OFFICIAL SALARIES AND EXPENSES 849and limited monarchical prerogative established in classical Chou times. The
excessive demands of Korean kings was an epiphenomenon of despotic acquis-
itiveness that had never been restrained by the proper spirit of rites and etiquette
or by the control of well-trained bureaucrats. Because of Yu's respect for clas-
sical Chinese models and the superiority of more recent Chinese institutions,
and his embarrassment at some of the inferior practices of the Korean past, those
scholars who have identitied Yu Hyongwon as one of the tirst nationalists in Korean
thought have misconstrued the fundamental basis of his thinking. His goal was
to improve government and finance by the best methods he could find, but he in
no way glorified the special features of the indigenous tradition.
In addition to royal tribute, Koreans in the Choson period had also allowed
officials on tributary missions to China to make demands on local districts along
the route of travel for expense support, and magistrates had made a habit of pre-
senting gifts to the king and their superiors as a matter of coul1esy or ritual respect.
Yu also found that neither of these habits were justified in classical practice.
Although ordinary tribute had been used in classical times, Yu also noticed
that they had never demanded tribute items in kind as Korean governments had
done until the seventeenth century. Instead, all items used for tribute were pur-
chased with regular tax revenues, and the tax burden on the peasants suppos-
edly was limited to the tithe. Since the history of the tribute system in Korea
had not demonstrated that the tolerance of tribute contracting by King Sejo
between 1559 and 1568, or the introduction of the taedong method of shifting
tribute to the land tax in the 1590S and 1608 had been motivated by an appeal
to classical institutions but rather by an attempt to overcome practical adminis-
trative problems, Yu could be accused of merely gilding the lily by citing clas-
sical precedent to justify his more practical considerations. One could only adopt
that point of view, however, if one refuses to believe the testimony of his writ-
ings that the remote past rather than a Utopian future provided the inspiration
and models for his vision.
In his discussion of the mechanism by which market purchases of all goods
consumed by king and bureaucracy should operate, his hearty advocacy of the
advantages of the market appeared to have adumbrated the arguments of Adam
Smith. He, however, justified it as a classical means for obtaining items of con-
sumption by the ruler and government, not by any developed or sophisticated
statement of the theoretical economic advantages of a free market in solving
problems of scarcity and promoting the supply of goods through the law of sup-
ply and demand. He did understand the role of the market in circulating goods,
but he felt that since the government would function as chief if not monopson-
istic purchaser of commodities, it would have to play the crucial role of stimu-
lating commercial activity and guaranteeing the flow of goods to the capital by
subsidizing the prices of commodities and guaranteeing profits for producers
and purchasing agents designated by the government. He insisted that the gov-
ernment officials would have to pay higher than market prices to guarantee the
viability of the tribute agents or merchants lest those officials be tempted by the