Page:May Walden - Woman and Socialism (1909).pdf/13

 Rh that there was neither a master class nor a subject class. A little further along in the evolution of industry, tools came into general use; members of the conquered tribes had been.forced into slavery, that is, the slaves were the private property, and there was a division of classes into the leisure master class and the subject class. Next the land became private property, to which the slaves, now called serfs, were attached, and tools had been perfected until there was much skill in the handicrafts.

The nest step found the tools as private property; the slave, now called apprentice, freed from the land, was still bound and working hard for a master, but he owned the tools which he used by hand.

In the nest step, the machines into which the tools had developed, are themselves private property. The workers, now factory hands, are free to offer themselves to any master. but they are none the less slaves because without access to the machines they are powerless to earn their living.

In this stage of industry. which we have now reached, the co-operation of worker and machine in production, has been perfectly organized. So far as the single fact of making goods in the best manner is concerned, the result is perfect; but so far as the condition of the workers who produce the goods is concerned, the result is pitifully and horribly imperfect.

Why is this? And why are conditions allowed to remain as they are? The simple answer is, PROFITS. But let us figure it out.