"Free" tends to be construed as unregulated. It is the job of governments to draw the lines and ditches along the road without dictating a direction. If the market is expected to be even conscious of the human costs it extracts it is no longer free.

Our problem isn't the way markets function, but the way our government doesn't. They are obviously connected via the corruption we ignorantly allow our representatives to benefit from and that has to be where we start with reform. As long as our government is corrupt it will corrupt any system we utilize.

If our government obeyed its mandate to "coin" its currency "for the common welfare" spelled out in the constitution without pumping the rubes full of BS about debt ceilings and debt it could be the employer of last resort to set a floor for wages and benefits that allow dignity for the working class and the poor would all but cease to exist.

Creating such a program that would always be at the discretion of the worker would force employers to bid against the program to enlarge its workforce. It would be countercyclical to the business cycle to counter inflation fears. Making states and communities responsible for actual management of the time and work of participants would give them a welcome supply of labor as well.

Taxation makes people unemployed in the currency of the issuing government, so the government has a moral responsibility to provide a way to pay the tax while using the currency as a unit of measure in their commerce. It shouldn't expect a market to provide that, and it damn sure shouldn't use its power of the purse to provide an unemployed and desperate stock of labor for the market's benefit.