But doesn't there also have to be the will to want out? I know quite a few people who were born into poverty, some of them into poverty so deep that they ate the leftovers from others' houses, and yet were able to rise above it by education and determination to succeed.

WERE true class warfare to break out in the US or the UK, I'm not sure but that the poor would simply be led by new masters, a la "Animal Farm" or North Korea or the old Soviet Union.