What do you call a co-worker these days? Neither teammate nor confederate will do, and partner is too legalistic. The answer brought from academia to the political world by Henry Kissinger and now bandied in the boardroom is colleague. It has a nice upper-egalitarian feel, related to the good fellowship of collegial.
I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.
No advance in wealth no softening of manners no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.