19세기 어느 성리학자의 家作과 그 지향 - 金興洛家 사례

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the basic structure of agriculture in the late Choson, with the case of the family farming of Confucian Kim Heung-rak who was the head of Confucian scholars in Gyeongsang prefecture in the late nineteenth century. Confucian Kim did not tried to make an effort to increase his family’s property but to find the way of a save-the-nation and appeasing the people, when the nation and the people confronted with the crisis. In fact, because he owned the bulk of farmland(around 500 doorak) and labor powers (around 50 nobi families),he would have cultivated larger lands. However, he farmed small part of his owned lands (just around 15 doorak). Insead, he tried to diversify the products in upland field cropping. Due to diversifying the products in upland field cropping based on advanced agricultural techniques like keunjong (two crops a year 根種)and kanjong (intercropping 間種), Confucian Kim and the farmers in the Andong area in the nineteenth century could harvest more grains. Intensive farming represented as small quantity batch production (多品種 少量生産)is very different characteristic from mass production of a few selected items (少品種大量生産) of capitalist-farming. Generally, the capitalist-farming pursues labor productivity increase. The farmer pursuing the capitalist-farming selects and cultivates the grains capable of raising profits the most, and he buys the other grains not being cultivated by him at the market. By the way, the farmers doing small quantity batch production maintain much stabler life than the farmers doing mass production of a few selected items, because the former can product diverse products they need. They are not worried even if their farm surpluses are not sold, because they just sell the extra products they spend on. Considering on these facts, it seems that Confucian Kim and the people in the Andong in the nineteenth century hoped to live a secure life together, not selecting the way of coexistence in between opportunity [rich farmer] and crisis [poor farmer]; that is, Confucian Kim made an effort to find the way of appeasing the people.