Unfortunately, it's the same central control, like over the money supply, which determines its use. For too many years now, the free market has been hobbled. In some areas, price of gold/silver only one, it no longer even exits.
A great example of your point is the ‘housing bubble’. What a mess of government interference.
But the ‘dotcom bubble’ was purely the fault of investors misusing their credit.
Borrowing to buy Dutch Tulips is, I guess, the best example of my point.
Capital has to be invested to increase wealth. Otherwise we could let the government do the investing...