"yes your're right, it would. But it costs less capital. That means it is the choice for the rich, who don't have to pay the price for the higher consumption."
What is your point?
Think of it like that:
Red is cheaper, blue is more expensive, the amount blue can mine is much bigger than what red can do, so in the long term (When X>5), it's worth more to buy blue, rather than red
just look at the working conditions in China
http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/109
also you were going on about how capitalism lifted the chinese workers out of poverty or something weren't you?
Those working conditions are a 1000000 times better than the survival conditions in the Socialist States
The Chinese are hardworking people and I admire it, the living conditions in China are much better now than when it was Socialist
Again, most of the mining work is automized now, and if the price of labor in Africa is 100 times less than in the west, then in the west there would be 100 times less workers, maybe even less.
we aren't anywhere close to that point yet though, and we won't be by the time we are able to mine asteroids.
so it doesn't matter. Also the biggest expensive is often labor, which is 1/100th the price in Africa.