SLAVERY 255reduce revenues. Current practice, however, involved the short-sighted pursuit
of immediate profit by squeezing official slaves for all they were worth. This
tactic only forced the official slaves into tax evasion, which was the real cause
of reduced revenues. The Western Han dynasty had in fact released official slaves
and made them commoners and the ancients had also feared impoverishing their
slaves and granted them lenient treatment. It might not not be possible to go this
far, but at least the state could aim for equal and fair treatment and taxation. 179
Whether or not Yu Suwon's opinion actually influenced many officials at the
time, he virtually predicted the trends that would take place by the end of the
eighteenth century, the reduction of support taxpayer burdens on private slaves
to the same level as commoners.
He also praised King Sejong's ruling that private slaves would be made offi-
cial slaves if their masters were guilty of arbitrary murder. cruel punishment, or
immoderate tribute impositions. It was regrettable that later generations had
neglected this law. for it would serve to prevent excessive tribute levies on pri-
vate slaves. Nevertheless. he felt that, as in China, the slave should be punished
more severely than people of good status for the same crimes. or that commoners
who committed a violation against a slave be punished a degree less than if they
had done so against other commoners.
He favored more lenient manumission procedures and hoped to prevent the
corrupt custom of forcing slaves who had purchased commoner status to pur-
chase it again by proposing the issuance of official certificates as proof of man-
umission. He also supported the matrilineal rule by asking that offspring of
women of good status not be allowed to adopt their father's status.^180
Yu Suwon's analysis of the economic dependency of the yangban slaveown-
ing class on its slaves was similar to Yu Hyongwon's acknowledgment of the
need of the yangban for a work force. Where the two men differed was in their
hopes for the future. Yu Hyongwon felt that the use of hired labor would elim-
inate thc economic necessity for slaves and his future land-grant system would
ensure their livelihoods along with the rest of the population. Yu Suwon, how-
ever, was more concerned about maintaining tribute revenues not only by equal-
izing burdens on official slaves and commoners, but also by levying government
tribute on private slaves as well. He preferred to make the state an exploiter of
slave labor and production along with the private slaveowners rather than an
agent for the liberation of slaves.
An understanding ofYu Suwon's attitude toward slaves, however, only comes
with a full appreciation of his feelings about contemporary society in general.
He felt that while a clear line of separation had not been drawn at the beginning
of the Choson dynasty between the ruling class and the commoners, that line
had becomc quite strong by the seventeenth century. and the ruling class, which
he referred to as either munbol, sajok, or sadaebu, had turned into a hereditary
aristocracy (see part I). Yu also felt that the yangban of his time were unique in
treating their own class of good persons or commoners as if they were slaves, a
point of view that may have been somewhat closer to the mark than his opinion