The discrepancy to which attention is invited here is due to a discrepancy between business expediency, that is expediency for the purpose of gain by a given businessman, on the one hand, and serviceability to the common good, on the other hand.

The business concern's interest in the traffic in which it engages is a short-term interest, or an interest in the short-term returns, as contrasted with the long-term or enduring interest which the community at large has in the public service over which any such given business concern disposes.

The business incentive is that afforded by the prospective net pecuniary gain from the traffic, substantially an interest in profitable sales; while the community at large, or the common man that goes to make up such a community, has a material interest in this traffic only as regards the services rendered and the enduring effects that follow from it.
The businessman has not, or at least is commonly not influenced by, any interest in the ulterior consequences of the transactions in which he is immediately engaged.

This appears to hold true in an accentuated degree in the domain of that large-scale business that draws its gains from the large-scale modern industry and is managed on the modern footing of corporation finance.

This modern fashion of business organisation and management apparently has led to a substantial shortening of the term over which any given investor maintains an effective interest in any given corporate enterprise, in which his investments may be placed for the time being.