Limiting their leverage is another way to begin defanging these monsters, Mr. Fisher said. But he concedes that there is little will to do either. “It takes an enormous amount of political courage to say we are going to limit size and limit leverage,” he said. “But to me it makes the ultimate sense. The misuse of leverage is always the root cause of every financial crisis.”

The idea for a special resolution authority appears to rest on the belief that large, troubled institutions cannot be allowed to go bankrupt because their collapse will cause other entities to fail. Again, this seems exactly backward. If imperiled banks are too large and interconnected to go through our nation’s time-honored bankruptcy process, then they are too big to exist.

A TWO-TIERED system, where large entities are more equal than others, is also deeply unfair. Smaller banks cannot hope to compete with institutions that have significant cost advantages. “Why should you have a small group of institutions get an advantage simply because they have grown too large?” Mr. Fisher asked. “It’s un-American; it’s not what makes this country great.”

Indeed, removing the subsidies awarded to big banks would give Main Street lenders — most of which did not bring the financial system to its knees — a chance to win market share.

Mr. Fisher also disputes the view often taken by defenders of the status quo that financial institutions hoping to compete for business in huge global markets must be gigantic. “There are those who say that America has to have the largest financial institutions to be an international player,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s a strong argument. Good companies will always find bankers and investors.”

Edward Kane, a finance professor at Boston College and an authority on financial institutions and regulators, said that it was not surprising that substantive changes for both groups are not on the table. After all, powerful banks want to maintain their ability to privatize gains and socialize losses.

“To understand why defects in insolvency detection and resolution persist, analysts must acknowledge that large financial institutions invest in building and exercising political clout,” Mr. Kane writes in an article, titled “Defining and Controlling Systemic Risk,” that he is scheduled to present next month at a Federal Reserve conference.