388 LAND REFORM
PROGRESS: TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL AGRICULTUREIn recent years, many Korean scholars have revised the criteria for judging rad-
icalism and progressivism in the thought of statecraft writers by replacing egal-
itarian distribution with what they have perceived to have been aspects of modem
capitalism, particularly the emphasis on rationality, efficient management, tech-
nology, the use of wage labor and tenancy to cut costs and maximize profits,
greater production, and the development of commodities for sale on the mar-
kct. The motivation for this new shift in interpretation is especially obvious to
the outside observer: the desire to demonstrate that in thought as well as action,
Koreans had demonstrated a capacity to trod the same path as the West in devel-
oping the sprouts of capitalism without the need for outside tutelage. Kim
Yongsop, for example, argued that both Tasan and So Yugu had been able to
develop unique plans for reform by their own thought and intiative, not simply
by borrowing ideas from abroad. They did it by striking a compromise with tra-
ditional historical-mindedness and the learning of the Han and Sung dynasties
to break with and transcend the tradition established by Chu Hsi. They devel-
oped realistic reform proposals that might be adopted by the government to reform
both agricultural methods and society and "overcome the feudal socioeconomic
order founded on social status and landlord-tenant relations.'"
Kim was right: Tasan and So Yugu's land reform proposals did incorporate
some elements of rational, capitalistic farming seen in the modern world, they
were more sensitive to the potential effects of the market on rural production
and income, and their ideas were derivative of what they observed had been tak-
ing place in their own society, but their vision for the future did not include the
replacement of agriculture as the primary mode of production by industrial pro-
duction or commercial activity. In fact, even some of the Confucian Physiocrats
were interested in increasing agricultural production, and as we will see even
Yu H yongwon conceded that the role of merchants was useful because it circu-
lated goods from the place of production to places of shortage. Tasan and So
did carry this mode of thought another stage further than Yu Hyongwon had, but
they did not become spokesman for the supremacy of commerce and industry
even though Tasan's fascination with technology might have carried him or oth-
ers after him along that route. As it turned out, no matter how practical or pro-
gressive their proposals might have been, no regime adopted them as policy in
the nineteenth century. As far as their ultimate objectives were concerned, how-
ever, far from advocating the superiority of private property, private initiative,
and the free market, they sought throughout to reinforce state control, public
ownership, collective production, and egalitarian redistribution wherever pos-
sible - the same goals that Yu had advocated in the seventeenth century.
Even though certain features of thc late Choson economy could be identified
as features of a system moving toward capitalistic agriculture -land accumula-
tion, tenancy, and hired labor - it is difficult to demonstrate a serious rise in agri-
cultural productivity by comparison with Japan, let alone per capita productivity