Consumerism - does buying more expensive stuff help?

Is there something to be said for buying quality? If not super premium, then maybe a tier above the cheapest stuff?

Are relatively pricier items better made, in a better process? E.g. cheap foods may be grown with lots of pesticides, fertilisers, etc, while cheap clothing may be dyed or produced with harsher dyes, or cheap products may just generally have cheaper production facilities without proper treatment / disposal facilities, since presumably larger corporations, in particular listed ones, have more public visibility and consequently would be careful to tread more carefully. Fine fine someone is going to point out Nike employing child labour, or Foxconn running Chinese workers in depression-inducing sweat shops... but wouldn't (logically) the premise of bigger company = more scrutiny = better practices hold true? Don't get me , I'm not talking about buying brands, I'm talking about buying quality. Bit of a difference.

Then there's also the issue of quality. I know this is a bit of a generalisation, but its generally true that cheap things don't usually last as long, after which they would need to be thrown out. Besides lasting longer, chances are that quality stuff is probably easier to repair (since parts / service are more likely to be available).