Doctor of Philosophy
Girne American University, Kyrenia, TRNC
henrietakrupa@gau.edu.tr
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CANNIBALISM: A SOCIOECONOMOC READING OF JONATHAN SWIFT’S A MODEST PROPOSAL
Abstract. This paper examines Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1999), first published in 1729 as a literary intervention in the economic discourse of early eighteenth-century Ireland. Through its biting satire, Swift exposes the moral bankruptcy of treating poverty as a purely economic problem and critiques the utilitarian rationality that reduces human life to measu-rable profit and loss. Drawing on socio-economic theory and moral philosophy, the study situates A Modest Proposal within the context of mercantilism, colonial dependency, and class hierarchy, arguing that Swift’s cannibalistic metaphor functions as an early form of social protest literature. By turning the logic of economic efficiency against itself, Swift not only condemns British exploitation and the commodification of the poor but also anticipates later critiques of capitalist ideology. The paper thus demonstrates how literary satire can operate as a tool of social analysis, bridging the disciplines of economics, ethics, and cultural criticism.
Kewyords : Jonathan Swift, satire, political economy, poverty, utilitarianism, moral critique
JEL classification: B11,Z13,I34