“Rich kids should go to public schools. The mayor should ride the subway to work. When wealthy people get sick, they should be sent to public hospitals. Business executives should have to stand in the same airport security lines as everyone else. The very fact that people want to buy their way out of all of these experiences points to the reason why they shouldn’t be able to. Private schools and private limos and private doctors and private security are all pressure release valves that eliminate the friction that would cause powerful people to call for all of these bad things to get better. The degree to which we allow the rich to insulate themselves from the unpleasant reality that others are forced to experience is directly related to how long that reality is allowed to stay unpleasant. When they are left with no other option, rich people will force improvement in public systems. Their public spirit will be infinitely less urgent when they are contemplating these things from afar than when they are sitting in a hot ER waiting room for six hours themselves.”
Yeah. The article probably covers it, but this even works for GOOD experiences; it's harder to think of your not-rich fellow citizens as "lesser-than" when you're hanging in the same public park every weekend, sitting next to them in the same sports arena, taking the same tours in the same museums, or sharing a camp-ground in the same national park. A big reason WHY Republicans have pushed so hard(politically and culturally: see their participation in the long-running PR campaign against public transit as "low class") to create a wealth(and race)-segregated society is because they know rich(and white) people sharing experiences with non-rich(and non-white) people will naturally create solidarity between them and erode support for their political project.