Where is the capital to start a small local unit going to come from?

Credit unions are an interesting alternative.

I can imagine a kind of social banking where loans are made by a local unit to individuals, and the ties they create as much personal as social.

Defaulting on a bank loan is much less traumatic when the bank is faceless and distant. When people know the other people they owe money to and everyone is in the same community, they're - usually - that much more likely to want to arrange pay back.

You could argue that the roots of the Anglo disease is a cult of impersonality and pseudo-objectivity. When economists, politicians, CEOs and bankers are personally isolated from the consequences of their actions, they have no incentive to consider social relationsships.

This kind of levitation would be much harder if pay-back was personal.