• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
• /
• no.48
• /
• pp.195-223
• /
• 2012

Until now, I guess, many scholars misunderstood the characteristic of economic awareness of Yi Hang-no as if it was a modern nationalism or radicalism against Japanese anti-Korean insistences. But I think these opinions are out of historical attitude. So to understand Yi's economic awareness correctly, I think, We should focus on the traditional Confucian thought system at that time. As one method to reach the goal, I focused on the word, Jeong-jeon-je: Oriental equal land system. Yi Hang-no put the importance on Jeong-jeon-je to make utopia he dreamed of. Yi thought Jeong-jeon-je is the basis of equal society and strong state. Also Yi thought a moral society would be achieved by Jeong-jeon-je because the equal land system, so called Jeong-jeon-je provide peasants with equal lands, so it makes peasants stable in economic situation. Especially, Yi Hang-no put importance on that Jeong-jeon-je would raise moral consciousness of people because equal economic condition makes people wealthy, so people would be good men naturally. Yi Hang-no explain it in basis of Insim-Dosim-seol: a theory of two minds bad & good to be. Yi Hang-no thought equal economic condition is the basis of making people moral being. He thought Jeong-jeon-je was a basis of the condition. Reversely, Yi thought Western insists of trade was the beginning of making people fight for individual benefit, so it produces devil selfishness out of human mind. That was the reason that Yi Hang-no opposed the trade with Western Powers. Eventually Yi's assertion of embargo came out of his Insim-Dosim-seol. In this context, Yi's Jeong-jeon-je was insisted as a method to raise human moral consciousness.