"given that some portion of revenues become profits, they are either going to turn into a corporate cash hoard, dividends, or buybacks."
Companies can also reinvest profits in the business. The textbook example is building more lemonade stands.
Companies can also reinvest profits in the business. The textbook example is building more lemonade stands.
A genuine robber baron capitalist who intended to hang onto her own shares long term would generally just shitcan managers who behaved that way. But 401k investors don't have the option.
I'm ignoring workers here. I'm only talking about morality between owners and managers.
The point of the stock market is to efficiently let investors re-deploy capital from mature companies (earned through capital gains and dividends) to growing companies. If all the lemonade stands that need to be built have been built, your research dollars will be less effective than others’, then constraining capital to the incumbents, by dissuading dividends or buybacks, results in (a) bad investments and (b) rent seeking by the agents overseeing this restricted capital.