Breaking the Cartel (6)

Doctors sometimes say things like this.

It's easy to kill someone, but saving someone is extremely difficult.

A doctor listens to a patient's symptoms, diagnoses the illness through various tests, and prescribes medication, yet patients sometimes die because a different medicine is administered during treatment, or because the dosage or method of administration differs from what is recorded in the medical chart.

In the case of a myocardial infarction, a patient can survive if emergency measures are taken and the patient is transported to a hospital within the so-called golden period—the window in which the patient can still be saved. But a patient who misses that window and arrives at the hospital without receiving emergency treatment will die.

The policies I devise and pursue as an official of Joseon are not all that different.

If there is a difference, it is that the scale of the resulting catastrophe is far greater.

A single misguided policy could drive thousands of heads of household to throw themselves into the Han River and push the tens of thousands of family members they supported into extreme poverty.

Something similar would have happened if Yi Bang-won and Sejong had pushed through their currency policy.

That was why I submitted the Jibu Sangsso at the risk of my life.

If I wanted to, I could submit a memorial accusing the sijeon merchants who had been manipulating rice prices during the spring famine and have them all wiped out, but I did not...