That whole thing about **taste** usually refers to objects and styles, but taste isn't innate. It's something you acquire after quite a bit of searching and contemplation. A lot of rich people don't have time for that, because they're doing whatever they do to get rich. And what they do to get rich is often intensely interesting, IMHO. Compelling, even. A lot of it doesn't even have to do with gathering money, but with competition, learning about how the world works, negotiating with a wide variety of people from other cultures, etc. The money is often a by-product. I'm not denying that there are people who are no more than unethical money-grubbers, but as a former longtime newspaper reporter, I met a lot of super-rich people and found that many of them have extraordinary insights into the way the world works, in the sphere they're dealing with.
Of all the art forms, I think photography (which I love and collect) tends to have the largest number of people with poor taste. There's a reason for that -- a very large number of people who may become good technical photographers are in it for essentially wannabe reasons. To a very talented engineer, photography seems to be an art form that is accessible. You can be a screamingly good coder or engineer, but still feel that something is missing in life (art.) That's why we see, on so many forums, the emphasis on autofocus speed, sensor size, IBIS, and so on. They are *engineering* concerns. There are Sony fixed-zoom consumer cameras out there that can take better technical pictures than anything Ansel Adams ever used, but in engineering terms, they just can't hold a candle to the latest D850 or Canon equivalent. So, we wind up with a lot of really inane photography. Especially landscapes. And the reason for that is the same reason that rich people often have poor taste in objects and styles -- many engineers really don't have time to develop it.
I do think that disparities in wealth can be terribly corrosive, both personally and culturally, and especially when the wealth in a small segment of society becomes extreme. But it doesn't have to become extreme to see it. There's an old Russian story about the peasant whose ox dies. He doesn't pray for a new ox; he prays that his neighbor's ox dies.
