If your political system doesn't see child nutrition as a priority, your political system needs to be burned to the ground. Are we honestly expected to believe that a first world nation can't find room in the budget to give children vegetables?
I cannot imagine a future in which they do not look back and think "Food was cheaper in their age than at any point before or since, but they fed their children worse than cattle. How could a school have computers but no fruit?".
That first sentence isn't quite right. I agree, personally, that every political system should be burned to the ground but, as usual, some Marx might give a slightly saner perspective here: the problem is precisely that there is a political system, which separates political personhood from private, civil personhood. Today, a group of people acts in social cooperation primarily through a political system. They may have an important social goal, like improving child nutrition, but the political system has already leeched the social power necessary for its achievement. Thus, any other social goals being worked out through the political system, such as economic growth, national security, even personal liberty, are at odds with the social goal you're concerned with, simply by nature of having to work through a defined, singular system. You can only push and pull a lever in so many directions, no matter how complicated and multi-axial it is. And as a sidenote, the political system itself doesn't have goals, even if its initial creation did have specific goals. They inform the system, but are not properties of it.
The intent of communism (esp. with the abolition of the state) is not, contrary to many views, some evil dictatorial master plan, but simply to put social power back into the hands of the people, allowing the existence and implementation of real social priorities, such as child nutrition.
"the problem is precisely that there is a political system, which separates political personhood from private, civil personhood."
I don't know about that! I have plenty of Politics in my life without it needing every fibre of my life to be infused with it, thank you very much. Rather, I shall go into the office tomorrow and go about business with Ron Paul supporters and Occupy SF supporters alike, and sip espresso with them in the afternoon, and I think there's something fundamentally humanizing about being able to do that.
But then, I guess that's a classic divide, as I recently saw evidenced in this opinion piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230437150457740... on the fundamental differences in the outlook on life as evidenced by commencement speeches delivered by Barack Obama and by Mitt Romney.
I'll admit this idea of political-social alienation/separation is a very abstract notion, and usually meritless in terms of immediate practicality. But you've demonstrated the reality of the notion itself: "I have plenty of Politics in my life without it needing every fibre of my life to be infused with it, thank you very much."
The claim is that "politics" as a social activity separate from universal, daily human life is artificial and an accident of modern society. That is, in the Marxian ideal you would never think "politics in my life"—that distinction between "politics" and "my life" would be a meaningless concept, since "politics" would be a nonexistent concept. You are already an inherently social being, and politics is just a particular abstraction of that sociality which seems like a good idea in modern society but prevents an "ideal" society (for many formulations of "ideal").
Think about it this way: when you vote, you are acting socially through politics. When you perform a business transaction, you are acting socially through economics. When you go to work (or leisure) with people of different opinions, you are acting socially in a way that we generally just describe as social. All these things are inherently intertwined, but modern society has done a good job making them seem separate and distinct; it has invented terms to distinguish the first two types of social activity, and has imposed rules on them. The third example doesn't have another word because it isn't consciously regulated by society—there is no abstraction for day-to-day interactions with other people. Thus, a Marxian ideal sees no abstraction for any other types of interactions with other people. They all collapsed into one: there is no politics or economics, which are abstractions of sociality.
I'm not proposing any particular change in modern society that would bring politics "into" your life, merely presenting a way of thinking about politics and sociality that explains why child nutrition (and numerous other social problems) are not also political problems.
This screams applaud lights slash appeal to emotion slash straw man. My school never provided free meals and I don't think the Canadian government should be burned to the ground. If I ever have kids, I'll trust myself much more than the government to take care of my child's nutrition.
Government provided <anything> will never work fine. Because that is always subjected to bureaucracy, processes and averaging. You will always have lowest averaged quality, because things are always subject to costs, bidding and all other kinds of processes involved to maintain sanity during administrative control. And this is considering every body works with honesty. While the fact is with no quality control and regulation it becomes easy to serve bad quality food for some profit in return. Or it can always be worked with bribes.
These sort of things serve a perfect mess for bribe business and other sort of bureaucratic shit.
Also like so many people have mentioned, its not governments job to provide food to your kid. In fact I find it scary that governments run and set school syllabus. Schools and education form perfect weapons for brain washing. Ideally schools must be private run, with regulations.
> Government provided <anything> will never work fine
I beg to differ. I'm French. Not everything about our government is satisfactory (very far from it) but the one thing that's fantastic is the food in our schools: fixed menus (no pick and choose where kids would take fries and nothing else), with real meals of two main courses + cheese + desert (usually fruit).
And it shows, too; while children's obesity rates have been getting worse, they are nowhere near those in the US or UK. In fact there are virtually no fat kids under 12; after that age kids tend to be more "autonomous" (meaning more TV and more fast food lunches) but when they're young and in the school system they are incredibly healthy.
When I was a kid (30 years ago) there were zero "special dietary requirements" and zero "food allergies"; if kids didn't want to eat the food then they didn't eat it and that was fine (frowned upon, but fine) -- but there weren't any special menus for religious reasons or medical conditions.
Now things have changed a little; you can specify that your kid doesn't eat pork or is allergic to nuts -- but that's about it.
I cannot talk for the French, but in Sweden they usually handle special food requirements rather well. The children with special needs are all known to the kitchen staff so they get what they need directly from them.
"If parents don't see child nutrition as a priority, their priority list needs to be burned to the ground. Are we honestly expected to believe that a first world nation's family can't find room in the budget to give their own children vegetables and prepare food for them ?"
Since when is the political system responsible of what your children should or should not eat ? Is that even the role of the political system? And if your answer is "Yes", where does that involvment in private affairs stop ?
Are we honestly expected to believe that a first world nation's family can't find room in the budget to give their own children vegetables and prepare food for them ?
Well yes, it is sad but true that a first world country, in spite of its wealth, can be home to very poor families.
Of course bad nutrition is also a cultural problem, there are many parents that could do a better job at feeding their children. But how would you address this cultural issue without some kind of government intervention? Doing nothing but blaming the parents doesn't help much.
No one is denying the right of parents to provide food for their children. But when, as an option, food is provided by the state (such as in state schools), it should be a priority to get the menus right.
To answer your question, I don't think there is any private matter that is completely beyond the scope of government. What is more private than our sexual lives? Yet I'm happy that the government runs information campaigns on STD prevention. On the other hand, I do think that coercive powers should be severely restricted.
"But how would you address this cultural issue without some kind of government intervention? Doing nothing but blaming the parents doesn't help much."
I don't understand why whenever this is an issue in society, it becomes something that the government has to go and fix. In the not so distant past, (let's say, at least up until the early 1950s), a number of problems were adressed by private (as in, non-governmental) initiatives (from profit and non-profit organizations, or simply community, family support). Now, we expect government to take care of everything. There seems to be no space for other solutions. Private initiatives seem to have completely disappeared from most people's mindset. This kind of mindset is even pervasive in the economical system where many people now believe it is the role of Government to "stimulate" the Economy. As if, the Economy was a "by-product" of government intervention!
I DO think there are clear limits between government scope and private scope, and in most modern countries this is something that the Constitution usually clarifies. You find that such limits are usually lacking in countries which tend to turn to despotism and dictatorship. When you break these boundaries, you end up (after a while, step by step...) with governments suppressing freedom of speech and telling people how they have to think. That is exactly why there are several Privacy Advocate groups which pay a lot of attention to this kind of issues.
Ah good point. Indeed much of what the government does could be accomplished by private groups.
So why should the government get involved? Let's look at the case of school meals. Many parents want them but it's not provided by the state school, so parents will team up to make it happen privately. This means negotiating with the school for access to a building on the premises, forming a committee to organize the whole thing (so having elections at periodic intervals to appoint the committee), hiring cooks, cleaners, security, etc., setting up a system for collecting money from parents, and finally establishing a process for decisions such as what to put on the menu.
We basically end up with a small task-specific government with its own laws (such as how decisions are made and how people are elected to the committee). So not only is it redundant with other local (e.g. city) governments, it also increases the complexity of everyone's life dramatically, as you have to deal with the public government plus all the private organizations, each with their own quirks.
This is why I view politics as a generic platform for debate on societal issues, and government as a framework for taking and implementing decisions. For this to be efficient it is important to have strong local governments at several levels (e.g. city, state, country) and choose wisely their respective prerogatives, such as city level for school meals, state level for school programs and country level for school certification. That does not mean there is no room for private initiatives, it just illustrates why government involvement could be a good option, sometimes.
As for the Constitution stuff, there's no question that a government should be monitored carefully and have limited powers (e.g. cannot force children to eat school meals), but this is different from saying it cannot offer school meals.
I cannot imagine a future in which they do not look back and think "Food was cheaper in their age than at any point before or since, but they fed their children worse than cattle. How could a school have computers but no fruit?".