Response to "A Modest Proposal" -- The Other, Other White Meat.

Jonathan Swift is a master of logic. He lays out a thorough and feasible economic plan to save Ireland from ruining the crowns financial security. He emphasized that the poor and homeless were breeding a generation of Irish people that would be born into a legacy of despondency. Swift showed that there were simply too many people on the island, and that these same people could not be reasonably expected to live somewhere off the island. They were in place, they were home, and they were growing in numbers.

Jonathan Swift is well-known today for writing Gulliver’s Travels, and he was known in his own time to travel extensively. Being a curious sort of person, Swift discussed his countries population and class issues with his friends abroad. Through these discussions he was able to create a proposal that, although very controversial, was arranged with enough detail to actually work.

In his proposal, Swift wants his countrymen to use the babies and children of homeless and indigent families as food and clothing to be sold at reasonable prices to persons of quality throughout the British Empire. Proceeds from sales would go to those families, giving them a legitimate source of income. Swift also noted that by utilizing his methods breast-feeding nannies would be in high demand. He laid out prices per pound, and even mentioned scaling prices depending on the child’s age and “gamieness.” Mr. Swift argued that since the Irish weren’t going to stop having babies there would be an endless supply of resources for his plan, and he asserted that demand was already high throughout the realm. Mmmmm….yummy.

Jonathan Swift is also known today as a satirist. As with any good satirist the bulk of Mr. Swift’s proposal was pretext. He knew that many in the British Royalty would find his ideas agreeable, if only moderately distasteful. The pretext was broken in his closing statements. He ended his piece by scolding the British government for letting the poverty level of Ireland get as awful as it was. Swift’s main points are that the government should feel guilty for not acting benevolently on behalf of its people in the lowest classes, and that they should find a solution to a problem they could no longer ignore – there were more citizens than available government resources.