Our new issue, “After Bernie,” is out now. Our questions are simple: what did Bernie accomplish, why did he fail, what is his legacy, and how should we continue the struggle for democratic socialism? Get a discounted print subscription today !

“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow . . . would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” Hillary Clinton’s questions, and the resounding “No!” that came from her audience, are a distillation of some of her campaign’s most consistent attacks on Bernie Sanders in the recent Democratic primary. But for a moment, let’s set aside the ridiculous framing of the question — no piece of legislation enacted tomorrow would “end racism” — and let’s set aside the electoral context in which it took place. Instead, let’s turn to a substantive issue at the core of Clinton’s neoliberal politics. Her goals are twofold: to drive a wedge between identity-focused organizing and anti–Wall Street politics; and to make financial reform seem niche, an elite topic that doesn’t register in the lives of Americans — particularly those who face oppression. But financial institutions shape our daily lives in intimate and tangible ways, and since the financialization of Western capitalist economies ramped up in the mid 1970s, their presence in our lives has only intensified. And their business models rely on continuously profiting from social inequalities like racism. This presents those of us on the Left with a set of serious questions: how can we develop a financial politics grounded in everyday experience, and how can we emphasize that anti–Wall Street movements are central to the empowerment of marginalized communities? The short answer is that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Political struggles that would diminish the power and profit margins of financial institutions are part of left politics across the world. But they are not often enough articulated in those terms. We need a left politics of finance that goes beyond “breaking up the big banks” and more systematically addresses the role Wall Street plays in our everyday lives, and the role it plays in reinforcing the oppressions that shape American society. What follows are some ways we might begin to build such a politics.

A Savings Bank Public Option One of the most basic aspects of living in a capitalist society is the need for depository banking services like savings accounts. Those services should be provided as nonprofit public utility. There are around sixty-eight million people in the United States with little or no access to basic banking services — and for those with intermittent access, it’s an expensive racket. A Pew study estimated that twelve million Americans used payday lending in 2012, spending a total of $7.4 billion in fees. The study also reveals the demographic profile of people most likely to use payday loans: black women, age twenty-five to thirty-four who are renters and are supporting children. American banks raked in an estimated $42.3 billion in ATM fees and overdraft charges in 2015. Of course, these penalties hit poor people, people of color, and immigrants the hardest. Postal banking, a proposal to create a nonprofit savings institution based in post offices, has been endorsed by the American Postal Workers’ Union and by Bernie Sanders, among others. A postal bank would radically undermine the exploitative payday loan industry and force other depository institutions to lower fees. It would provide dearly needed services to struggling communities, and as Mike Konczal has argued, the existence of a cheap and high-quality “public option” can be an effective means of putting downward pressure on fees charged by for-profit banks. While this is an admittedly small-bore reform, it has a lot of support within the political class, the academy, and the media. And it is feasibly achievable in the context of the next Democratic government or in state legislatures. But more importantly, a successful progressive campaign for public savings banks — especially one rooted in action from within postal workers’ unions — would be a victory with the potential to embolden further financial reform movements. Overdraft charges, high ATM fees, inflated interest rates on payday loans, and exorbitant check-cashing fees are staples of daily life for the American poor and working class. A public option for savings accounts would represent a tangible and straightforward reform, a proof of concept for the broad principal that ordinary people have the ability to collectively shape their financial lives.

Financial Transactions Tax Another reform that has been gaining steam on the Left and center left is a financial transaction tax, or as some call it, the “Robin Hood Tax.” The basic idea is an extremely small tax on each individual financial transaction. A miniscule version of this tax, .001 percent, is estimated to raise an average of $18.5 billion per year in the United States, and a much more ambitious model that follows the Bernie Sanders proposal could yield up to $340 billion per year in tax revenue. Many economists back an FTT because of its potential to curb the kind of volatile, high-speed trading and excessive financial risk-taking that has the potential to drive speculative bubbles. The Left should welcome these changes in financial dynamics. But beyond increasing financial restraint, an FTT would be a highly progressive tax that opens the door for demands to use that revenue for universal public services. This dynamic, the link between straightforward taxes on capital with a straightforward politics of universal benefits, could form a central plank of left financial politics going forward. National Nurses United has showed us the method — their consistent advocacy for the “Robin Hood Tax” emphasizes the revenue that would be appropriated from the rich and distributed to the people in the form of jobs programs, universal child care, or free higher education. This framing also has the advantage of taking direct aim at Wall Street and their exorbitant profit margins as clear antagonists in the fight for a decent life in this country. Like postal banking, financial transaction taxes have a wide appeal on the global left and center left. Figures ranging from George Soros, Pope Benedict XVI, and Paul Krugman to RoseAnn DeMoro, Bernie Sanders, and Occupy Wall Street have all endorsed some version of it. Even Hillary Clinton has supported a (comically Clintonian and watered down) form of this tax. A Sanders-style FTT linked to some universal benefit has a clear logic and the potential for broad-based support. In an endeavor to confront a Clinton presidency from the left, this issue could be a perfect wedge that pushes rank-and-file Clinton voters towards a more progressive politics. A financial transactions tax would not “end sexism,” but a robust FTT that devoted its revenue to universal child care, education, or paid family leave would be the most broadly empowering feminist legislation that the United States has passed in decades.