I can feel the pain in your writing, but I honestly think that you are wrong with your conclusion that those that want power and fortune for themselves at any cost seems the most motivated, more motivated than those that are looking to make things better.
A think the first group has no conscience and do whatever they please to get whatever they want. When you have no conscience you don't care when other people suffer or what other people might want. Only a little motivation is necessary. They are like the elephant in the china shop. The other group is really motivated but take into consideration that their actions must benefit others and they don't do things without thinking what their actions might do to others. That takes more time and is more slowly than not thinking about these things. In my opinion, there are more people of the second group, but the people belonging to the first group have a louder voice and their actions are brutal. When I look at the history of mankind I notice that the most known people belong to the first group. When you belong to the second group, you almost seldom are in the history books. But there have been, and are, a lot of people of the second group. It takes only 1 man to destroy the world nowadays, but millions to save the world.