SLAVERY 239what is profitable and avoid what is harmful. How could the present times be
different from ancient times [on this score]? And how could our Eastern land
[Korea] be different from China in terms of this principle?"
Once again Yu had found a principle for which there was no provenance in
classical antiquity save for the Legalists, but his formula for the calculation of
profit and harm was closer to Bentham's utilitarian pleasure/pain calculus than
the Legalist stress on reward and punishment. To provide proof that his
profit/harm model worked in practice, Yu pointed out that in China all members
of the poor and lowly class were only too willing to work for wages since they
were able to earn a living from it. He even extolled the benefits of wage work
on the grounds of freedom of choice, language worthy of any modern free-mar-
ket capitalist! "Not only do the hired laborers (in China) select their employers
to work for, but the employers also select people to work for them as hired labor-
ers." Yu had no modem concept of the labor market and its operations, but he
was intrigued by the idea that wage workers and employers alike would exer-
cise free choice and hired labor could operate without any need for the coercion
and force that governed the management of slave labor in Korea. 12X
Whence did Yu derive his belief in the transforming effects of laws and insti-
tutions. the profit/harm interest orientation of human behavior, and the salutary
effects of wage labor on a slave society? There is hardly any evidence that the
major influence on his thinking came from his study of ancient Chinese or ear-
lier Korean ideas or institutions, or for that matter from the writings ofYulgok
and Cho Han in the sixteenth century. What he shared with Yulgok, or Song
Siyal for that matter, was merely agreement on the matrilineal rule as a means
of reducing the slave population.
Although not a direct observer of the Chinese scene, he was inspired by what
he had heard of economic conditions in contemporary China. He might also
have been influenced by the beginnings of commercial growth in Korea even
though he did not mention it, but ifhe had had greater knowledge about the mis-
erable condition of hired laborers, particularly in Hamgy6ng and Ch6lla
provinces. he might not have been so sanguine about the advantages of their
condition over slaves. In any case, his belief that even wage labor in the mid-
seventeenth century was still based on hierarchical respect, status, and coercion
was quite correct.
The Social Consequences of Wage LaborIt would appear that Yu might have intended the creation of a more egalitarian
society by his advocacy of the replacement of slavery by wage labor. especially
since at one point he declared the virtual equality of all men as the basis for his
criticism of slavery. In his description of what his future society would be like,
however, he made clear that an egalitarian social order was not his goal. To begin
with, his conception of his own ideal society was by no means egalitarian. Nor
did he conceive of contemporary Chinese social organization, even with its use