SLAVERY 241by hired labor. While Yu's ultimate vision for the future was the disappearance
of slavery and the replacement of slave with hired labor, a task that might take
decades to achieve at the least, his immediate goal was only an end to inher-
ited slavery.
The problem with his proposal to replace slaves with hired labor, however,
was that according to his land distribution plan (see chap. 7) every able-bodied
male would be entitled to a land grant, even slaves. And if slaves were all man-
umitted and hired laborers still existed, they too would qualify for a land grant.
Even though he guaranteed that after his land reform was adopted there would
be an increase in the number of farmers and a surplus of people available to
work for the officials and scholars in his new society, logically there could not
possibly be any surplus labor left because all would have been converted into
smallholding peasants with a guaranteed right of cultivation. 132
The contradiction in his plan is obvious, but Yu did not see it. Why not?
Because, as we will see in chapter 7, his land grant plan was so comprehensive
that there would be no landless peasants left to function as hired laborers. Even
ifYu thought he could guarantee a surplus labor force of hired labor rather than
slaves for his ideal sadaebu, was it not likely that a system of free wage labor
would undermine the moral foundation of hierarchical interpersonal relations,
contrary to his guarantee that it would not because it had not happened in China?
In fact, in his own chapter he had his imaginary antagonist ask whether it would
truly be possible to maintain proper distinctions between superiors and inferi-
ors in his ideal society since his main objective was to provide "benevolent com-
passion [for the underprivileged] [hyehyulJ without the exercise of authority to
put restraints on people."133
When Yu put the term "benevolent compassion" in the mouth of his inter-
locutor, he must have been representing the antagonism of his conservative oppo-
nents toward idealistic do-gooders like himself, people who objected to social
engineering on the grounds of "benevolent compassion." His egalitarian soci-
ety could only be achieved if the state used force either against the slavehold-
ers to force them to accept hired laborers as substitutes for slaves, or against
hired laborers to coerce them into respectful behavior toward their employers.
He must also have been charged with failing to see that a system of wage labor
based on the freedom to choose whether to work for wages or not would nec-
essarily introduce a new principle into interpersonal relations destructive of the
social status quo. Yet the challenge was invalid because hired labor had been in
existence since the beginning of the dynasty without affecting the superiority
of the yangban or weakening the strength of slavery; in fact the employers of
Hamgyong Province had reduced their hired laborers to virtual slaves.
When forced to defend himself against the charges of the social conservatives
and assure them that his proposal was not ultimately threatening to their wel-
fare, Yu had to abandon any pretense to sentimentality on behalf of the down-
trodden (slaves and wage workers) and bare his teeth in a thinly veiled threat to
wreak the vengeance of the state on any who perversely sought to disrupt the