If you take a classical Marxist perspective, then the answer would be, yes. In as much as the profit motive underpins all activity within capitalist economies, it also underpinned the transformation of the world from feudal to contemporary society. Not every development during this time was produced by the profit motive (for example, most of the social gains came out of movements opposed to capitalism), but it definitely was the force that grew the productive capacities of European economies during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (and also could be argued to have indirectly produced those social gains, in as much as capitalism creates its own gravediggers).

Of course, it also helped produce every atrocity that economic development involved. And you are also completely right to identify the fact that we have moved beyond the need for the profit motive. We have highly developed technical and productive capacities that could ensure that everyone has a good life, but to do so would mean rejecting the profit motive (i.e. capitalism) as the structuring principle of our economies.