I think it's a bit like PG Wodehouse. The world of Bertie Wooster or Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth is certainly an idyll; at the same time no one would pretend it is a classless idyll.
Tolkien would not refer to that class structure as "economic exploitation" - that is part of his politics. That does not mean he did not understand that society very well, and seek to portray it in an idealized form.
Tolkien would not refer to that class structure as "economic exploitation" - that is part of his politics. That does not mean he did not understand that society very well, and seek to portray it in an idealized form.