infrastructure in these low cost countries would remain idle, the issue of employment will rise far faster & the customer would leave these countries high & dry as someone else is ready to do it 'cheaper' some where else in the world!

I am wondering if we are reaching a world order where the quest to make & serve cheaper to the customer would eventually be a 'race to the bottom' for society & it's standard of living.