What are the motifs in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift?

Self-Interest is a recurring idea. By the end of the essay, the reader understands the author is acting under self-interest. He doesn't want to rid the streets of poverty because he cares about people in poverty. Instead, he wants to preserve his own lifestyle where he frequents the best taverns and has dinner parties with friends. He tries to claim his proposal will help the poor, but this assumption seems to be made on the basis that anything that promotes the interests of the status quo can only help society in general. On a fundamental level his proposal amounts to ethnic cleansing and genocide. He wants to kill for meat, 100,000 children, a majority of which will be Catholics or the enemy of the state. The other children he claims will only grow up to become criminals.