Photo by J Stimp | CC BY 2.0
When Jonathan Swift penned ‘A Modest Proposal’, suggesting ways for preventing the poor from becoming a burden on the state, he was obviously being ironic. As was often his wont, the great satirist, in suggesting that the children of the poor be served up as a new culinary delicacy, was really having a poke at the rich and powerful who were profiting from the poverty of itinerant Irish peasants, many of whom had been evicted from their land and forced into destitution. So far as Swift could see, such a gastronomic innovation would well suit the racketeering landlords, “who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”[1]
The germ of Swift’s proposal, which he wrote in 1729, stemmed from his awareness that there was no work for the landless peasantry. And, as there was no physical use to which they could be put, he surmised that other means would have to be found for utilising this early precariat if any value was to be extracted from their sad lives. What is perhaps most remarkable about Swift’s proposal is just how prescient it has turned out to be.For in the world of post-industrial, and increasingly post-labour capitalism, novel and innovative ways are indeed being found for deriving a profitable return from the poorest members of society. Terms like ‘the underclass’, ‘surplus people’, ‘the precariat’, even ‘unpeople’ and ‘zombie culture’ give a sense of…