ABSTRACT
Trade advocates gave far greater recognition than opponents to the individual, particularly the merchants, and to their efforts to gain profit. Trade advocates championed nascent economic and political groups which could represent the populace apart from the state, and denounced state-chartered monopolies which would constrain more independent groups within the market. Trade advocates contributed mightily to survival and reorganization among the brokers by offering guidelines for a distinct group interest consistent with the wider commonweal. If trade critics opted for moral covenant over market contract in a return to a Chinese cultural empire, trade advocates argued for market and a new morality of interest in Korea's entry to a new interstate system of unequal states. Trade advocates distinguished the moral neutrality of the market dynamic from the morality of individuals in the market, whether merchants or officials.
