A Modest Proposal Summary & Analysis

In his opening remarks, the Proposer outlines one of the biggest problems facing the Irish commonwealth: women beggars are everywhere in the streets, and many of them have children whom they cannot support. If nothing is done, these children, like their parents, will end up begging in the streets as well. But the Proposer claims to have a plan that will ensure that all the poor children of Ireland grow up to become contributing members of society.

The Proposer claims to have devoted years of careful thought to this problem. He has weighed the many other plans proposed by civic-minded gentleman like himself, but has found these plans insufficient, their “computations” inaccurate. To offer a corrective, the Proposer makes some computations of his own. The cost of supporting a child for one year is about two shillings, which any beggar can certainly manage. (Under the Proposer’s plan, the child will be released from the care of its parents after its first year.) By the Proposer’s count, there are 200,000 Irish couples who are actively “breeding.” He reckons that, of these 200,000, about 30,000 couples are able to provide for their children. An additional 50,000 lose their children to miscarriage or disease within the first year. That leaves 120,000 couples who are unable to provide for their children, which means that about 120,000 children are born into abject poverty each year. But what to do with them?

These children can’t be trained in crafts or farming, the Proposer claims, because the Irish neither build houses nor cultivate land. The children can’t support themselves by stealing, either; they’re too young! Nor is selling them into slavery an option—if only because no infant will fetch a worthwhile price at auction.

At long last, the Proposer finally unveils his own plan. He has heard from an American friend that the flesh of a one-year-old, breastfed infant is delicious. So, of the 120,000 impoverished children in Ireland, 20,000 will be reserved for breeding in order to maintain the population, while the remaining 100,000 will be reared for a year on their mother’s breast milk and then sold to wealthy gentleman—who will eat them. In particular the children will be sold to wealthy landlords, who have “already devoured most of the parents,” and so “seem to have the best title to the children.” The mothers will turn a considerable profit by selling their offspring. If they’re feeling extra entrepreneurial, they can even sell the hides of their children, which make for lovely gloves and boots!

The Proposer then explains that a Very Worthy Person has offered an amendment to this plan: in addition to infants, young teenagers may also be sold, slaughtered, and eaten. Their flesh is, apparently, similar to venison (deer meat), and the Irish deer population has recently been hunted to extinction. However, the Proposer respectfully declines this suggestion. Firstly, he argues, the flesh of teenagers is far too tough. Secondly, certain sensitive people may (wrongly, the Proposer emphasizes), see the consumption of teenagers as somewhat cruel.

The Proposer wants to give his friend a little credit, however. This Very Worthy Person got his idea from George Psalmanazar, who spoke of an incident on his native island of Formosa in which a young woman was executed for treason and then eaten by various members of the court. Hearing this tale, the Proposer admits that he wouldn’t mind if some of the plumper young women of Dublin’s high society met the same fate.

The Proposer acknowledges that while his plan will take care of all the impoverished children, it fails to account for all the many aging, sick, disabled, and starving adults in Ireland. How will they be provided for? The Proposer shrugs this question off, reasoning that the old and sick are nearing death anyway. Soon they will no longer be a burden to the country.

Now the Proposer begins to list in detail the many advantages of his plan. Firstly, the plan will greatly reduce the number of Papists (Catholics) in Ireland—a wicked group. These Catholics, who are prolific breeders, insist on remaining at home in Ireland, hoping to deliver the nation to the Pretender. They take advantage of the absence of good Protestants, many of whom have left Ireland to avoid paying taxes “against their conscience.”

As a second advantage of the Proposer’s plan, poor Irish tenants will finally have something with which to pay off their rent. They are in dire need of this, as their cattle and corn have already been seized by their landlords as collateral.

As a third advantage of the Proposer’s plan, the profits made off the sale of children will total 10,000 pounds per year. All of this money will circulate internally, within the country, as the children are all of Irish “growth and manufacture.”

As a fourth advantage of the Proposer’s plan, those “constant breeders” who have a new child every year will be relieved of the burden of raising many children at once, as their children will be taken from their care after only one year.

As a fifth advantage of the Proposer’s plan, the practice of eating children will “bring great custom” to all the local taverns, whose cooks will come to pride themselves on their own preparations of infant flesh, and attract gentleman of taste to their businesses.

As a sixth advantage of the Proposer’s plan, the Irish people will feel encouraged to marry—so they can make some money off their children—and Irish husbands will refrain from beating their wives, choosing to treat them instead as prized livestock.

Further, Ireland will be able to export all the beef and pork that the flesh of infants will inevitably replace. This will be good for the Irish economy.

The Proposer can’t think of a single worthwhile objection to his plan. Some people might point out that his plan will lead to a decrease in population, but the Proposer sees this as its chief advantage. Further, all of the alternative plans he has heard—such as instilling values of temperance and moderation among the Irish people, curbing the nation’s reliance on imported goods, taxing landlords who don’t themselves live in Ireland, overcoming factions and mutual bitterness, encouraging honesty among shopkeepers and mercy among creditors—strike him as completely impossible to execute. The Proposer has already wasted many years on such idle, visionary, and ultimately useless thoughts. Now, finally, he’s found a practical solution. The whole nation is deeply in debt—two million pounds collectively—and the Proposer’s plan is the only one that can fix it.

To those who would be so bold as to attempt a rebuttal to his plan, the Proposer makes only one request: that they ask the impoverished parents of Ireland if they would have rather been sold and eaten at the age of one than endure the endless series misfortunes that have marked their lives. The answer, the Proposer heavily implies, will be yes.

Finally, the Proposer notes that he can’t help but speak sincerely about his plan, because he stands nothing to gain from it. His own child is too old to be sold, and his wife can no longer bear children.