Seminar Paper - Swift and Smith

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on November 30^th 1667, and died on October 19^th 1745 aged 77. He was a satirist who wrote essays and pamphlets and prose. When he started writing he published all his work either anonymously or he would create fictitious names such as M.B Drapier. He was a well educated man with a M.A from Hartford College in 1962. He is commonly remembered for his work Gulliver’s Travels, and A Modest Proposal.

A Modest Proposal was published in 1729 and outline’s Swift’s proposal “for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents and country.” He proposed that the young children of poor people in Ireland should be killed and eaten so that they were not a burden on society, and in order to create a smaller population.

This piece is an example of the satirical style of Swift’s writing, as he did not intend for the proposal to be taken seriously at all. I think that Swift could have been highlighting the seriousness of poverty and over population in Ireland. By suggesting such a ridiculous proposal, he could have been representing the fact that there was little that could be done about the situation, and that a valid solution would be very difficult to find.

Even the title of the essay prepares us for the satire of the piece. Swift’s use of the word ‘modest’ is satirical because it makes it seem as if the killing of children for food is something which is not very dramatic, and that Swift does not expect anyone to find his proposal shocking. Swift reinforces this by referring to his “humble” proposal. 

 Swift states that he would be willing to listen to any other proposal from a “wise man” which is as “equally innocent, cheap, easy and effectual.” At the time, this made have made the reader think about what other options there would actually be to the problem; supporting my idea that Swift was trying to highlight the fact that there was no simple solution available.

There were parts of the proposal that I found to be particularly humorous. For example, Swift offers his proposal as an alternative to what he describes as the “horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children” and suggests his disgust at the “sacrificing of innocent babes.” This is humorous because Swift’s proposal to this is in fact exactly the same; he too proposes to sacrifice “innocent children” for the benefit of society.

In his proposal, Swift goes into a fair amount of detail about the calculations he has made before reaching his conclusion. For example he explains how he has calculated that “there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which I subtract thirty thousand couple…”He continues with more sums which become increasingly hard to follow. This use of figures and calculations could have been used to make his proposal more valid, after all people would be more likely to accept his proposal in the knowledge that he had researched it thoroughly. I think that this was a clever devise because it is human nature to accept, rather blindly in some cases, any extensive research presented to them by an intellectual.

Swift could also have been trying to mock the way that the government at the time tried to find solutions through the use of hard, cold statistics, by giving an example of how numbers could be used to make even the most ridiculous proposal make sense.

Throughout the entire proposal Swift uses phrases such as “our merchants” and “we can”. By using words such as “we” and “our” Swift includes himself with his readers. This makes the reader feel involved with the proposal and also gives the impression that Swift is trying to find a solution for himself as well. This might make the reader trust the proposal more because they trust that Swift would not propose something which was going to be detrimental to him.   

Swift refers to a “very knowing American of my acquaintance in London” who assured him that a healthy child is a “most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food.” He also mentions “a very worthy person” who supports his proposal. I think that Swift purposely does not name either of the men.  By not giving them identities, he could be referring to anyone at all; and could mean member of the British government. He may also be poking fun at his own proposal because, at that time, Americans were considered to be farcical and were known for telling lies and exaggerating the truth.

Swift could be using the two examples to show his frustration that ‘quick fix’ solutions were being offered by people who were not being impacted by the poverty in Ireland, and so were not in a position to be giving advice. He could also be making the point that lower classes at the time were heavily influenced by the upper classes, and by mentioning upper class gentleman Swift was trying to make his proposal more appealing to the lower class mothers.

I think that throughout his Modest Proposal, Swift was trying to make a point about the exploitation of the poor for the sake of the wealthy. He describes how the children’s skin could be used to make “summer boots for fine gentlemen” and how his proposal can offer “relief to the poor and some pleasure to the rich.” This social observation could reflect how poor people were often servants to the rich, or had to beg on the streets hoping for a wealthy person to help them. His proposal would mean that poor women take care of a child for a whole year, so that a wealthy person may then take that child for food.

This very obvious class divide is one that I feel is still reflected in society today. For example, in African countries farmers work relentlessly to grow crops that are then shipped to wealthy people for them to eat, and once those crops have been sold; farmers start the whole process again.

Throughout the piece Swift refers to an advantage of his proposal being that “it would greatly lessen the number of Papists.” It is likely that he did this in order to encourage his readers to support his proposal because at the time there was a widespread hatred for the Irish. Again, this is a method which is used in today’s society, but instead of a social hatred for Catholics, this hatred is directed at Muslims, and many newspapers reflect this attitude in order to engage and appeal to readers.

Conclusively, I think that Swift’s ‘Modest Proposal’ is incredibly well written and is written with the typical attitude at the time, where writers were able to ridicule certain individuals or groups in subtle ways which may not even be detected by the people they are trying to insult.

The extract from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations had some similar themes to Swift’s proposal.

Adam Smith was born in June 1723 and died in July 1790 and like David Hume, he was a Scottish philosopher and economist. He is often referred to as the Father of Economics. His magnum opus is the Wealth of Nations. First published in 1776, nearly 50 years after Swift's Proposal, Wealth of Nations is an influential piece of work for the case of laissez faire in which Smith explains that the government should not control economic activity. Ths reminded me of Locke's ideas about not wanting the Government to have complete control.


Wealth of Nations is split into five books and comments on the economics of the Industrial Revolution. The first chapter of book three, of the different progress of opulence in different nations, focuses on the relationship between country and town.

Smith explains how the country and the town are interconnected and that one could not exist without the other. He describes how “the country supplies the town with the … materials of manufacture” and how the town then “repays this supply by sending back part of the manufactured produce...” and that the “gains of both are reciprocal.” This gives the image of a town and country co-existing peacefully and supporting one another equally.

Throughout this piece Smith highlights that the standard of living in both town and country is reliant on the productivity of labour as well as the relationship between the two. This relationship between town and country is something that we still see today, and something which works in a similar way to what Smith explains.

One of the themes in Smith’s piece is how cooperation is needed to attain the best results. He also highlights how work should be broken down into small parts and given to people who are best able to complete the tasks. I think that this is a similar theme is Swift’s Modest Proposal because he suggests that the work of raising a child in preparation to kill it should be split into parts. For example, it is the father’s job not to abuse the wife while she is pregnant to avoid miscarriage, it is the mother’s job to pay for and feed the child for the first year, then it is the job of a cook to prepare the food for the wealthy people.

In Smith’s piece there is a divide between country and town, although they help each other. This is similar to Swift’s proposal in which there is a divide between rich and poor who also help each other. In Smith’s extract the country provides materials to the town and the town supplies the products made with the materials in return. In A Modest Proposal, the poor provide the rich with children to eat, and the rich give the poor money in exchange for this service.

In conclusion, there are similar themes in Swift's Proposal and Smith's Wealth of Nations and they are both well written and are easy to read even to this day.