How might gratitude change our economic paradigm?

I taught my children that we vote about once a year, but we vote with our dollars nearly every day. I was having this discussion with my brother recently, whom also cares deeply about economic justice , but thinks it is as simple as buying products from poorer countries to “even out wealth,” and unfortunately It is not as simple as that. There are exploiters out there and issues like the Uyghur “training facilities” that are really horrid prisons and forced work camps. The imprisoned Uyghurs produce many of our imported clothes and other items from China. If I am truly grateful for the Uyghur people, I won’t be making it profitable for those few in China profiting from that policy. Those camps are expanding! Why? Because we buy it, because we will choose a low price not caring that the price might be low because of slave labor or exploitation! China is also bringing many more coal plants online to contribute to global warming. So now when I am shopping, personally I won’t buy any product made in China (if there is any alternative), but it is FOR them, and for all of us, that I am doing this. Will they feel my sanction? No. But if many people do it? Yes. They are starting to feel it.
At first it was hard for me to pay more for Fair Trade, organic coffee. I’m considered poor in America (but I’m American and I have all my needs). But eventually, one item at a time, I made the ethical choice for Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, for “knowing my farmer” and buying local produce, and as the holidays come nearer some things I have been looking for are handmade by cottage industries (such as many on Etsy) or gifts that would help indigenous or poor communities (such as Ten Thousand Villages or Fair Trade Winds). This won’t work for every item I buy, of course, but just because you can’t do something perfectly doesn’t mean its okay to do nothing.
I have never regretted choosing less but choosing something that has meaning. Gratitude might be the reason I began choosing this way (in understanding I have “enough” and that I wish others to have enough, too), but gratitude is also what is generated by changing how I spend money. The coffee… and I am about to have another in a minute, lol… is good but also has meaning and connects me to small farmers in Peru who have co-opted to own a little farm land and an export business. They are better able to feed their families. And that enriches my life.