CHAPTER 8
Redistributing Wealth
through Land Reform
"If [land] is publicly [owned], the people will have regular production, the
minds of the people will be settled, moral transformation can be accomplished,
mores and customs can be good, and in all things there will be nothing in which
each person does not obtain his share. If [land] is privately [owned], everything
will be contrary to this."]
"The implementation of this law will not involve officials taking away land
from the people 1"2FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF LAND REFORMPublic over Private Property
Yu Hyongwon believed firmly that the principles of the well-field system could
not be adapted to his own time unless private property were abolished and land
tenure and distribution carried out in the context of public ownership. He defended
his kongjon or public land system and contrasted it with the defects of sajon or
privately owned land in the form of a dialogue with his anonymous adversary,
that ghostly figure who pursued Yu throughout his book to carp at his propos-
als and to provide him with a foil for the elaboration of his arguments.>
In laying out the details of his kongjr'5fl system Yu had argued that it was the
best way to achieve equality and adequacy of income for the peasant cultivator,
sufficient economic support for a sadaebu elite, and wealth and power for the
state. Private property, by contrast, had produced a situation where "at the pre-
sent time only TO percent of the population possess large amounts ofland while
80 to 90 percent of the population has no land at all !"4 The abolition of private
property was essential to the achievement of his goals:
If [land] is publicly [owned], the people will have regular production, the minds
of the people will be settled, moral transformation can be accomplished, mores
and customs can be good, and in all things there will be nothing in which each