ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 presents the Chosŏn Dynasty Korea (1392–1910) as a predominantly Confucian, hierarchical and agricultural society, and discusses each aspect.
First, two concurrent projects of Confucian transformation are distinguished – namely, the Confucianization of the state system and the Confucianization of the family system. The former is an attempt by a small number reformist Confucian scholars and politicians to build a state bureaucracy on the basis of individual merit regardless of status distinction with the goal of promoting the welfare of the people in general or “the politics based on people” (wimin chongch’i). The latter represents the counter efforts on the part of the majority of yangban elites to establish detailed theories, rules and rituals of patrilineal lineage, and ancestor worship in an attempt to protect their class privileges or the status distinction. In the end, the latter prevailed, while the former remained merely as an ideal, not a firmly established moral and political tradition.
Second, an attempt was made to analyze the hierarchical system based on status distinction – yangban, commoners and slave- and occupational hierarchy-government officials, and scholars, peasants, artisans and merchants – and to demonstrate how the two hierarchies were related
Third, the economic structure is explored to show how the Chosŏn government endeavored to retain and strengthen its agrarian basis and to prevent peasants from abandoning farming by holding the non-agricultural sector under government control and restricting its expansion through licensing but failed to do so. An unknown number of peasant did leave farming in search of new means of livelihood in commerce and mining. Given agricultural instability, the non-agricultural sector went through significant transformation and privatization. This change in the non-agricultural sector refutes the once widely held thesis that the Chosŏn economy remained stagnant over five centuries; it cannot, however, be taken as “the sprout of capitalism” as some revisionist historian claim.
