MILITAR Y FIN ANC E 483not need the inspiration of reclusive scholars to propose ideas for change
because they both derived inspiration from similar sources: the environment
of the seventeenth century, and an inclination to rectify faulty institutions that
was part of an intellectual tradition shared by all. In addition, their ideas were
more advanced or progressive in the sense that they had adapted to a changing
economic and fiscal environment where Yu's thought was closer in some
respects to that of the fifteenth century. When Yu Hyongwon's ideas were finally
broached at court in 1750, right in the midst of the debate over reform of the
military service system, we have certain proof that contact between the recluse
world of the scholar and that of the active official was finally made. But by that
time, the world had changed considerably.
DEFEAT OF THE HOUSEHOLD CLOTH TAX, 1681-82Yun Ida Opposes Household Cloth Tax, 1680Despite the failure of reform in 1674, the debate over expanding the tax base
was revived again in r680, but this time over the household cloth tax, which
was based on the fundamental proposition that the financing of the military by
support taxpayers tied to duty soldiers ought to be shifted to a more flexible and
dependable source of tax revenues. The idea ran into difficulty from the outset,
however. Third Minister of Taxation Yun Ido remarked that the household cloth
tax (hop 0) would not produce sufficient revenue because it would exclude offi-
cial and private slaves, while a capitation tax would be harder to bear for poor
families with several adult males. Based on his own recent experience in the
south where he found evasion of military support taxes to be ubiquitous, he
believed that dispatching registrars to sign up the shirkers would be the quick-
est way to eliminate double and triple taxation of registered males. 24
What is interesting about Yun Ido's criticism is that it focused on fiscal cal-
culation - the amount of revenue to be produced and the burden on individual
families - not on the legitimacy of taxation divorced from adult males. of what-
ever status. Although his opposition to both household and capitation taxes was
ostensibly based on concern for peasant welfare. others reacted defensively
against possible inroads into yangban privilege.Yi Tanha Opposes Equality in Taxation, 1681In 1681, after Sukchong came to the throne, Yi Tanha, then inspector-general
(Taesahon), spoke out against any household cloth tax that would be levied on
all families from the highest state officials down through commoners and base
persons or slaves, and he provided a philosophical justification for discrimina-
tion and against equality. He said the idea had heen abandoned in 1674 because
the whole country was up in anns over it and court opinion was too sharply
divided. Nonetheless, its advocates believed it was the best way to achieve equal-