I hate that argument, because it's the equivalent of my saying I won a board game by preventing too many people from playing it with me, starting with most of the resources already in my possession, and changed the rules so it's harder to spend those resources than to acquire new ones.

As of 2022, Vanguard owned two-thirds of US companies by outstanding shares. That's one institutional investor controlling much of the marketplace. Literally everyone else - other institutional investors, retail investors, governments, corporate employees, etc - is competing for the scraps. If we're talking people, the top 10% of Americans own 93% of US equities according to a 2024 study - again, everyone else is competing for scraps.

So while you are technically correct in that stocks represent ownership, your detractors are more "spiritually" (as in, the spirit of the argument) correct in that it's an irrelevant point when the vast majority of US Equities are held by a fraction of the population. The argument falls apart completely when you consider Capital Gains are treated more favorably by taxation than wages, which is intentional.

So to John Q Public? It's a casino. They have zero hope of actually investing or having a say in corporate outcomes.

I'm not sure why the capital gains argument matters here. If the business can return money to shareholders in a way that increases their capital then they'll prefer to do so (e.g. via stock buybacks) but that benefits the fractional owner the same way it benefits the large owner.

It's true that if you own 0.0001% of a business you have very little influence about how it is run in the day to day. But the value of your investment is still anchored to the value of the business in exactly the same way as the larger owners are.

Maybe you get dividends, but you’d get more value from the comped room and buffet at the casino.