Free market capitalism in a free society includes the rights of workers to quit. Or to organize into unions and insist on better conditions.

The United States used to have much worse conditions in factories and in meat packing plants, etc. There was the fire that killed all the garment workers in a factory in New York. There were the awful conditions at meat packing plants in Chicago which Upton Sinclair wrote about in “The Jungle”. Things changed because workers insisted on it.

I believe in free markets, including the rights of free individuals to insist on safe conditions. I am not sure what, in this time of Covid, that meat packing plants can do, but if the solution is that they put in place safety measures that mean I have to pay 30% more for meat — OK, that’s fine. I’d rather pay more than have people dying.

But that’s the problem. Americans have been deciding they always want the cheapest thing. So we have factories relocate overseas where we don’t have OSHA and other safety regulations, and workers are treated like slave labor. Often children work 14 hour days. Yet we are OK with that because it means we get more crap for less money.

Or, we have factories here hire illegals. The reason they like to hire illegals — because they can get away with not following OSHA regulations. What happens when some poor illegal can’t breathe because he was working with asbestos without proper protection? Do we care?

Finally, we have a corrupt political culture. Instead of true free markets, we have crony capitalism. Billionaire corporations can afford to pay lobbyists that buy politicians. Family farms, small business owners — the backbone of this country — can’t afford that. Once upon a time, our politicians were accountable. Now, they are not.

And it doesn’t matter if you vote Dem or GOP — they are all beholden to Monsanto and Dow and Salomon Brothers.