In photographs Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln both look the part of the respectable Victorian gentleman. But they were almost diametrically opposed in their attitude toward what was called at the time the social question. Lincoln happily represented railroad corporations as a lawyer. As a politician he was a champion of free wage labor. Karl Marx, on the other hand, was a declared foe of capitalism who insisted that wage labor was in fact wage slavery, since the worker was compelled by economic necessity to sell his defi ning human attribute—his labor power—because if he did not, his family would soon face hunger and homelessness.