this problem, but to attack English policy in Ireland and the attitudes inherent to Enlightenment-era rationalism. To support his argument, Smith specifically includes a list of six advantages.

The first centers around demographics, with Swift writing that his plan will serve to decrease the Catholic population, which he refers to both as "the principle breeders of the nation, as well as our most dangerous enemies."

From here, his next few advantages are chiefly economic in nature. He writes, as his second advantage, that it would give "the poorer tenants something valuable of their own," while (in his fourth advantage), he states that the sale of these children would remove a financial burden on the poor. His third advantage is that it would boost the nation's economy. Additionally, he writes that his scheme would be to the benefit of the nation's taverns.

Finally, Swift claims that his suggestion would have a positive social effect, serving as "a great inducement to marriage." He states that husbands would be gentler with and more loving towards their pregnant wives, while mothers would be more affectionate with their children when each child represents a financial investment.

The six principal advantages of Jonathan Swift's plan in A Modest Proposal are as follows.

1. Parents will benefit. Instead of having to care for, clothe, and feed their children, children will become a source of income for their parents. Selling their children will enable poor people to generate money to pay their rent and buy food.
2. It will lower the murder rate by preventing women from murdering their illegitimate children. Moreover, it will dissuade pregnant mothers from seeking abortions or even giving themselves abortions.
3. It will improve the demographics of the domestic population. Specifically, it will reduce the percentage of Catholics in the total population, since Catholics, according to Swift, reproduce at greater rates than Protestants. By reducing the numbers of Catholics, Protestants will feel more comfortable staying in the country.
4. It will contribute to population control by eliminating large numbers of female babies who would eventually become mothers themselves and bring many children in the world that they could not care for.
5. It will boost the country’s GDP. Rather than being a burden on the economy, the sale of the babies will generate revenue that will contribute to the country's economy. Properly prepared, the new gastronomic dishes Swift proposes will bring new customers to taverns, producing incremental income for pub owners, wine producers, wait staff, and many others.
6. It would induce people to get married, because there would be a profit motivation. By marrying and reproducing, they could generate continuous income.

"A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift's devastating, classic satire, is aimed squarely at British mistreatment of their fellow Irish. It specifically attacks the prevailing mercantilist notion that human beings comprise the wealth of a nation, which allowed the exploitation of child labor at terribly low wages. The horrifying concept of children as a delectable menu item for gourmet consumption is Swift's reductio ad absurdum of this mercantilist commodification of human beings.

The first of the advantages of such a scheme, he says, will be a reduction in the number of Papists, as Irish Catholics were described, who reproduce at a high rate and pose a political threat to the British.

Second, children will be a valuable commodity to tenant farmers, whose produce and livestock have already been seized by rack-rent landlords.

Third, Ireland's gross domestic product will be "encreased 50 thousand pounds per annum" by the export of child-flesh, "and the Money will circulate among our selves, the Goods being entirely of our own Growth and Manufacture."

Fourth, "The constant Breeders," aside from gaining eight shillings, will be relieved of the expense of maintaining them after their first year.

Fifth, this amazing new delicacy would increase the business of taverns, which would employ "skillful" chefs to create novel recipes for the palates of gourmands accustomed to paying high prices for the finest fare.

Sixth, it would enhance the status of marriage, and improve the care of children by their parents, since they were sure of a "Settlement for Life." It would also provoke a competition among women to see, "which of them could bring the fattest Child to Market . . . " Men would treat their pregnant wives as carefully as they did their pregnant livestock, since they would also be carrying a product that had a cash value.

After unveiling his shocking plan to slaughter "surplus" Irish children for food, Swift argues (tongue in cheek, of course) that it has six advantages. First, it would reduce the numbers of Irish Catholics, who were loathed by the English. Second, it will give poor tenants, who, "their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown," a salable commodity.  Third, it provide Ireland with a valuable export. Fourth, the "constant breeders" can rid themselves of the enormous cost of raising their children. Fifth, it will bring "great custom to taverns," where cooks can devise new recipes for cooking this novel dish. Finally, Smith argues that the practice would be a "great inducement" for poor women to marry and for husbands to care for their wives and for the children they produce:

It would encrease the care and tenderness of mothers towards their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the publick, to their annual profit instead of expence. We should soon see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sow when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

Swift makes his argument so effective, in part, by making his narrator completely ridiculous. First, it is the narrator who ostensibly titles this piece "A Modest Proposal," and the idea that this proposal is, in any way, "modest" is preposterous. The word "modest" implies that the proposal will be somewhat humble, or appropriately limited, and it is anything but. The proposal is so shockingly barbaric that a person in their right mind could never ever consider it modest. Moreover, the narrator rather immodestly states that his proposal would so benefit the public that he ought to "have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation."

Further, the narrator clearly has no idea what he is talking about. For example, he says that "a child just born will weight 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increases to 28 pounds." It would be highly unusual for a baby born to a well-fed woman in the twenty-first century to weigh twelve pounds, but the idea that a near-starving woman in the eighteenth century would give birth to such a gigantic infant is laughable. Next, the claim that a one year-old infant would weigh twenty-eight pounds is likewise ridiculous. By making it clear that the narrator who makes this proposal is an imbecile, Swift creates dramatic irony that assists his own argument.

Swift does this mainly through his complete mastery of style. He was a superb satirist and his talent is nowhere more evident than in this work. Irony permeates the entire piece, from the title to the closing sentence. Swift has his speaker assume the most moderate and reasonable tone even when making the most appalling suggestion - that the poverty-stricken Irish people should sell their children as food. He sets out the argument in logical steps, pointing out that this would relieve the Irish people of the burden of having to raise children in poor conditions and earn them money. In this way, he says, the children can serve a useful purpose instead of having to grow up in misery. He points out the social and economic advantages of such a proposition in the clinical, detached manner of sociologists, economists and statisticians the world over.

What Swift effectively does in this essay is to employ shock-tactics to jolt the reader into an awareness of the terrible living conditions in Ireland at that time, due in no small part to oppression by the English. On a purely logical level, the argument is perfectly sound, but the moral objection is overwhelming. Swift of course understood this; the whole piece, despite its apparently mild tone, is consummately and savagely ironic. It certainly has left a memorable impression on its readers over the centuries. Indeed, A Modest Proposal is probably the most famous essay in all of English literature.

The full title of the satirical essay "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public." His proposal of selling children from impoverished Irish families to wealthy noble men and women to be used as food is, of course, ludicrous. However, in the essay, he treats the subject as if it is a perfectly logical proposition and supports his position with pseudo-rational arguments.

Swift first writes that it is annoying, or "melancholy," for people walking or traveling to see women and sometimes men with hordes of children begging for their sustenance from passers-by, so a person who finds a cheap and easy solution to this problem should be commended. His solution, he insists, will solve the problem not only of beggar children, but of all children whose parents are not able to support them. It would also prevent abortions.

The author further supports his argument with statistics, suggesting that couples who can adequately support their children are in the minority. He also reasons that children of poor circumstances under the age of twelve can do nothing useful to benefit society. He therefore argues that healthy children of a year old are delicious when cooked in various ways. A small percentage could be kept aside for breeding, and the rest could be sold for food to "persons of quality and fortune throughout the kingdom." He gives details about how the mothers could nurse them to plump them up and how far a meal of a child might stretch.

Swift explains that this proposal will be especially beneficial in reducing the amount of Roman Catholics in the kingdom. He suggests the proper price for a fattened child, and further suggests that the skin can make gloves for ladies and boots for gentlemen.

In concluding his essay, Swift offers a summary of his arguments supporting his proposal. First, it would reduce the number of papists, or Catholics. Second, poor tenants could offer something of value (their children) to their landlords for rent. Third, the proposal would earn the nation money and present a new dish for consumption. Fourth, poor couples will be rid of their children. Fifth, local taverns will attract noble and rich people by serving children as food. Sixth, it would induce couples to marry and treat their children well, as they could eventually profit from them.

We can see, then, that Swift supports his argument by forming his absurd and disgusting proposal as if it were a valid suggestion and then bringing up supposedly logical reasons as to why it should work.

It's important to remember that the argument that the poor Irish sell their babies as a new food source to the wealthy English is not Swift's argument but his unnamed narrator's (who we can think of as a character or, at least, a persona, though not Swift himself). This narrator uses pathos and logos, two of Aristotle's three modes of persuasion, to make his argument. He begins with pathos, detailing the sad sight of Irish beggars in need:

It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants [...].

I've bolded all the words that seem designed to elicit our sympathies and tug at our heartstrings. The narrator paints a sorrowful picture of these poor mothers and their "helpless" babies who are forced to beg for their food. He purports to have a way to help them.

The narrator employs logos when he begins to list and number the various supposed benefits of his proposal. He begins, "[...] first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of Papists," and he goes on to list six numbered benefits as well as a handful of others that he does not discuss in as detailed a manner. These help to illustrate the logical value of the proposal, as he reasons that there are so many reasons to go ahead with its implementation.

As any serious proposal to solve a problem does, "A Modest Proposal" includes a discussion of the commercial viability of raising Irish children for food and includes a number of calculations designed to prove that his solution is not only practical but beneficial.  For example, one of the main reasons behind his proposal is that Ireland is grossly over-populated and that the poor are already committing infanticide and abandoning their infants routinely because they cannot feed these children.  Swift argues that

A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will make a reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled in the fourth Day, especially in Winter.

If we deleted the word "child" and inserted "roast beef," this paragraph would be considered a logical, well-thought-out discussion of using beef in an economical and palatable way.  Swift includes seasoning and preparation advice.  This direct and concrete advice lends credibility to the entire proposal--until, that is,  we recall what the dish really is.

Swift has been so thorough in his analysis that he is even able to discuss why the availability of children may increase because Ireland is a predominately Catholic country:

. . .there are more Children born in Roman Catholick Countries about Nine Months after Lent, that at any other Season: Therefore reckoning a Year after Lent, the Markets will be more glutted than usual. . . .

This particular observation, although completely reasonable, carries some of Swift's most powerful satire.  As an Irish Catholic himself, Swift is addressing the Protestant majority in England to whom Catholics were enemies to be exterminated.  In fact, he is explicit about the advantage of the glut of infants--eating these Post-Lent infants will lessen "the number of Papists among us."  In this argument, he has the best of two worlds: he points out that the Catholics themselves will provide an enormous amount of available food after Lent and eating those children will decrease the number of England's religious enemies.

Swift's additional calculation of the cost of nursing a child, which is "about two Shillings per Annum, Rags included," set against the price a gentleman might pay--"Ten Shillings" for a fat child--is definitely cost-effective because that child "will make four Dishes of excellent Nutritive Meat. . . ."  Each time Swift manages to create the illusion of careful calculations that result in economical use, he is continuing the illusion that his approach is not only reasonable but also based on irrefutable calculations.  Who can argue with facts?

This essay manages to create in the mind of a reader what psychologists now call "cognitive dissonance" or "cognitive dis-equilibrium" because the reader, inundated with statistics and calculations, has to admire a logical argument and, at the same time, be horrified by the actual subject of the argument.

One objection Swift admits is that "the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom" if his plan is put into action. This he freely accepts, adding that it is actually part of his plan. He goes on to mention a few other alternatives but says that none will possibly work. Taxing absentee landlords, using only domestic manufactured goods, reducing spending on luxuries and vices, exercising fiscal restraint, ending factional disputes, promoting leniency in landlords, and cultivating honesty in "shop-keepers" are all dismissed as hopelessly utopian. In other words, he is saying that it is so unlikely that landlords will every be persuaded to be anything other than greedy and ruthless, or that people will quit wasting money, that his plan (to eat children) is the most likely to be successful. So there is really only one objection that he concedes. The other alternative plans are useless. This is Swift as a biting social critic, inveighing against the greed, lax morality, and cruelty that he saw in British society, but most of all against the exploitation of Ireland by British landlords.

It is towards the middle of his satirical essay "A Modest Proposal" that author Jonathan Swift concedes objections to his proposal. He opens his conceding remarks with the statement, "[L]et no man talk to me of other expedients," meaning other means to the end. In other words, he is saying that no one should oppose his proposal by discussing means other than eating excessive children to eliminate the poverty and suffering he is describing in his essay. From this statement he goes on to list other possible means to eliminate poverty and suffering.One means is that those citizens of Ireland who are not living in Ireland could be taxed at "five shilling a pound" of their income. The extra money from taxes could be put to use caring for the poor. A second means he lists is prohibiting citizens of Ireland from buying any clothes or furniture not grown and manufactured in Ireland so that only Ireland would receive any profits from the items. Ensuring only Ireland received profits for such goods would strengthen Ireland's economy, which would also help lessen poverty within Ireland. Other means he names consist of improving the character of Irish citizens, especially the character of landlords who could "have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants." A final means he names is improving the character and skills of the "shop-keepers" so that, when a measure is put forth to only buy goods native to Ireland, the shopkeepers do not cheat the Irish by raising prices and lessening quality. All of these means he lists count as objections people can raise to his proposal of eating children. The argument is that if there are other ways we can lessen poverty in Ireland, then those ways/means should be pursued rather than his proposal.In listing these means as possible objections to his proposal, he is also conceding objections people may raise, which means he is acknowledging objections. But more interesting than his list of objections is his reason for stating that no one should speak to him of these objections, a reason he gives us after this paragraph:

Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

In other words, no one should speak to him of the above possible means to putting an end to the poverty because it is extremely unlikely anyone in Ireland will try to employ any of those means due to the poor characters of the Protestants in Ireland who are causing the problem. In other words, Swift concedes possible objections to his proposal by listing them, then offers the counterargument that any other means of eliminating the problem will never be employed.

First, it is most important to realize that Swift most emphatically does not believe in the "modest" proposal his clueless narrator makes about eating the children of the poor. He creates a tone-deaf, morally obtuse persona as his narrator, a man who is so concerned about money and economics that he completely loses sight of the fact that the salable commodities he is talking about are human beings.

To the clueless narrator, however, six advantages to having the poor fatten and sell their children as delicacies at age one for the rich to eat are as follows:

It will reduce the number of papists in Ireland.

It will make the poor self-sufficient so that they don't have to starve, beg, or sell themselves into servitude.

It will increase the wealth circulating in Ireland.

Parents will no longer have to worry about how much it costs to raises these children after their first year.

It will make men kinder to their wives, as they won't want to damage the "merchandise" the women are carrying while they are pregnant.

The babies will provide wholesome and delicious food that will help expand the tavern trade.

Jonathan Swift wrote his A Modest Proposal as a satirical response to the treatment the English gave their Irish neighbors.  In it, he proposes that the problems of domestic abuse, overpopulation, poverty, and little beggars/theives in Ireland could be solved by having the women sell their children as food and soft leather goods.

The advantages of such an outrageous proposal?  Well, in his mind  there were many:  one, there would be fewer papists--a derogatory term for Catholics (don't forget that Henry VIII broke from the Catholic church with his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, and since then there has always been a Catholic/Protestant issue there).  Secondly, having so many children is now a valuable asset rather than a a strain on finances and food supplies--men would treat their wives as they treat their pregnant cows, horses, and donkeys.  A third advantage is that the Irish would have a way to pay for the things they need including the rent on their homes, thus, fewer evictions and more money in the English landlord's pocket.  Not to mention that the child would not need additional costly food in the "fattening up" stage since their mothers would nurse them with their mother's milk. Fourth, a proposal like this can only increase the stability of the economy.  A new food treat like roasted or boiled baby flesh would most certainly bring in more business for the pubs.  Fifth, the sheer delight of such a delicate new dish would certainly entertain the mouths and tummies of tourists, businessmen, and the common folk alike.  In addition, there would be fewer thieves on the earth since these children would no longer grow up to steal from honest people on the streets.  Lastly, the soft flesh of children would make great summer boots and gloves for upper class ladies who would most likely choose this wonderfully supply leather over eelskin or other choices they currently have.

The only thing our narrator didn't consider or address is that poor Catholic Irish mothers love their children as much if not more than the wealthy English women do.  Of course, they would never stand for producing children for the purposes of earning income through selling them and having them made into succotash as the local pub and gloves for the fine ladies to wear.

1. It will help to get rid of Roman Catholics, who have lots of children.  That way there will be more room for the Protestants.
2. Poorer tenants will have something of value that can help pay their landlords' rent, the landlords having already taken everything else they own.
3. They'll cost a lot and all that money will stay right there in Ireland.
4. People who have lots of kids will get rid of them after a year and get money in the bargain.
5. It will help the taverns because the kids will taste so good that tavern keepers will make great recipes and attract customers.
6. Men will care more about their wives (as breeding stock) and will be more likely to get married.

These are the six in his list.  Before that, he also mentions:

• It will prevent abortions and abandonment of unwanted children.
• Young kids are no good to anyone.  They can't work yet, so they just sponge off their parents or the community.

"A Modest Proposal" is a work of satire, by which Swift is criticizing overly rationalist approaches to social policy, while shining a light on the problem of poverty in Ireland. In fact, Swift's cold rationalism is itself part of the satire: "A Modest Proposal" ultimately seeks to reveal the inherent cruelty of an entire mode of thinking, which would be so caught up in an appeal to reason that it risks forgetting empathy, compassion, and the very real presence of suffering.

That being said, I would note that Swift does seem to genuinely offer more than a few policy proposals of his own. I'd suggest you look towards the passage which begins with "therefore, let no man talk to me of other expedients," located towards the end of "A Modest Proposal." This particular paragraph begins in the following manner: "I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal" and continues from there to find more information as to what these proposals involve.

The major proposition behind the "modest proposal" is that Ireland's travails under English rule, namely the dreadful poverty that plagued the island, can be remedied by a simple solution. This solution is, according to Swift, that Irish babies be sold for food. That way, he assures his readers, the children, who are a terrible burden on their families, who are reduced to begging to feed them, will become assets. This shocking proposal is, of course, satirical--Swift is pulling the reader's leg.

His purpose in doing so is serious, however. So the real "proposition" behind "A Modest Proposal" is perhaps that solutions to social problems that do not take actual human lives into account should not be considered. Swift uses statistics and hard economic data to make his case, and indeed if we only considered the solution on this level, it might make sense. But there is more to life, Swift seems to be saying, than economics, and by choosing such an extreme solution with no regard to the obvious moral questions involved, he makes this point very clearly. 

One reason to support the speaker's proposal in "A Modest Proposal" is that women nurse their young for one year in all events and a woman can be sustained during that year by her meager occupation of begging. Another reason presented in an emotional appeal is that his proposal will put an end to abortions and the practice of murdering unwanted babies. A third reason is that infants are not of any employable worth even as thieves under six years of age, in fact, twelve years old is better.

A primary reason is that the superfluity of Irish children that he means to bring to productive ends are seldom the result of marriage. A corresponding reason is that landlords devour the parents and therefore it seems fitting that they should devour the children as well. The speaker in the satirical essay sums up many more reasons by saying that he proposes this for "the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich."