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.
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 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.
In the early Western Han, the wealthiest men in the empire were the merchants who produced and distributed salt and iron,[7] acquiring wealth that rivaled the annual tax revenues collected by the imperial court.
[7] This policy was successful in financing Emperor Wu's campaigns of challenging the nomadic Xiongnu Confederation while colonizing the Hexi Corridor and what is now Xinjiang of Central Asia, Northern Vietnam, Yunnan, and North Korea.
In addition, the reformists complained that the state monopolies oppressed the people by producing low-quality and impractical iron tools that were useless and made only to meet quotas, yet which the peasants had to pay for regardless of their quality.
[12] The reformers believed former private smelting by small-scale family enterprises made better implements "because of pride of workmanship and because they were closer to the users", in contrast to the state monopoly.
[13] In addition, the reformists complained that the state monopolies could not coordinate their production in accordance with the needs of all the provinces of the empire, with some areas overproducing and actually forcing the peasants to buy the surplus.
[14] The reformists also criticized the aggressive foreign policy of Emperor Wu, which they believed had weakened instead of strengthening China, and whose costs did not justify the benefits involved.