While there is some nostalgia driving the populist movement, that's not necessarily a bad thing. There is nothing inherently wrong with small producers and no reason we shouldn't promote them while dismantling monopolies, but most of the people I encounter who have anti-corporate sentiments, including people in the middle class, don't have any illusions about returning to halcyon days ... they're just tired of corporations ruling their lives. But there are still Main Streets with mom-and-pop businesses and small farmers who are struggling to stay on the land in the face of the huge agribusiness combines with their factory farms.
Enforcing anti-trust laws would be one immediate way to get popular control over the behemoths, but really bringing corporations to heel would require four or five appointments to the Supreme Court that aren't likely to be made anytime soon. The Court needs to overturn the ruling that the 14th Amendment granted civil rights to corporations, to allow laws that would make corporations accountable to the public interest once again.
I think much of populism is compatible with socialism, but people are more likely to support making corporations accountable to the public than they would be to expropriate industry in any meaningful way. As for computers, both Apple and Dell Computers as well as Microsoft started out in garages. Sure, you need fabricating plants somewhere -- and one would hope that trade laws would allow them to be unionized -- but there are still lots of independent assemblers out there. We should support small businesses, small farmers and the right to collective bargaining -- all of which used to be Democratic Party principles.
-- Jim Cullen