Jack London was one of the first writers to earn a living in part from his writings in commercial fiction magazines. London became a socialist and his writings reflect this change in his political views. London wrote War of the Classes while living in California. The collection of essays expounds on his theories of government control and economic globalization. Essays included in this book are: The class struggle, The tramp, The scab, The question of the maximum, A review, Wanted: a new law of development, and How I became a socialist.

John Griffith "Jack" London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.