"In a free market, Fitzhugh notes, the interest of masters is opposed to that of the "wage slaves." When the slaves lose, the masters gain. The masters are always contriving to pay their workers less--playing them off against each other--even though the workers are the ones who produce all the products. Free society is a "war of the rich with the poor, and the poor with one another." In such society, Fitzhugh memorably observes, "virtue loses all her loveliness, because of her selfish aims."