Three things drive quality. Market, management, and culture.
When I was managing a union crew, my experience was that the average white American laborer was not naturally as productive nor as conscientious as those green card workers or the Navajo workers I had. I also found though that I could bring almost all of the slackers around with wise leadership. Later, as a local union rep, I applied that philosophy successfully regardless of management attitudes - for everyone's benefit. In the end though, if the market accepts poor quality, the maker will reduce the product to that level for one reason or another. (greed or survival)
Another thing worth mentioning. My nephew who was in naval intelligence and spent a lot of time learning about Chinese culture has told me this about it, as best I recall.....The Chinese people are fully capable of producing very high quality goods, but also value efficiency. They consider it inefficient to produce any more quality than is demanded. If a company does not have their own quality control in place demanding a certain level of quality, they will get no more than is required to pass the most superficial inspection. I have a hard time finding fault with that.
Unfortunately, those products not valued by the masses are not attractive to manufacturers. And the masses don't generally value high quality in most things - af least, not enough to pay for them. Fortunately, the Internet allows us to find those small niche producers who can still cater to quality...
https://fieldcompany.com/