Hillary Clinton says she’s cracking down on Wall Street. She argues that her new financial reform plan will curb speculation and push back against “the tyranny of short-termism.” It’s a move designed to establish her progressive bona fides and assuage a public increasingly angry at the free ride finance enjoys.

Yet far from reducing the power of the financial sector, Clinton’s proposal — which includes a tax on high-frequency trading, promises prosecution for the most egregious Wall Street lawbreakers, and seeks to enhance the independence of key regulatory bodies — seems deliberately crafted to consolidate the hegemony of the financial institutions that dominate the world economy.

Fellow Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley both criticize her plan as inadequate, but neither candidate has tackled the flawed assumptions on which the proposal rests.