818 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
tures would be made from funds (kyongbi) raised by those taxes. He meant that
such funds would be based on tax rates set by the state in quantities determined
in advance by the state, and no opportunity would be allowed for magistrates
or individual officials and their army of clerks and runners to impose arbitrary
and excessive extra taxes.
He stated that his intent was to copy the taedong system without using the
word itself because he hoped to avoid the stigma that had been attached to it
over the decades of debate. He preferred to talk only about "regular expendi-
tures" (kyongyong) to be paid out of regular tax receipts (kyongse) to clarify
what the real issues would be. He criticized the current taedong system because
it involved establishing tax rates on the basis of a calculation of expenditures
(yangch 'ul wiip) - the equivalent of a modem budget - because he preferred the
classical formula of limiting expenditures only to revenues received (yang'ip
wich 'ul) since it would put an end to the more serious evil of current govern-
ment finance - the unlimited use of extra, arbitrary, or miscellaneous taxation.^8
Even though Yu was committed to a radical and progressive rationalization
of government finance, his radicalism was restricted by a quite conservative aver-
sion to the risks involved in commiting expenditures in advance. Despite what
he said, however, he appears to have been talking about a balanced budget. Since
he refused to countenance any possibility of a national debt, or borrowing from
private parties to finance government deficits, to prevent the possibility of a bud-
get deficit he calculated expenditures in advance, reduced them to match
expected revenues, and made no allowance for annual shortages produced by
emergencies, unforeseen developments, or miscalculations. But without the pos-
sibility of a national debt, the only way to prevent a financial deficit based on
undercalculation of expected revenue was to allow additional taxes on the spot,
a practice that Yu was trying to overcome.
TRIBUTE REFORM
Royal Tribute (Chinsang)
One of the significant features of the Korean tributary system had been the impor-
tant and oppressive role played by tribute set aside for the king alone and admin-
istered by his own palace bureaucracy. Echoing the views ofCho Kwangjo and
Yulgok against the excesses of royal tribute (chinsang), Yu proposed that it be
abolished and the king's expenses be paid for and managed by one agency of
the regular bureaucracy, a plan that was not carried out until adoption of the
Kabo reform program of I 894.9Yu provided that this bureaucratic agency would
calculate the equivalent of the king's living expense in accordance with the
ancient Ch i nese principle used in feudal times, that the ruler of a state was only
entitled to an income ten times greater than the salary of his chief minister. The
new agency would pay that sum to the Royal Cuisine Office (Saongwon) or
Royal Clothing Office (Sang'uiwon) from tax revenues shipped to the capital