Now some, especially those on the left, may think that Hillary Clinton is the last person in the world to lead this fight. They see her as simply a shill of the rich donors who’ve funded her campaign, of the Wall Street banks who’ve paid her and her husband millions of dollars just to speak to them for a few minutes, of the billionaires who’ve financed the Clinton Foundation in hopes of gaining favor with the powerful Clintons.

It’s true the Clintons have a complicated relationship with the global elite. But so did John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and, yes, even Theodore Roosevelt, whose election as vice president in 1900 was assured by the millions of dollars spent by big business on behalf of the Republican ticket.

Those who assume that Clinton has been thoroughly bought by Wall Street forget where she came from: She’s a product of the 1960s. She turned away from her early conservative beliefs as so many did in that era, shocked by the racism, sexism and poverty that was everywhere around her. She was an activist before she was a politician. She’s been a solid liberal (at least on domestic issues) ever since.

Of course, a fair bit of skepticism about her intentions is warranted. It’s easy for a candidate to promise to crack down on evil monopolists, dodgy tax evaders and mean price-gougers. Candidate Obama promised to install a more active antitrust division at the Department of Justice, but enforcement is little changed from the Bush years.

Still, it’s a hopeful sign that Hillary Clinton is making an issue of our dysfunctional economy, a system that produces world-class products but that fails to divide the spoils of success in a fair manner. It’s not only a winning political strategy, but a wise one as well.