Institutional reform

Why institutional reforms failed in 19th century Joseon?

Well functioning social institutions are one of the most essential features that can be seen in developed countries. For instance, in the history of British medicine, from the 18th century hospital reform movements began to take place, led by mainly philanthropists such as John Howard who initially had been interested in prison reform. In the similar period, Joseon dynasty had lots of outmoded, corrupt and harmful social institutions. However, social reform never gained such a dynamic force in Korean history before the 20th century. Why? 

Social movements could flourish in a country where the government is more limited and restricted while the market and individuals were given more autonomy. Joseon during the majority of its history did not allow individual persons to have autonomy over their own lives. Even the aristocracy was not free from judgments by orthodox political ideology called Neo-Confucianism, which judges everything in the world as good (or righteous) vs bad (or evil). Politicians (renowned scholars or high officials) who argued for different opinions were ordered to death under the charge of pursuing evil ideas thus being likely to spread bad influences to society. No deviant thinking was allowed by the government. Bad opinions and behaviours were slaughtered or ignored. Government was so powerful in terms of its influence that it could judge every aspect of individuals' thoughts as good or bad and did not allow any autonomy to local society. 

The government also forbade individuals to participate freely in market activities, with numerous restrictions. Money and mercantile activities were regarded as bad and ignored. The problem is that the government needed money, so money was a necessary evil thing for the government, while money was a bad thing to ordinary people. The market was severely restricted and mostly exploited by governmental officials who had the power to control and manipulate it. Most of the money in the market was hidden rather than freely circulated, as governmental officials were always ready to exploit the market and merchants. They were predators of the market. Merchants who wanted to thrive had to bribe local officials, who then used the money to bribe higher central officials. This led to the formation of a gigantic pyramidal chain of bribe among governmental officials. 

The only person who could fight against this massive scale of corruption was the king, because he did not need money to bribe anyone for his promotion and he had the ultimate right for placement. In fact, Yeongjo and Jeongjo did try to perform such a role during the 18th century. However, the failure of the government was already far beyond the degree which two enthusiastic kings could mend. Nor did they know the fundamental reasons for such a governmental failure. They did not know John Locke and Adam Smith. 

One of the things that South Korean world history text books do not tell is that Britain until the mid-19th century was the country that had the least governmental control and intervention than any other country in Europe. The most important driving power in achieving the first industrialisation was not the coal mines, stable politics or accumulated wealth, but the conviction in free trade - laissez faire - which prevailed in parliament and among the public. In Britain, statism had always had to face strong political resistance and could not grow as powerfully as it did in France or Germany until the mid-19th century. During the time, there were numerous numbers of philanthropic activities and numerous numbers of social reform activities. In a variety of markets, numerous numbers of people promoted their products and their ideas, and organised 'societies' and institutions. Those middle class intellectuals did not hesitate raising their voices and asserting their thoughts. It was not only J. S. Mill, Jeremy Bentham, or Herbert Spencer who were ridiculously famous and popular, but a really great number of intellectuals in a wide spectrum of work fields and academic circles were also extremely active in trying to reach the public. Some might have aspired such fame and reputation as Mill had, but a majority of intellectuals just left their books for somebody else in the contemporary generation or the next or the next after the next generation. More important is the amount and power of accumulated social knowledge from such numerous intellects. In short, the society was very noisy with numerous voices. It was a real dynamic society.

What was the most profound reason for such an enormous difference between silent Joseon and noisy Britain in the 19th century? Where economic liberty is defied and suffocated, no cultural or social liberal attitudes can grow, and vice versa. The principal reason for the ruin of Joseon dynasty is the extreme centralisation and enormity of the government. Its centralisation that regulated all the thoughts and ideas of its citizens resulted in severe corruption due to the failure of any reform of social institutions. The enormity of the government led to the diminution of the state economic scale to the extent to which the government could not even afford proper military forces. 

© 2016 Min Bae