[badsandwitch]

Tragedy of the commons is why short term is all that matters and will ever matter to non-ideological investors.

If an action that hurts the stock short-term but will help int he long-term needs to be performed why would you as an investor enact it or even stay for the ride?

You are better off either opposing it or selling your stock and then waiting to see if someone will enact the changes, then you have the "insider" information to know that the short-term stock drop was a good thing for the long-term and rebuy the shares cheaper.

[DennisP]

Since investors are forward-looking, I don't think there are many situations where a change that's good for the long-term value of the company will necessarily drive down the share price in the short term.

You might drive down the share price if earnings go down, but that's not necessarily the case if the long-term value is clear. An example would be any company reinvesting earnings in a new factory.

[fasa99]

>If an action that hurts the stock short-term but will help int he long-term needs to be performed why would you as an investor enact it or even stay for the ride?

Yes and this underpins what most consider the disgusting trait of being excessively greedy, not just executives, doctors specialties like dermatology, anything.

The doctor who wants the ultra high paying medical specialty sometimes cares nothing about becoming rich. Fear. Fear of being crushed by all that student debt. Doing everything possible to avoid that. Planning to start a family, fear of homeless, etc. Fear of being unable to retire. Excess, irrational fear. Then, it passes, and now we have what seems in retrospect, simply a greedy bastard with now an excessive amount of money.

Same with executives, the thought may not be "let me cheese short term gains as hard as possible" but "let me hedge against short term losses as much as possible".

Aggression from sheer greed is human human thought modality. Predatory. Aggression when cornered, anxiety / fear response, arguably a more vicious and nasty aggression, is another very much different type of aggression because it is not predatory. The difference is predatory feels more voluntary and fear is about whether I should risk being super aggressive or not. In defense-of-self aggression, fear as already there plenty, so a person can do about any hyper aggressive evil thing in the name of defending from a perceived threat - such as lay off half the work force, destroy customer relationships, etc. In this way a good leader must have a steady hand and outlook with regards to fear.

[kennywinker]

> Tragedy of the commons is why short term is all that matters and will ever matter to non-ideological investors.

Tragedy of the commons was an ideological essay designed to justify privatization of public goods. It was disproven by data before it was published. I am sure there are some hyper specific examples where it has happened as described, but as a “fact” about the world and as a justification for any course of action, it’s highly suspect.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false...

[IggleSniggle]

I don't disagree that it was an ideological "essay" but I dunno why you're linking that when it's most associated with Aristotle, in particular:

"What is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others."

Maybe you're suggesting that that essay popularized the phrasing? But I'm pretty sure even as a coined "term" it was around before then

[eutropia]

This is the first I've heard that it's false; however it seems like many times in my life I've observed something suffering, seemingly from lack of ownership despite being a common good.

What do you call that if you can't call it a tragedy of the commons?

[SideQuark]

Tragedy of the common is a concept dating back to ancient times that has extremely broad empirical support throughout history. The essay you mention took the name from all this real world experience, and even if the essay is bad, the concept is anything but.

A simple search finds more examples and references to literature than you can likely read in years.

I’d recommend starting here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[HDThoreaun]

When the UK enclosed their fields so that they were privately controlled crop yield immediately went up 20%. Theres overwhelming empiric evidence of tragedy of the commons being real.