Suggested recently by Richard Wolff and many others before him: a possible solution out of this economy is worker coops aka democracy at work.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/nyregion/new-bill-seeks-to...
A small group of people with absolute authority to decide who does and doesn't get to live in a building can be more tyrannical than a large group of people forced to compete on just price. (And vice versa.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectorate_theory