Well, its an interesting question. I know that there are rich people who don't behave this way. So I can conclude that its possible to have a situation where large numbers of the wealthy or powerful don't have contempt for or outright despise the poor. My ideal would probably be a situation where people who felt/acted this way were an extreme minority. I don't think it requires exceptional individuals.
This suggest we should research the causes of what makes people behave like they do. Then we could perhaps try to systematically increase the things that contribute to nice behavior.
(By the way, this is where I think most people with egalitarian feelings often fail. They notice that some rich people are abusive somehow, and their reaction is: "punish the rich". The problem is, the punishment usually applies at least as much to the good ones as to the bad ones; and it may actually decrease the ratio of the prosocial people among the rich. It would...
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