'Dead Peasants'

Perhaps it's based on Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls". It could perhaps as easily be translated "Dead Peasants".

It's a great story; you should read it. It's set in czarist Russia. It's about a guy who's running around the countryside, in a carriage, dropping in on landowners in districts which had suffered from plagues in the previous year.

He tells these landowners that he's willing to pay hard cash for their "dead souls"--serfs who had died in the previous fiscal year--and even backdate the deed of purchase so they won't have to pay taxes on these serfs who'd provided no service during that time. When the bewildered landowners ask why he wants these dead peasant workers, he demurs; sort of a, "Look, that's my worry. I'm offering you cash on the barrel-head for serfs who will otherwise cost you in taxes. What are you waiting for? Go for it!"

So... *Why* did he want these dead serfs? You find out at the very end of the book, and I'd be a prick to give it away here. But Moore's movie might offer you a kind of clue.