To play devil's advocate: for capitalists to remain capitalists, they must successfully allocate capital, which requires a knowledge of the "needs, desired, and problems" of the consumer class. And the stock market is a mechanism for transferring capital from inefficient allocators to efficient ones.
That's the theory, anyway. In practice many capitalists accumulate capital in ways that are unfair and uncompetitive.
> which requires a knowledge of the "needs, desired, and problems" of the consumer class
> In practice many capitalists accumulate capital in ways that are unfair and uncompetitive.
I don't think this is the right binary. It's not a choice between "better allocation" or "unfair". In my lifetime I've seen capitalism reward exploitation, cruelty, and abuse, without having some unfair/noncompetitive advantage. Walmart pays domestic employees a non-living wage, and exploits weak labor and environmental laws and "free trade" to produce goods at lower prices, and uses weaknesses in the political system ($$$) to avoid paying taxes. That's pure capitalism working as intended, not dirty trickery.
That's the theory, anyway. In practice many capitalists accumulate capital in ways that are unfair and uncompetitive.