most universal cause....................

This disposition to admire, and almost worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.  That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are only due wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

-Adam Smith, The Theory Of Moral Sentiments