Discourses on Salt and Iron

The Discourses on Salt and Iron (Chinese: 鹽鐵論; pinyin: Yán Tiě Lùn) was a debate held at the imperial court in 81 BCE on state policy during the Han dynasty in China. The previous emperor, Emperor Wu, had reversed the laissez-faire policies of his predecessors and imposed a wide variety of state interventions, such as creating monopolies on China's salt and iron enterprises, price stabilization schemes, and taxes on capital. These actions sparked a fierce debate as to the policies of the Emperor. After his death, during the reign of Emperor Zhao of Han, the regent Huo Guang called on all the scholars of the empire to come to the capital, Chang'an, to debate the government's economic policies.

The debate was characterized by two opposing factions, the reformists and the modernists. The reformists were largely Confucian scholars who opposed the policies of Emperor Wu and demanded the abolition of the monopolies on salt and iron, an end to the state price stabilization schemes, and huge cuts in government expenditures to reduce the burden on the citizenry. The Modernists supported the continuation of Emperor Wu's policies in order to appropriate the profits of private merchants into state coffers to fund the government's military and colonization campaigns in the north and west.

The results of these debates were mixed. Although the Modernists were largely successful and their policies were followed through most of the Western Han after Emperor Wu, the Reformists repealed these policies in Eastern Han, save for the government monopoly on minting coins.^[1]