Class struggle emerges, at the start, as an intellectual exercise of some philosophers. But, amazingly, in less than 50 years real life gives the concept flesh, and many people around the world recognize the truth of those philosophers. The idea that a small elite is actually in command of wealth, and exploiting the large mass of people to get more wealth quickly becomes obvious at the turn of the 20th century - after all, how can it not be obvious when the grimy, bone-tired workers go to work in their dirty, smoky factories, and return every night to their indistinct, poor homes, filled with stuff they have produced, but their masters have profited from?