[ben_w]

Everyone is incentivised to do it, even when none of them want all of them to do it.

Prisoner's dilemma, with the businesses as the 'prisoners'.

One of the ways to change the Nash equilibrium for that game is for enough people to empower some outside agent that punishes defectors. (Metaphorically, for the original prisoners in the thought experiment, a gangland boss).

[benreesman]

Equilibria for iterated vs. non-iterated play in the prisoner's dilemma are generally very different.

To the extent that the current leadership of government and business are facing a collective action problem it is because different actors have a different number of iterations they are optimizing for.

Put differently, when it's #CrimeSeason, you gotta get yours before the bill is due, and different crooks on different schedules.