Well we’d go back to an era where private capital owns the world. The public would not be able to participate or benefit from the ownership of companies and share in the prosperity.
I should of used the term "equity" instead of "capital". I meant that the worlds largest companies would no longer be able to be owned by public equity and would only be available to those in the exclusive club of private equity.
I mean the average person already barely has any participation at all, and certainly doesn't benefit from it when their money gets dumped down the toilet because of some widespread financial scams and grifts that repeatedly happen over and over again.
And how many of those people are actively making decisions about what companies they are investing in instead of blindly putting money into a black box 401k account because they are financially punished for not doing so?
Not by choice. Stocks are pushed onto Americans (as well as Europeans, and most people in the West) via their pension funds, advanced savings accounts, and sometimes even their salaries (via options). If normal savings accounts in their local credit union would offer adequate interest rates (and if paying in stocks was outlawed by their unions) stock ownership would plummet. I would be surprised if it would even exceed 2%.