Page "A Modest Proposal" Paragraph 15

While Swift ’ s proposal is obviously not a serious economic proposal, George Wittkowsky, author of " Swift ’ s Modest Proposal: The Biography of an Early Georgian Pamphlet ", argues that to understand the piece fully, it is important to understand the economics of Swift ’ s time.

Wittowsky argues that not enough critics have taken the time to focus directly on the mercantilism and theories of labor in 18th century England.

" f one regards the Modest Proposal simply as a criticism of condition, about all one can say is that conditions were bad and that Swift's irony brilliantly underscored this fact ".

At the start of a new industrial age in the 18th century, it was believed that " people are the riches of the nation ", and there was a general faith in an economy that paid its workers low wages because high wages meant workers would work less.

Furthermore, " in the mercantilist view no child was too young to go into industry ".

In those times, the " somewhat more humane attitudes of an earlier day had all but disappeared and the laborer had come to be regarded as a commodity ".