A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly known simply as A Modest Proposal, is a satirical essay from 1729 by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. The work is written from the perspective of a fictional narrator who suggests that Ireland’s economic troubles could be solved if the poor sold their children as food to the wealthy. The essay begins by detailing the dire poverty of Ireland’s poor, then proposes this shocking solution, complete with methods for preparing the children as dishes and calculations of the financial benefits.

Swift concludes by indirectly stating his actual desired reforms through a rhetorical device, including taxing absentee landlords, promoting Irish-made goods, and improving tenant treatment. The essay is considered a prime example of Juvenalian satire and sustained irony in English literature. Its shock value comes partly from the contrast between the initial description of suffering and the narrator’s calm suggestion that a healthy year-old child makes a delicious meal. Swift lampoons the social engineering ideas of figures like William Petty and Francis Bacon, appealing to dubious authorities such as a supposed American acquaintance and the notorious George Psalmanazar.

Academics have debated Swift’s targets for centuries, with interpretations ranging from criticism of mercantilism and regressive Irish tax laws to the dehumanizing attitudes of the upper class. From the mid-20th century, scholars have also examined Swift’s own often hostile views toward the Irish poor, complicating the essay’s simple reading as satire. The phrase “a modest proposal” has since become a standard allusion in English for deadpan satire.