316 LAND REFORMimplementation of punishments became lax "in the slightest, the law will be
ignored." '.1
Yu's third objection to a limited land system arose from his concern that pri-
vate ownership caused thc division of families and the weakening of family and
village solidarity, and jeopardized the economic well-being of the ruling class.
Yu's imaginary adversary argued that a public land system would force fathers
and sons to live apart from one another because onee a son attained majority,
Yu's land allotment system would require that the son be given his own separate
parcel of land. If all the available land near the village had been used up already
in land grants, the son would have to be assigned a parcel in a distant village.
Yu responded that, to the contrary, private ownership was more likely to cause
the separation of close kin than a public land system. The reason why Shang
Yang of the Ch'in dynasty abolished the well-field system, Yu asserted, was
because "he hated the fact that fathers, sons, and elder and younger brothers of
the people were living in the same place," and he sought to divide them up. Yu
did not explain why, but we may surmise that family solidarity may have inter-
fered with the Ch'in state's ability to control individuals and to move cultiva-
tors freely from overpopulated districts to underpopulated ones to maximize
agricultural production. In any case, Yu argued that the legacy of Shang Yang
was carried over into the later age of centralized bureaucracy, "making it easy
for fathers and sons to be separated from one another and scattered about." 14 Yu
implied that since the abolition of the well-field system signified the end of pub-
lic land and the beginning of private property, it was private land that caused
the break-up of the family unit, a "phenomenon that was definitely not a mat-
ter of concern under a public land system."I5 Yu's argument may seem strange
to a modern, Western audience long used to thinking of industrialized urban-
ism as thc proper setting for the fractured family, but evidently even in a tradi-
tional Korcan village rcal families failed to live up to an ideal of solidarity, and
Yu attributed the cause to private property.
Yu asserted he could prove his point by considering what took place in his
own time. If a man had many sons, the only means available to him to provide
them with land was to buy land wherever he could find it. If land was not avail-
able nearby, he had to purchasc it in a distant place. Furthermore, if someone
died and no longer utilized his land, the owner or heirs were under no obliga-
tion to sell it to anyone else. Under a public land system, however, the law would
require the transfer of the land of a deceased person to another individual. Or
if the owners of land under a system of private property did choose to sell the
land of a deceased member of the family, anyone who needed the land would
have to have sufficient capital to purchase it. Under a public land system need,
not money, would qualify one for a land grant. Yu concluded: "Therefore, under
which of the two systems would it be easier to cause fathers and sons to live in
different places - under a system of public land or a system of private land?"16
Certain apparent anomalies are revealed by consideration ofYu's remarks on
this question. Is it not strange after all that a Confucian like Yu who was so com-