[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.