Unmasking Capitalism in Steinbeck´s The Grapes of Wrath

In 2008, Rudra Sabaratnam, the CEO of the City of Angels Medical Center, committed health care fraud when he attempted to extort money from Medicare and Medi-Cal. He was wealthy, yet, his greed for more money led him to cheat the taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars, depriving the people who actually need the help and money. The greed that Sabaratnam had was partly caused by the profit seeking capitalist system. The desire for wealth in capitalist society leads to corruption and causes a divide between the rich and the poor, so perhaps a system that supports equality and fairness is a better choice. The Eastern-European expression,“Capitalism is man exploiting man; communism is just the opposite,” summarizes one of the main ideas in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s aversion to a capitalist society is a motif that appears in several of his literary works, but in The Grapes of Wrath he attacks capitalism constantly and he exposes the poverty, cruelty, and greed found in our capitalist system. By emphasizing the wealthy’s insatiable appetite for profit, which forces the migrants to face hardships, Steinbeck accentuates the inequitable aspects of capitalism, and promotes communism as an alternative.

Steinbeck criticizes capitalism by portraying the banks and companies as insensitive monsters who, for the sake of profit, heartlessly force the farmers off their lands. When the Dust Bowl hits, the small farmers lose profit and could barely survive on the little they have, but since the bank “has to have profit all the time,” it callously forces the farmers off their land (pg 42). Capitalism, built on the idea of making profit, gets rid of anything that hinders financial gain. The bank could have a...

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...ving his heroes combat it. In a way, Steinbeck is advocating communism since his heroes have turned to the path that completely diverges from capitalism.

The novel focuses on the negative aspects of capitalism and sheds a positive light on communism. Steinbeck proves that there are many problems in capitalism with the way the migrants suffered during the era of the Great Depression. The economic slump, which many people assume affected the urban populations, was even harsher on the migrants. Steinbeck, throughout his novel, reveals the plight of the migrant workers during the Depression and how capitalism has crushed them. He reaches out to his readers and plants the idea that the glorified capitalism in America is not what it seems, and that any path, even communism, is preferable.

Works Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.