314 LAND REFORM
person does not obtain his share. If [land] is privately [owned], everything will
be contrary to this and that is all there is to it. Moreover, if this method [of public
ownership] is carried out, then food will be as common as water and fire. How
could you have [the same] situation that exists in the present age?5The argument was both moral and utilitarian: a system of public ownership
would not only provide the economic foundation for the moral transformation
of the populace, it would also increase production and wealth for the state as
a whole.
Yu's adversary, however, charged that the abolition of private property was
impractical, unworkable, and dangerous, and that the kongjon system contained
serious flaws.
When this method is first implemented, the wealthy will not escape difficulty.
At the present time the [rich] people live in idleness, do not study, and are with-
out virtue, and the wealthy people in the village who have fields that extend in
breadth beyond natural boundaries and are lined up one after the other, definitely
exceed what is due them. These people have long become accustomed to wealth.
If all of a sudden this were to be taken away from them, it would be too difficult
for human nature to bear. We should treat them with leniency.6Since the landowners were too jealous of their private lands to give them up
without a struggle, to soften opposition to confiscation, large landowners ought
to be allowed to purchase sinecures or honorary posts that would include extra
land grants and exemptions from military service.?
Yu replied that this problem did indeed require some adjustment, but it would
not be necessary to provide sinecures with temporary land grants and military
service exemptions because his method for nationalizing land would not be based
on the use of force!
The implementation of this law will not involve officials taking away landfrom
the people' [emphasis mine] The [authorities] will calculate the [number of peo-
pie and the amount of land] and divide up and grant [land to them]. Each of the
people will naturally hope to receive [land], and the wealthy will naturally
divide up [their land] among thcir sons and slaves [a la Lin Hslin]. Nothing more
will bc done than to establish a nominal requirement for military service [ipho
ch 'ulhyong] and that is all. Accordingly if a [wealthy] household worth 1,000
gold [units] has its property reduced, in the end it will definitely be better off
than the poor people are now^8In other words, the rich would not feel the pain of confiscation because they
would simply transfer title to land to their sons, relatives, and slaves, who would
be the ones who would end up performing military service, not the old wealthy
families. Yu's position here was only slightly more radical than the formula of