This may be true in lot of cases but it’s not at all true categorically. I do not see trying to help your fellow Man as a wasted cause.

You can observe this in microcosm around every hierarchy-based organization. The “leadership” is rarely in touch with reality as it is lived at the lowest level of the hierarchy, and have entirely delusional models of how things work at that lower level. They observe a “problem”, usually something truly petty and insignificant, which offends their sensibilities, and then seek to “effect change”. Only thing is, they don’t grasp that the so-called “problem” is actually an artifact of the environment they have allowed to grow up at that lower level, an environment that they then totally ignore in an attempt to make “change” happen.

Generally, their methodology is a new regulation, a memo, a law, or something else that outlaws the problem while simultaneously ignoring what really causes that “problem” to exist. Followed by the “problem” remaining in existence while adding a new layer of bullshit for the junior levels to deal with.

This is why most organizations with more than a few layers wind up self-destructing in a sclerotic mess after a generation or two. By the end point, there are so many nonsensical rules in place that nothing can get done, and nobody really cares, because all they’re doing is running around a maze of bureaucratic bullshit that dozens of successive “leaders” have put in place in futile attempts to exert their will.

Humans don’t do organization well, at all. We are not creatures of the hierarchy, nor do we work very effectively within them. You want to reform public drinking? Well, you’re not going to do it by writing a new rule or a new law; you’re going to have to get out there and engage with the drinkers, figure out what makes them want to do it out in public, and then come up with a means to motivate them not to, whether by social shaming (remember when it was abhorrent to smoke in front of women…?), or just give up and have a freakin’ beer with them.