It doesn't much matter if they aren't without something that is more efficient.
Consider the following line of "reasoning".
(1) "X is a problem and we must do something." (2) "Y is something." (3) "Therefore we must do Y."
The "fact" that markets are not as efficient as possible does not imply that we should use something else instead. We should only use something that is actually better.
"seems"? Yes, we do have short-term focus in certain situations. However, I know 90 year-old farmers who plant orchards that won't be productive for 10 years.
And, you're assuming that "tightly controlled" produces benefits. Yes, there are often controls, but that's a long way from showing benefits from said controls. (Surely you're not going to argue that any system of tight controls produces benefits.)
And, as someone else pointed out, no one is stopping you from working on a long term basis. If you do it right, you'll get rich. If you do it wrong, probably not.
I'd like to see you get rich. However, I'm not willing to risk my money on your ideas because I've got my own.
The most important contributors to a company are said to be the share holders, but investment via stock is a very temporal affair. Just get in, try to enforce policy that will quickly generate increase stock value, then dump it before it crashes and move to the next.
And no, I don't think any random control is a help, just that no control what-so-ever is just as bad as all the wrong controls.
Since your argument depends on whether the statement is true and relevant, trying to avoid discussing it is "interesting".
You're assuming that the current stock system is the only way one can do things without regulation. You're wrong. You can set up a company in other ways, with almost any restriction on buying and selling by its owners that you'd like. All you have to do is get them to go along. If you're making them rich, they will. (For example, there are at least two classes of Google stock. The favored few own shares that are weighted differently when it comes to corporate decisions. One can also implement restrictions on buying and selling. IIRC, UPS has them.)
>And no, I don't think any random control is a help, just that no control what-so-ever is just as bad as all the wrong controls.
(1) The current situation is not "no controls".
(2) There's no reason to believe that "no controls" is anywhere near as bad as the wrong controls.