Midtown does seem at times a de facto gulag panopticon. Ubiquitous surveillance, glowering private security folks, etc. A wealthy city, and all have the freedom of the city, but only some have the freedom of the wealth.
But the difficulty isn't in the structure of things, or the economic system. It's in the way things are thought about. That's what's gone bad. Without religion, the spirit has faltered.
Without a vision, the people perish. A vision is an understanding of things -- cf. the beginning of the Metaphysics. Without a way of thinking about the way things are, individual people lose their existence.