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I didn't quite understand the sentence below. This is from a piece on import being harmful for the economy of a country because it decreases the number of job opportunities. Isn't stocking shelves with goods from far away and shipping from abroad are basically the same thing? It's both import, but I also understand from the sentence that he compensates for the first one with the second. Am I missing something?

Sam Walton chose instead to stock his shelves with goods from far away, in line with an ethos he’d also shipped in from abroad – an ethos made in Britain by the eighteenthcentury economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

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    Yes, that's the point; both the goods and the attitude come from abroad
    – user172447
    Commented Apr 14, 2019 at 9:05
  • Th phrase "from far away" describes the goods he is selling. The phrase "shipped in from abroad" describes his ethos or reason for doing this. I can't really see how one would compensate for the other (and I can't see the sentence implying that). It is just explaining why he does it.
    – user323578
    Commented Apr 14, 2019 at 9:05

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Isn't stocking shelves with goods from far away and shipping from abroad are basically the same thing?

Given the size of the US it would be entirely possible to ship goods from far away without them being from abroad.

However, in the case of the quoted passage, the "also shipped from abroad" isn't referring to the goods themselves, it's referring to the concept ("in line with an ethos") of importing goods. So the quote says that Sam Walton chose to import goods and he got the idea for doing that from abroad (Britain) too.

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  • Thank you, I'd guessed that I probably misunderstood the sentence and that's exactly what happened.
    – Dennis
    Commented Apr 14, 2019 at 9:19

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