No. Stocks are what stocks are. Private companies use them as a means to raise capital to expand, or to realise some profit of a long term investment.

Individuals and companies buy stocks as an investment, not just because stocks may go up, but because stocks pay a dividend every year, which is in essence the interest on the money they (or the person they bought the stock off) gave the company. If a company does well they may pay a high dividend, if they do badly you may get no dividend. So it's like a bank account but with a higher risk reward (remember banks/coops/societies only make money by lending what they receive for interest, i.e making the money work, same with companies, investing, building, making the money work). In addition there is a possible bonus you buy cheap into a big company at the start i.e. Apple, and the share with the dividend becomes highly valued due to the profits you get from that and the safe investment nature of the share.

Now. All that being said just like credit, shares also got to hell when there is no moderation. So the 1st thing is that small time investers play in the market and get screwed because they don't know what to do, i.e they plow in because they see a share going up and don't sell when the big guys move out and shares drop. 2nd, we have the bubbles, when everyone plows in to a share because they hope it is the next Apple (dot com bust), or just because everyone else is and they know they will make quick money and get out before it goes boom. The problem is that a lot of serious players in the market manipulate this to the detriment of the companies, public, government to make money, and a lot of big companies do this not because it's good for them, but because their employees are paid by deals, short term gains, not long term (insurance and pension companies).

So shares are just a form of credit, used well it creates investment, opportunity, expansion, innovation...growth. Used badly it creates bubbles, false economies and generally a mess.