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 (Eng. A modest proposal: To prevent the children of the poor from their parents or the state a burden, and to use it beneficially for the general public. ) from the year 1729 is a well-known satire by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).
content
First, Swift describes the situation from the point of view of travelers in Dublin , who might feel harassed by the beggars: “It is a melancholy sight for everyone who walks in this big city or in the country when they walk the alleys, streets and doors the huts full of beggar women, behind whom three, four or six children crowd, all in rags, who pester every passerby for alms. "He continued these thoughts with further words:" Some people of despairing nature are very worried about that immense number of poor who are aged, sick, or crippled; and I have often been told that I should direct my thoughts to the path to be taken in order to free the country from such a heavy burden; ... "
In order to solve overpopulation, poverty and crime in Ireland , he suggests using Irish babies as food and making a profit by exporting them to London : “Because these goods are not suitable for export because the meat is too tender to to keep oneself in salt for a long time, although I could perhaps name a country that would gladly eat our whole nation even without salt. "
Swift exaggerates various proposals discussed at the time, such as organizing the poor along the lines of a stock corporation or the practice of viewing people as a resource . The title probably alludes to Bernard de Mandeville , A Modest Pamphlet for Public Whorehouses Or An Attempt at Fornication as it is now practiced in the UK from 1724 onwards.
literature
- Gudrun Boch: Irish reader . 1st edition. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-40823-2 , pp. 311 .
