Agree to disagree about the blanket statements, and I actually do agree that for what most people are picturing here, the death penalty should be abhorred. But, seriously, it's rough out there. Almost nobody actually lives in San Francisco, when you think about it. (Or similar.)
1. Well they used to be for when society recognized that once a large societal and social phenomenon that is a large corporation (really just lots of people agreeing to work together to do something), that at some point that abstract group had some kind of obligation to the public, given, at some point, it becomes hard to separate the public from the corporations (given who staffs 95% of the roles at such mega-corps).
So basically, public markets were for allowing the public to invest in what had essentially become public phenomenon.
Also, once a company becomes public, it's fucking naive to call it "enjoyable" and assume that's as nuanced as you get when thinking about that decision.
Also, you're an idiot. "A company going public wants to take on some debt."
No, they want to sell equity, specifically because they would rather do that than sell bonds ie raise debt.
I'm pretty sure we let the government run the lotteries here in the US because it's a lot better than when the gangs would run them. It's much the same argument for drug legalization, really... if people are going to be stupid, and you know they're going to be stupid, at least help them be smart about being stupid.