994 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
Hence, Pak's theory of money was unprejudiced, objective, and practical. The
only aspect of modernity lacking from his theory were perhaps the absence of
any theory of purchasing power or quantitative analysis.
Kwon also remarked that Pak believed in putting the power to mint and man-
age cash completely in the hands of the state and removing all outside influence
from the Korean monetary system. To create national self-sufficiency he pro-
posed prohibiting foreign trade and the export of raw metals for minting coins,
like silver. Even though this was to be a national currency system for a unified
state, it was not a philosophy of national essence (presumably like the chau-
vinists and ultranationalists of the Japanese in the 1930s), nor did it have any
aspects of the ambition for national power that characterized the Western mer-
cantilists who sought to maximize the national possession of precious metals.^40
Kwon's analysis, however, is unsatisfying because Pak's emphasis on the pri-
macy of agriculture and the secondary role of currency was an eminently clas-
sical statement of the relationship of cash to agricultural production, one that
Yu Hyongwon adopted as well, back in the mid-seventeenth century. There was
nothing "objective" (let alone modem) about it at all. His proposal to create a
currency system that, if not totally uniform, would at least consist of quality
coins of easily discernible value was hardly a departure from what Yu had also
advocated, another standard goal of the better monetary theorists in the Chinese
tradition, but his advocacy of multiple-denomination cash and silver coins rep-
resented a more enlightened attitude toward money than Yu's penny cash. K won's
assertion that Pak's fear of foreign trade and the exhaustion of the silver supply
was not mercantilist is not so clearly demonstrated. The mercantilist at least
believes that trade can be an engine for the expansion of national economic power
as long as a favorable balance of trade and the resulting inflow of specie from
abroad can be maintained. Pak's opposition to trade with China because of the
current adverse balance of trade had mercantilistic implications, from the los-
ing rather than the winning side of the equation, but his conservative protec-
tionism was not conducive to any expansion of trade as a means of promoting
Korean economic growth.
Tasan. Even though the great statecraft scholar of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, Chong Yagyong (Tasan), generally had a conservative atti-
tude toward commerce, he was also a well-known advocate of multiple-den om-
ination cash. Like Yongjo, Yi Ik, Pak Chiwon, and other conservatives before
him, he insisted on the primacy of agriculture over commerce and opposed osten-
tatious expenditures on lUxury items. Like Pak Chiwon he also deplored the
export of gold and silver to China for the import of fancy silks, and he favored
a ban on the import of silks and the private mining of gold. He explained that
the circulation of cash had not developed in Korea until late in its history because
easy maritime transportation around the coast lessened the need for cash. He
conceded that cash was easier to transport than other media of exchange and
promoted the volume of trade. However, when cash finally arrived in Korea,
instead of creating prosperity, it undermined morals by stimulating deceit and