For generations, America’s public capital markets have been overwhelmingly associated with New York.

But a brand-new stock exchange is beginning to pull major companies away from Wall Street.

Energy Transfer, Sunoco, SunocoCorp and USA Compression Partners announced this week that they will move their primary listings from the New York Stock Exchange to the new Texas Stock Exchange.

Together, the companies represent nearly $100 billion in market value.

The new competition could be particularly important in the South.

The region has attracted enormous amounts of business but much of the financial infrastructure remains concentrated elsewhere.

A successful Texas Stock Exchange would not automatically change that.

A handful of companies changing exchanges does not mean Wall Street is disappearing.

But the fact that major companies are willing to move at all suggests something important.

America is beginning to experiment with where and how capital markets operate.

That raises another question.

If America can make it easier for companies to access capital, can it also make it easier for ordinary Americans to own capital?

That question could become increasingly important as automation and artificial intelligence change the economy.

Most people earn the majority of their income by working.

But owners of stocks, land, and other productive assets can also earn income from capital.

If technology eventually allows companies to produce significantly more with fewer workers, the difference between those two sources of income could become more important.

Mississippi congressional candidate Michael A. Chiaradio has been talking about that problem.

Chiaradio has argued that America’s economic policy should not be focused on punishing successful companies simply because they become large.

Instead, he has proposed finding ways to broaden ownership of the productive economy.

During discussions with labor leaders this year, Chiaradio floated several ideas.

Those included potentially allowing qualifying companies to satisfy a limited portion of certain federal obligations using equity securities.

The larger objective would be to gradually place more productive assets into the hands of ordinary Americans without relying on a broad wealth tax.

There are significant questions about how something like that would work.

Stock prices rise and fall.

The government would need rules governing valuation and distribution.

And of course, people who need cash to pay rent or buy groceries may have little interest in receiving financial assets instead.

But the underlying question is becoming harder to ignore.

If American companies become more productive because of technology, who will own that increased productivity?

A company becoming enormously successful is not necessarily a problem.

But a country in which increasingly few people participate in the ownership of successful companies could be.

That is where the development in Texas becomes more interesting.

The Texas Stock Exchange is trying to introduce more competition on one side of America’s capital markets.

It wants companies to have another major venue to list and trade their shares.

The ownership ideas Chiaradio has been exploring address the other side.

It also connects quietly to another problem facing the country.

The federal government is carrying more than $40 trillion in debt.

An economy that produces more valuable assets is in a stronger position to support large financial obligations than an economy that stagnates.

But growth also has to reach enough people to remain sustainable over generations.

That means America’s long-term challenge may not simply be producing more wealth.

It may be producing more wealth while giving more Americans realistic opportunities to own some of what produces it.

Texas is now conducting one experiment on the first half of that equation.

The midterm elections on November 3rd could tell us something about the second.