> When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people I've met and worked with have no qualms looking the other way for more compensation.

When push comes to shove, those people would have no power to change things anyway in the vast majority of cases. You can either live in a terrible world rich, or poor - in both cases the world wouldn't change but at least your life will be better.

A lot of problems are big enough that only governments can deal with them by the use of laws and appropriate enforcement (eventually escalating to violence if needed). But if the governments themselves benefit from the problem, or are owned by the corporations (corruption, or "lobbying" as it's called in the US), there's no chance for a few individuals to make a difference.