A Modest Proposal
(Jonathon Swift)
Write your abstract
here.
Many of you must have pondered, as I have, the vexed
question: waht is the appropriate age at which to buy a
child, from a welfare mother let's say, for slaughter
and
cooking---if you want to obtain a reasonable bargain on
the
meat (and if you have a use for it, the hide) and aid
the
mother in her perilous struggle for survival. Swift
answered that question, definitively and incontestably
I
think, nearly three centuries ago: at the age of a
year, an
infant's upkeep has been minimal, the mother's milk
being
free and the few rags it needs for dressing of
negligible
cost. the sale of the meat (and hide) should keep the
mother at subsistence levels 'til her next child is
grown
saleable.
Looking over Swift's figures---which were accurate in
his
day---I do very much apprehend differential inflation---
which has made life and death more expensive for the
poor
and cheaper for the rich---has eliminated this humane
option. Unless baby flesh could be sold at the same
rate as
Kobe beef, no mother could make shift to survive from
breeding to breeding on the profit. And I more than
suspect
this would be a buyer's, not a seller's market.
Perhaps adoption then? you certainly hear of not-
inconsiderable sums being bandied about. But for
whatever
reason the children of the desperately poor---
especially
where pigment is at issue---are thought of far less
value
among those who can afford such a purchase.
I fear the lot of the poor is worse now than it was in
Swift's day---eaten alive by the well-to-do, then spit
out
ignominiously as coarse and unworthy fare.
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