Well, it's capitalism, it's private ownership. The stock market at least enables you and anyone to be part owner of corporations. Without it, all corporations would be privately owned. That would be worse. Publicly traded companies are subject to much more transparency, are audited by virtue of federal regulations. Privately held companies are shielded, relatively. I know this because my niece's son recently graduated from Tulane University in accounting and now makes a living auditing publicly traded companies, which is required by law. And take note: Even supposedly communist countries, Russia and China, have stock markets.