> vast majority of transactions on the stock market do not involve dollars going to anyone who will use them to invest in capacity.
If you could _only_ invest directly into capacity, the amount of dollars that people would be willing to put in would be much smaller than today's. That's because the risk profile is singular in direct capacity investment.
The reason the stock market can fund IPOs is because it allows the different stratas of risk to be separated, and taken on by different parties that want those risks. So without your dollar buying an existing stock, thus letting early investors for an IPO an exit, they would unlikely to want to invest in the IPO in the first place!
Yeah, it's certainly true that the financialization of everything allows for a lot more of every type of investment to be made (including in productive capacity).
If you could _only_ invest directly into capacity, the amount of dollars that people would be willing to put in would be much smaller than today's. That's because the risk profile is singular in direct capacity investment.
The reason the stock market can fund IPOs is because it allows the different stratas of risk to be separated, and taken on by different parties that want those risks. So without your dollar buying an existing stock, thus letting early investors for an IPO an exit, they would unlikely to want to invest in the IPO in the first place!