The fact that "activist shareholders" is a term that people have to use suggests that shareholders rarely do that.

Perhaps because, they're largely happy with the terms of there arrangement?

You should probably stop making assumptions as to why people do (or do not) make a choice. Ideological rationalization on your part does not create motivation for someone else.

That's hysterically naive or extremely disingenuous.

Why? Do you consider shareholders to not be smart enough to make their own decisions?

That's no more relevant to the problem at hand than asking if the populace is smart enough to elect good politicians. The public choice problem, costs are diffused, benefits are concentrated, is still there.

Focusing companies on paying dividends via policy choices would alleviate much of the problem.

I think you're severely understating the difficulty of getting a huge group of people to act like that against something seen as the status quo.

Your comment follows essentially the same logic as saying to somebody complaining of Government corruption, "citizens can just start a revolution and remove the Government at will - so if they haven't, they must all be perfectly happy with the Government."