Yes, stocks were made to finance human businesses and be traded between humans to exchange “parts” of a company easily. I’m not fond of capitalism but I can’t deny that the stock market provides value under this system. But I don’t see where high frequency trading actually brings any of the value it “generates” into this.

My main issues with our current brand of capitalism is that money can be very far removed from reality, with things like greenhouse gasses emissions being effectively “free” even though they affect everyone on the planet, including our economic systems. So, the way I see it, it heavily incentivizes short term profits at the cost of basically everything else. Unless we regulate the hell out of it I guess, but apparently that is a sin against the free market