In 1729, Ireland was in an awful state due to its struggles with England. The Irish people were doing little to help themselves. Children needed precious food to be raised, and did not help the country when they grew up as they either emigrated or turned to a life of crime. Jonathan Swift saw the problem, and knew how to make it come to the forefront of the country's conversation: satire. Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal: For preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public."
In case you don't feel like opening/reading that link, here's a quick rundown: Swift suggests that the solution to feeding the poor and preventing them from becoming a burden to society is to sell and eat the children. Of course he wasn't serious, he was satirizing the condition his country was in, and how little people were doing to fix it. While people were upset by Swift's suggestion-- arguing that killing and eating children was wrong-- they were simultaneously letting poor families, children included, starve.
While Swift didn't exactly solve the problems, and a ton of people died during the Great Potato Famine afterwards, his satire still attracted a lot of attention at the time. So yeah, pay attention to satire.
Matthew, an excellent analysis of the importance of satire. I especially like when Swift says, "I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child..." Quite the character he was.
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