A Plausible Solution to Corporatocracy and Financialization

I was born in the early 1970s. Over my lifetime, I witnessed the transformation of the United States from mom and pop store America to super centralized WalMart/Amazon Wall Street America. I think there were two main policy changes that drove the transformation:

• Change in interstate banking laws (which led to market "deregulation" and centralization in New York City);
• Emphasis on the stock market and 401(k) as retirement savings vehicle. Speculation in the stock market via easy online trading.

Many other policy changes, like the entry of China into the WTO and "free trade" agreements also drove financialization and centralization but really the 401(k) provided the financial fuel to ship jobs overseas and enabled corporations to monetize their stock, and enables executives to pay themselves in a kingly fashion.

It seems like it would be a relatively easy tweak to the system to encourage other savings vehicles. It might even be plausible to work to decentralize the banking system by appealing to the greed of legislators and even people in the banking system.