[wladimir]

You get the good parts of capitalism by not treating it as the end-all solution to everything, but using it as a tool where appropriate and curbing its excesses where necessary.

Seems that what you call a mixed market economy is exactly what I meant. It worked for a long time for quite a few countries here in Europe, until "free market" was suddenly considered a panacea for everything according to the ones in power. Before we got to the casino-economy of today...

[brycecolquitt]

I agree with you. I think the free market infatuation many US politicians have without truly understanding it is a major reason for our predicament.

That said, a free market is capitalism at its purest, and in a free market, we'll get sweatshops and the like (which are very sought-after jobs in developing countries).

I guess my point is: semantics matter. If we want to push back against these effects, I think it's important to realize we're actually pushing ourselves away from capitalism and more towards a mixed market economy, which is a good thing in my judgement. But we shouldn't see a mixed market economy and call it capitalism, because they're not the same thing--mixed market economies attempt to mitigate capitalism's negative effects.