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Could it be that in the 150 years since Marx made his point, there has been an industrial revolution and the "end of scarcity", which means it's really, really difficult to exploit someone that way who doesn't want to be exploited?
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I actually agree, in part, with this. My point was that Marx's theories and the socialist movements of the mid 19th/early 20th centuries were based on a different paradigm to the one we live in. In some cases people have drawn on those theories and created something as abominable in its own way as the worst ravages of industrial Manchester. In other cases, people have drawn on those theories, to initiate a workers movement and force the pace of change within a broadly capitalist economy, and in doing so won things like employment rights, and fair wages.
Marx was a theorist and philosopher. He did not engineer a revolution. As for Engels, have any of you ever read his descriptions of working and living conditions in the industrial North of England? When Marx and Engels were writing, they were writing primarily with England in mind, as the likely start of anything. At that time, England could, potentially, have been subject to a revolution and the necessity for change was never more apparent than in the great textile towns of North. That was an instance, of a small class of men, who in creating great wealth, exploited a much larger and more vulnerable class, to the point that whole communities of men, women and children were reduced almost to the status of dumb beasts. This wasn't done innocently, the writing of the time show an ideological approach, where the need for workers not to have an opportunity to pace themselves, or work independantly was voiced as a means of preventing moral decline. The use of children, first heavily indoctrinated into the Mill owner's methodism, was widespread and served to further weaken the hand of the working man. All done, with the assistance of employer-weighted legislation from the government.
Marx's theories were appropriate to a time and place. The Bolsheviks and mensheviks in Russia, saw in those theories an answer to a level of oppression that the modern day would see as shameful. Such revolutionary movements, have the misfortune of being made of people. People fall out, disagree on direction and intent, wage petty wars, and are happy to act on theories with a disregard for the individuals concerned. It's part of that revolutionary mindset I think, to stand outside of the society, in order to view the whole thing. Makes, often, for people who care greatly about the overall picture, without true regard for those who live inside it.