Economic Elites example essay topic

Life one Honors Seminar Grapes of Wrath Question #4 Among the many themes in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a perfect example of the aggressive economic practices of profit minded corporate and banking elites. In a move to hedge losses on a on their real estate investment they elect to foreclose the leases on the farmland that was all but obliterated by the dust storms. During the time of the Great Depression in Oklahoma money could be made in only a handful of ways. Among these were the drilling of oil, cattle herding and farming.

Of these, all involved some kind of land purchase and some subsequent percentage of return on the property was sent to the lending entity. The occupation presented in the Grapes of Wrath is that of the farming industry. Steinbeck uses the opening few chapters to describe the prevailing socio-economic conditions as opposed to isolating a specific character so as to show the reader how widespread this problem was. We are then introduced to a character named Tom Joan who spent four years in jail for murdering a man in a fight. On his way home he gets a ride with a truck driver at a diner. At this point he is oblivious to the fact that his family farm has been foreclosed on.

As they are driving a turtle crosses the path of the truck. This turtle in its slow methodical movements to me symbolizes the struggles of the working class trying to vie for a position of economic stability and when the truck hits the turtle and puts it on its back it is very much like the economic elites bullying those of the working class. Tom learns the details about what happened to his family's forty-acre farm from Jim Case, Tom's former preacher, and Maley Graves, a possibly insane elderly man. They try to figure out a plan of attack against the bankers but realize that there is nothing really that they can do. When analyzing the situation from the perspective of the farmer one becomes sympathetic to their cause. However, the bankers have very valid reasons for their decisions.

A banker's job is to maximize profit so that he can have enough to loan out (for a cost) to those that want it. If one of his primary investments is not yielding a return because the land is not producing enough then he has no choice but to obtain something on his investment. A banker losing his financial base has more of an effect on a particular community than a great depletion in the economically sustaining industry of the region. The question then that the book raised to me was which is more important to reestablishing stability in a volatile environment, ensuring that there is a stable economic base or to ensure that as many people as possible have an means of income even if they incur massive amounts of debt in the process. I think that the position of least risk is most economically healthy this is why I am not overly sympathetic to Steinbeck's attempt to demonize the bankers who were just out to protect their interests as well as the economic stability of the region.