Kaiho Seiryo

• Born: 1755
• Died: 1811

Kaiho Seiryô, sometimes seen as Kaibo Seiryô, was an Edo period intellectual who advised a number of domains on economic policy. He is perhaps best known for his treatise Keiko dan, written sometime after 1811, in which he provides a somewhat parodic guide to good government, substituting the character ri (利), meaning "profit," for that normally seen in Confucian discussions, ri (理) meaning "virtue" or "principle."

References

• Luke Roberts, Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa, Cambridge University Press (1998), 200.