In the history of modern economic thought, Wang Maoyin is eye-catching for two reasons: First, when Marx discusses currency and commodity circulation in Volume 1, Chapter 3 of Capital, there is a note (83 ): "Wang Maoyin, the right minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Qing Dynasty, presented a memorial to the emperor, advocating secretly changing the official banknotes into cashable banknotes. In the minister's review report in April 1854, he was severely reprimanded. Was he punished for this? The answer to the sentence is unknown. The review report finally said: "I have carefully read the report... and it is not inconvenient for the country to discuss the patent business." (See pages 146-147 of Volume 1 of Marx's "Das Kapital", People's Publishing House, 1975 first edition) Marx mentioned Wang Maoyin in the footnote, which can be seen in two meanings. First, in terms of the issuance of banknotes and the redemption of banknotes. , believed that Wang Maoyin's ideas were very insightful and consistent with his own views; secondly, he expressed sympathy for Wang Maoyin's correct advice on currency reform, which was reprimanded by the Qing government. Since Wang Maoyin was the only Chinese mentioned in Marx's Capital, he attracted everyone's attention and became an interesting issue in the history of modern Chinese economic thought. Second, more importantly, Wang Maoyin’s economic ideas were formed in a special period and were unique. The period during which Wang Maoyin served was a period of severe financial and monetary crisis for the Qing government due to the failure of the First Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion. After the failure of the First Opium War, the Qing government's fiscal expenditures increased sharply due to war expenses and compensation. After the war, the price of silver and money became increasingly serious, and the tax burden increased, which led to a further decline in the social economy, which in turn caused a shortage of tax revenue. The fiscal base has shrunk even further. The Taiping Rebellion aggravated the financial crisis and currency crisis due to factors such as the rapid increase in military expenditures of the Qing government and the decrease in fiscal revenue due to the shrinkage of the ruled area. For this reason, under some erroneous ideas and public opinions, the Qing government took Various measures that inevitably lead to inflation will not only cause serious disasters to the people, make the social economy more depressed and chaotic, but also make the financial situation and crisis more serious. In this context, a series of ideological propositions of "rescuing the disadvantages" have been put forward one after another. As a senior member of the Ministry of Household Affairs in charge of finance and currency, Wang Maoyin’s ideas on finance and currency are more profound in analysis, more pertinent and clear-cut in viewpoints, and more practical than those of some thinkers before and at the same time. The reason why they were not adopted and implemented was because these ideas and propositions were “untimely”.
Because Wang Maoyin took up an important position during the above-mentioned special period of the Qing government, his ideological propositions were wide-ranging and rich in content. For example:
In terms of social politics, while severely suppressing peasant uprisings such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wang Maoyin advocated that feudal emperors pay attention to "building provinces" in order to win the hearts and minds of the people and alleviate some of the sufferings of the people. Do you think that "when the people's hearts are gone, who will the world protect" (see "Wang Shilang's Proposal", the following quotations are the same)? It was recommended that Emperor Xianfeng "strictly issue an edict to the generals in charge of the army, and they must make sure that the soldiers and the people do not harm each other." As for the excessive establishment of "Lizi" bureaus, he believed that "the more bureaus there are, the more difficult the people will be", "business power will be wasted and people's food will be scarce", and he advocated the abolition or ban of too many bureaus.
Wang Maoyin attaches great importance to talent issues and opposes incorrect employment standards. For example, when selecting scholars based on poor calligraphy skills, it is believed that because the selection of scholars focuses on small regular script, "all the wisdom and talent in the world are exhausted, and they can only hold the money", which cannot be "economical and practical" at all. He advocated reforming the content of the imperial examination, "regardless of clumsy handwriting and sparse strokes, and focus on taking papers with outstanding knowledge" and so on.
The most important ideological proposition of Wang Maoyin is his economic thought, which is concentrated in his currency reform plan and monetary theory.