Too simplistic. There are plenty of examples of short term thinking from professional managers acting on behalf of owners. Trashing a corporate reputation by trading on it charging a premium price while cutting costs and quality is really common. Managers cash out ridiculous share grants right away when they go, not 10 years after they resign it are fired. There are other factors driving behaviour but that incentive works just as you'd expect.
Although that is true, reputation is an intangible asset. There is not really an engineering discipline related to maintaining and asset-managing a reputation (not to anywhere near the same level of rigor as managing, eg, a skyscraper).
You might be underestimating how many high-value assets we are surrounded by that are well maintained and extremely reliable. They tend to blend into the background because there are so many.
Obviously mistakes happen, but the central point here shouldn't be controversial: a rational and greedy agent maintains their assets. Otherwise they sorta get booted out of of the club of people who own assets, because their competition would have similar realised returns and a fully functional asset (if maintenance is possible it is usually a more economic option than building from scratch). If the government is going to obsolete your asset by force, then the agent's decisions will change, but the agent isn't exactly in control of their situation if the government is stepping in.
