There was a time when common people would insist on gold or silver coin and save that way. Only merchants used custodians to do large, long-distance transactions. You can think of the unnatural expansion of the banks, aided by legal protections for their fraud, as part of a century-long psyop.

All to say that there is nothing innate about most people’s servility or learned helplessness. New, deserving and natural elites can show the way onward and set the tone for a new culture. Won’t be easy or guaranteed, but the current bad state of things isn’t baked in either.