There is no such thing as a free lunch

The ironic nature of a militaristic realist championing a free school lunch program.

If studying International Relations taught me one thing, its that Realists believe that there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a policy that will just happen without consequences. Like I am not a realist, far from one. I believe that with enough willpower and cooperation, anything can work out. But this one ironic thing is just so funny to me. How a militaristic realist figure as desperate as the one we have in power now — elected by the ever mystical 58% — pulled out the Hail Mary against the needy and materialistic Indonesian populace. A free lunch program, for all children in schools all around Indonesia. A terrifying policy in the eyes of analysts everywhere. 1.2 trillion IDR a day its going to cost they say. From where? China apparently, because why not let’s get into even more debt with the entity who stands to rip off other countries with their development funding.

But even then it’s not enough apparently, because behind that free lunch that everyone was offered, is a free existential crisis for the parents and families around those children who are lucky enough to get a box of milk and some very-very cheap food. Because where else then are they going to get the funding for these subpar “meals”? Of course, just raise the sales tax nationwide to 12%. It’s just beautifully there for the taking right? Like oh god its the perfect solution. They say as Indonesians suffer to live decently under the recently raised 11% sales taxes.

Like yeah okay, the kids will get their lunches yadda yadda, but the parents, their siblings who are already in college living day to day alone, or their aunts and uncles will get a worse off living conditions. And I’m writing here as one of those siblings in college, living off of allowances and working my ass off. I’m a part of the lower middle class. Not enough to be considered poor, yet not enough to be comfortably middle class. I stood here, in my early 20s entering the more critical years of my life, the ones deciding my future and my marketability in the capitalist society up ahead. I watched as the general sales taxes of Indonesia went up from 10% to 11% a few years back. I watched as the amount of electricity quotas I get from the same amount of money shrunk down, to the point that we have to reschedule our daily electricity token purchases. I watched as prices go up for toiletries as I get more and more independent buying my own. I watched as prices go up for snacks even, call me a treatler all you want but my snacks now costing upwards of 15k a bag is outrageous.

I went into my own independent adult life seeing prices at my canteen of upwards of 20–30k IDR being spent every time I buy lunch at campus. And now, in just a week or so, it’s going to get higher. I’m going to have to live with less electricity quotas for every 20k my family spent to keep the lights on. I’m going to have to live with higher prices when I go out and hang out with my friends. I have to save up way more money to afford something premium in my life. It’s going to be unbearable.

Like man, I’d take in more taxes if only I live somewhere who actually cares about the wellbeing of their people. If I live in Norway and I have to pay higher taxes from my higher salaries, I wouldn’t care. Because I know that tax money is going to be beneficial for myself or for others around me. But I live in Indonesia, where taxpayer rupiahs are used to pay off hordes of Twitter users to buzz for a government sanctioned topic. Where taxpayer money is used to silence opposition’s voices through sheer volume of pro-government dick riders screaming hashtags that no logical Indonesian will post about. I live in Indonesia, where the allocation for education funding is lost when compared to it’s allocation for police and military funding. For a country who needs that education boom, that’s pretty stupid.

You know sometimes you can just be a bit hopeless with the way the world is going. You’d hope that the balance of the universe is heading in a positive way always, but what we saw this year under this transition of power proves otherwise. I hate to be ungrateful, but this new policy, 12% general sales taxes, all for a program that was unimaginably stupid and unplanned from the start. It’s just too much for us in the middle class. I’m losing trust, if I even have any left towards the government. And I hope it topples over sooner or later. And let the balance of the universe go back to positivity.

previously posted on Medium at https://medium.com/@fjello/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch-984d3ec92c05