CASH AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 995
deception in the search for profit, ostentation and profligate expenditure, bribery
and corruption among government clerks. the abandonment of agriculture, and
the decline of production and the daily income of the peasantry.
Nevertheless, after his nineteen-year exile for his involvement in the Christ-
ian movement ended in 1818, he took a more positive attitude toward cash.
Because Korean cash had been poor, light, and fragile, he suggested that some
of it be recast into multiple-denomination 10-and Ioo-cash coins that would
circulate together with the ordinary "penny" cash. The larger coins would be
useful for large commercial transactions conducted over great distances while
the smaller coins could remain in use for local market transactions.
He proposed Pak's method of minting gold and silver coins to circulate at a
value of fifty copper coins each to inhibit the export or smuggling of precious
metals out of the country, and banning the consumption of imported fancy Chi-
nese silks for all but the most respected rituals or celebrations. The ban on silk
consumption alone would reduce the export of gold and silver by 90 percent of
current totals and help to keep enough wealth in the country to buy off any poten-
tial foreign aggressors in the future.4'
Tasan also believed that cash was the best medium for tax payments because
it eliminated the kinds of cheating that existed in the measurement of grain and
cloth, and again like Pak Chiwon, he thought it was essential to concentrate all
minting activities in one government mint to maintain high standards and uni-
formity in the production of coins. The same agency would also become the
sale agency for the production of weapons and musical instruments as well. If
these measures were undertaken, cash (and commerce in general) would fulfill
its proper role, as a medium for the exchange of goods and the proper and equal
distribution of those goods throughout the country.
Furthermore, since the national tax structure was excessively dependent on the
land tax and merchants were hardly taxed at all, the imbalance in taxation had
to be redressed by raising taxes on merchants. On the other hand, they were not
to be fleeced by double taxation or demands for bribes by officials who collected
transit taxes at the ferries or customs stations. The purpose of these changes, how-
ever, was not to promote expansion of commerce and industry or shift the work
force from agriculture to these occupations but, on the contrary. to preserve the
primacy of the agricultural peasant by eliminating the advantages that merchants
had accrued over the years and to ensure the equitable distribution of income
among all occupations. Kim Yongdok has commented that Tasan was not as pro-
gressive as Pak Chega or Yu Suwon in his economic thinking because he did not
push for the expansion of commerce and industry, but he was more progressive
than Yi Ik because he reserved second place for commerce after agriculture.^42
Kim's analysis of Tasan, however, was hardly more convincing than Kwon
Yong'ik's treatment of Pak Chi won, because Tasan's reduction of cash and com-
merce to a secondary role was not only not progressive, it was the essence of
classical wisdom as advertised by Yu Hyongwon in the late seventeenth century.
Tasan's views on cash (like Pak Chiwon's) may have been more advanced than