“When captives taken in war could be utilized for work instead of being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production was secured.... Feudalism marked a decided advance on slavery.... The serf had certain interests of his own, not wholly identical with his lord’s.... Then masters gradually learned that hired labor [the wage-system] was more profitable than forced labor, and the principle of serfdom, like that of slavery before it, had to give way to a higher form of organization for production [the wage-system].... “The laborer [at present under the wage-system] is bound to his master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes.” How frankly profits are admitted to have been the motive inspiring the origin of the wage-system. And how entertainingly ridiculous is the last proposition quoted above. What cheap palavering about freedom. What clownish antics pleasing to the kings—the industrial kings. It certainly pleases the industrial Caesars to have the Professor turn intellectual somersaults to induce the wage-slave to smile sweetly and admire the slave-bands on his own wrists. Are not those bands plainly marked “_Free_”? Notice that Professor Fairbanks uses the words “master” and “bound” in referring to the relation between the employer and the “free-contracting” wage-earner. A _free_ man does not _voluntarily_ BIND himself to a _master_. With the lash of hunger cutting him and the wolf of want at the throats of his wife and children, the “free-contracting” hired laborer, the wage-earner, promptly and voluntarily seeks an employer—“master,” and “voluntarily” “contracts” to produce a dollar’s worth of value for twenty or forty cents in wages and thus “voluntarily” degrades himself and thus “voluntarily” submits to have his wife and little children robbed of the abundant livings he wishes to provide for them. This is the freedom, the free contract, of the wage-system, the present (the third) form of _class_-labor system. This _glorious_ freedom of the modern wage-slave is _easily_ seen in the picture _opposite the title-page of this book_. The “freedom” of the wage-earner in thus making a contract, with starvation behind him, vagrancy laws reaching for him, police, militia, soldiers, jails and bull-pens ready for him, this freedom is about as complete as that of a citizen facing an armed and threatening highwayman who commands, “Hands up!” The wage earner and the held-up citizen are free to comply, free to surrender and free to be robbed, and _also_ free to decline _and take the consequences_—all “voluntarily” of course. NO ONE IS FREE INDEED TILL HE IS FREE IN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY OF LIFE, THE ACTIVITY OF GETTING A LIVING. In the evolution of mankind the worker has, in some parts of the world, secured: Freedom to investigate, Freedom of thought, Freedom of assemblage, Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press, Freedom of suffrage—for male workers,