Nathan:

I agree that more specifics on Chavez would have been helpful. To be fair, this article is intended as an op-ed for circulation in magazines, and given the constraints of the format it's hard to work in a lot in the way of the background. But, if it helps, here's a (very long) report from a former Bolivarian/Chávez sympathizer. It's somewhat out-of-date, since it was published in July 2006 based on a discussion of the situation in January-March 2006, but it should provide a lot of useful starting points and a great deal of detail about the story up to that point: "Venezuela, Socialism to the Highest Bidder" by Nachie, for the Red and Anarchist Action Network.

If you can read Spanish there are of course Venezuelan radical publications that have repeatedly addressed these issues. El Libertario is one of the longest-running critics; you might check out their election-season editorials in the most recent issue (Sep/Oct 2012), their running commentary on the "Boliburguesïa" (Boli-bourgeoisie or Boli-bosses), etc.
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(Here's a pretty good article that came out several years ago on the weird demands set by the old USDA regulations: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/01/unhappy-meals . See in particular the stuff about the surplus buy-up program and about the perverse incentives the system creates for menu planning. Of course it's Mother Jones, so they think the way to fix this is to reform the rules while keeping the corporate subsidy program in place, which is kind of like having government set a fire in your house, and then -- responsible reform! -- run to the kitchen and grab a pot full of water to douse it with, in the hopes that will put it out. But probably it would have a better idea, and certainly less damaging for all concerned, just not to set the fire in the first place.)

I'm sure it is an example of federal overreach but it's hard for me to see how it represents an increase in federal overreach compared to the status quo ante. The contents of meals in the school lunch program have always been closely regulated and mandated by USDA; previously, the main intent of the regulation was to require that meals would include certain portions of each "food group" (with each "group" representing a different agribusiness lobby: dairy farmers, cereal growers, produce growers, and then cattlemen and the meat industry). The ratios were rigged to ensure that dairy and meat got an artificially big cut, because USDA is committed to buying up a certain amount in surplus per year as a price support to agribusiness. Now the administration is pushing to put through a different set of regulations, which alter the mandated ratios, supposedly in the interest of better nutrition. (But then, the old four-food-groups ratios were also supposedly set in the interest of nutrition; it's just that government nutritional guidelines have a curiously strong tendency to reflect whatever the balance of power between the different agribusiness interests happens to be at the moment.)

The results are probably not going to be any better in the end than the results of the old system. But the old system was also a micromanaging government monopoly, so it's hard for me to see how they are worse, either. Really there is no way to solve the problem at all except to get political control out of school lunches entirely. But you can't get that by reverting to the old rules; you can only get it by dropping the USDA surplus buy-up program. There's no right way for the federal government to manage a subsidy.

Every time I peek in one, I become more convinced that Facebook “discussion” groups are like an amazing mechanical device that takes human differences as input, and produces the most obnoxious, least productive possible forms of interaction as output. The more participants, the more efficient the machine.

Fortycal: "Our purpose should be to promote freedom, not engage in endless word-mincing and term-juggling."

No doubt. So why are you here bellyaching about how Kevin Carson uses the word "capitalism" wrong, rather than discussing the argument that he communicates in the article? If the argument is a good argument, it can survive any terminological decision, for good or for ill, about the usage of the term "capitalism" (a usage which Kevin makes absolutely clear at the beginning of the article). If it's a bad argument, then it will be bad whether or not you allow it to be read on its own terms.