You don't have access to this content. Please try to log in with your institution. Sign In
This forcefully argued essay on the virtue of commodity trading provides us with evidence that all was not well in the Neo-Confucian social order of Tokugawa Japan. In defiance of the shogunate’s marginalization of the merchant class and its official disdain for profiteering and entrepreneurship, Kaiho Seiryō (1755–1817), a samurai scholar, not only defends but valorizes commercial activity.