It's a fact in majority of companies; I have experiences with two companies that ran on different principles and were wildly profitable, so it could be done differently. Also, I am pretty much disgusted by what I observe, but it's an unfortunate part of reality and I am not going to unsee it to feel better about whatever. If you want to change something for the better, you need to understand what is wrong and what is better, hoping people after you would recognize what was wrong in your approach and correct it even more instead of regressing/oscillating.
The problem is much more complex though, being happy puts no pressure to change things and leads to stale/weak societies/companies; for some reason we humans need some form of pressure to give our best... Of course, it's difficult to motivate oneself when you see that upper management turned into parasites with sociopathic tendencies, ruling you like you were animals without brain, not even hiding their intent, and giving you as little money as they can get away with even during times of exponential expansion of their profitability.