Could we give ordinary citizens the trading efficiencies Wall Street now takes for granted? Yes, but it will require new technologies and a specific legal framework for e-markets. Here's why:
The web is currently very good at helping us sell items. eBay has been doing that since 1994. But, the key unrealised assets most of us have to sell are based on periods of time. We sell our own time to employers. Most of us have posessions that could be hired out at times when we don't need them.
Time-based markets are much more complicated than auction sites. They need to factor in hour-by-hour availability, contactability, reliability, dynamic pricing and legal compliance. Time-based markets are also hard to launch: they need a Big Bang to get to a big pool of users quickly. All this is expensive.
On top of this, complex markets require supporting facilities. They include: regulation, verification processes, settlement mechanisms, pump priming (the early stage buying that delivers critical mass) and ways to raise awareness among potential users.
Global banks control these facilities in their sector. They moved fast to focus these levers on new marketplaces for their mutual benefit. At the bottom of the economy, the comparable facilities are controlled by governments. No government has yet focused them on delivering state-of-the-art marketplaces for the benefit of citizens.