[Guide to the Market Economy] Bak Je-ga’s Bukhakui

Joseon's "The Wealth of Nations" Called for Learning from the Advanced Qing

…As a Northern Learning scholar, he emphasized technological innovation and trade

Defeat the Qing?

As is well known, Bak Jega was an intellectual born of a concubine. Though highly talented, he is said to have spent his entire life suffering the indignities of that status. In fact, many scholars of the Northern Learning school were unusually often of such birth; besides Bak Jega, Yu Deukgong and Yi Deokmu were as well. Perhaps for that reason, they made many unconventional arguments that the intellectuals of their time hardly dared to voice.

Northern Learning meant learning from the northern country, that is, learning from the Qing dynasty. From today's perspective, one might wonder what was so radical about advocating learning from Qing China, then an advanced country. But in late Joseon society, when Bak Jega lived, it was not so simple. After enduring the wars of the Jeongmyo and Byeongja years, anti-Qing sentiment was widespread among Joseon intellectuals.

The Northern Learning school argued that even if the Qing were considered barbarians, their laws and institutions should be actively adopted if they were superior. In Bukhakui, the phrase “let us learn from China” appears repeatedly, about twenty times. This was a Northern Learning argument set against the theory of northern conquest, which dominated the thinking of Joseon’s scholar-officials at the time. The Qing, they argued, were not an enemy to fight but a model to learn from. Rather than ruining the country while clinging to ideology and cause, they called for seeking a new spirit of the age through a practical, fact-based approach.

Radical arguments

Bak Jega’s thinking was by far the most radical even within the Northern Learning school. He rebuked his fellow scholar-officials as “frogs in a well” and “parasites of the nation.” He even argued that the head of the office managing Gwansanggam, the institution in charge of the observatory, should be a Westerner with expertise in the field. In today’s terms, that would be like proposing a foreigner as head of the Korea Meteorological Administration, so one can imagine how dumbfounded Joseon’s scholar-officials must have been.

His claim that Joseon should use Chinese in order not to fall behind Chinese civilization was similarly radical. In effect, Bak Jega proposed making Chinese a common public language more than 200 years ago. This reveals the true character of Bak Jega, who, as someone born of a concubine, held freer ideas than the established elite of his day.

Globalization cannot be achieved through slogans alone. Just as the development of transport and communication technologies that overcome physical and geographical barriers is important, efforts to overcome language barriers must come first as well. In Bukhakui, after listing concrete technological innovations such as using bricks in construction and introducing carts for transportation, Bak Jega argues that trade with countries other than China is also necessary. His dream was to turn Joseon, through economic development, into a civilized society that could fully enjoy culture and the arts.

In modern society, citizens and consumers are instinctively making such choices. They move to better places and send their children there to escape flawed systems that confine them. They also listen online to lectures by leading scholars from around the world. Even when foolish politicians create regulations that restrict people’s freedom of choice in the name of protecting someone, people continue expanding their engagement with the wider world.

Exchange with the world

Young people need the attitude of going out into the wider world and taking on challenges. On a personal level, following world news, receiving in real time information produced by leading global intellectuals, and exchanging information are good ways to maintain an open worldview. We must avoid falling behind in global competition by going to the places where the world’s best knowledge is being created and gaining experiential knowledge firsthand.

If there are people who dream of living in modest comfort within institutions that protect them at home, I would urge them to consider whether they are in fact trying to live by confining others and suppressing their freedom. To protect freedom and safeguard both oneself and society from forces that seek to lock people in for their own benefit, we must be more active in engaging with the world.

■ Please remember

Bak Jega’s thinking was by far the most radical even within the Northern Learning school. He rebuked his fellow scholar-officials as “frogs in a well” and “parasites of the nation.” He even argued that the head of the institution managing Gwansanggam, the observatory, should be a Westerner with expertise in the field.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 박제가의 '북학의'

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-02-17

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=10&idx=22387