Mostly, yes. but there were clearly common people in history that were described as 'somewhat eccentric' but still managed a normal-ish life otherwise. The chances are most of those were people who would today be labelled 'high functioning autistic' or 20 years ago would have been labelled as having aspergers.

What money/class-status afforded was the ability to be more eccentric without being pushed into an institution.

That's the meme, and it probably did go that way (crazy -> eccentric), but it's also true that someone who was just a little bit off would have been called eccentric whatever their social class.

It would not have been a very effective euphemism for a crazy rich person if it didn't also have the nicer meaning for everyone, rich or poor.

Dehumanising people is abhorrent and has no place here.

I always wondered why there is such a huge discrepancy in people's perceptions of autism. You would think that people with autism are worse than Hitler based on what you read on the internet. The people who say the worst things (or even commit murder) also tend to be close relatives or professional caretakers, which makes it particularly shocking because this is in direct contrast with the other stereotype which is that even high functioning people with autism tend to be quiet and don't talk very much and stay out of the way of other people.

I don't know why these two things are lumped together as one thing.

I agree with the other replier that describing autistic people as "chimps" is very inappropriate, though perhaps unintentionally so. I'm all too familiar with the coarse language some people like to use for those who are intellectually/socially disabled in some way, and I don't welcome seeing more of it here.

BUT I do think there is an important point buried in that comment.

It used to be when we spoke of autism, it was describing a very disabling condition, but increasingly we see a greater number of (for want of a better term) high-functioning cases falling under the label of 'autism'. Medical professionals even decided to get rid of the the separate diagnosis 'Asperger's' – a label that at least was something the public could understand as "like autism, but not quite".

None of this is to say that there weren't good reasons for broadening definition of 'autism'. And nor is it to say that high-functioning autistic people don't have problems they must deal with in everyday life. But I think one dangerous side effect of the conflation is that when we talk of "treating" autism, it is more obvious why one might want to do this in low-functioning cases. It's also obvious why high-functioning individuals might see this as an attempt to "erase" what makes them unique. Society can't adapt to everyone, but I absolutely think it can change to better accommodate the "high functioning".