Center for Study of Working Class Life, 2006. In his seminal essay, Theodore Allen argues that racial slavery was not an inevitable outcome of European colonization of the Americas, but rather a deliberately constructed system designed to divide the working class along racial lines and prevent them from uniting against the ruling class. Allen contends that in the early years of colonial America, there was no concept of "white" or "black" people, but rather a class of property-less workers who were exploited by the ruling class.

Originally published as a pamphlet in 1975 by the Hoboken Education Project, a second printing was issued in 1976. It then fell out of print until this edition, which includes a lengthy introduction by Allen’s literary executor, Jeffrey B. Perry (Allen died in 2005).