If inflation is low you can do the dumbest things imaginable and as long as you make your money back you can keep doing the dumb thing over and over again.
If there was decent inflation you would have to have at least some expectation of a future gain because inflation and by extension the increased interest rates would cause your net 0 investments to be a net loss.
the aggregate success thrown off by the stock market is a measure of the usefulness of the stock market.
participating in that is what enables to stock market to provide its usefulness.
so, yes, success on the stock market is a function of usefulness in the real world.
Stretching the brake analogy it would be similar to noting that just because you are pressing more your brake pedal it does not mean that your car is slowing down faster, sometimes you need an ABS
Proponents would say that it is efficienct in funding ideas that are more likely to succeed, with the partecipants in the stock market taking a commission for the transactions.