Economic Market Structures Related to Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”
Date: 4/7/13Page | 9
Effects of This Market on the Participants (Consumer and Producer) & Society:
Steinbeck portrays the rotting state of the economic system with his discussion of the Trade Association’s decisionto let ripe fruit rot bolster market prices. The owners of wealthy fruit farms heaped a great expense to make surethat the goods grown on their farm were healthy, ripe, and resistant from disease. At the same time, they createdthe rotting strategy to manipulate prices. The real losers of this oligopolistic behavior where the local hungry childrenand their families that could not eat the ripe fruit and then couldn’t afford to take care of the diseases brought …show more content…
The ranch owner providedthem a job as a picker and a shanty to live in. They quickly learned, however, that things were not very fair at the“Company Store”. After picking twenty boxes, they got a $1 credit slip that could be used at the store. Ma is nowable to go to the store and get some food for the starving family. Once in the store, Ma realizes that all of theproducts were overpriced, typically around 25% higher than prices found in town. “Ain’t that awful high (20 cents /lb. for hamburger)? Seems to me hamburg was 15 fifteen las’ time I got some”. The store clerk responds with asoft, knowing giggle, “Well, yes, it’s high, and same time, it’s not high. Time you go in town for a couple poun’s of hamburg, it’ll cos’ you ‘bout a gallon a gas. So it ain’t really high here, ‘cause you got no gallon a gas.” Ma replies,“It didn’t cos’ you no gallon a gas to get it out here.” He then laughs delightedly, “You’re lookin’ at it bass-ackwards.We ain’t a-buyin’ it, we’re a-sellin’ it. If we was buyin’ it, why, that’d be different.” (Steinbeck, 1939) (pg. 374)The Hooper Ranch owner used his authority position, ability to provide short term loans that could only be redeemedat his store, and his isolated location in combination to establish a “micro-monopoly” at his Company Store. Eventhe store attendant was well aware of the price gouging going on and was controlled by his bosses to show no
Date: 4/7/13Page | 9
Effects of This Market on the Participants (Consumer and Producer) & Society:
Steinbeck portrays the rotting state of the economic system with his discussion of the Trade Association’s decisionto let ripe fruit rot bolster market prices. The owners of wealthy fruit farms heaped a great expense to make surethat the goods grown on their farm were healthy, ripe, and resistant from disease. At the same time, they createdthe rotting strategy to manipulate prices. The real losers of this oligopolistic behavior where the local hungry childrenand their families that could not eat the ripe fruit and then couldn’t afford to take care of the diseases brought …show more content…
The ranch owner providedthem a job as a picker and a shanty to live in. They quickly learned, however, that things were not very fair at the“Company Store”. After picking twenty boxes, they got a $1 credit slip that could be used at the store. Ma is nowable to go to the store and get some food for the starving family. Once in the store, Ma realizes that all of theproducts were overpriced, typically around 25% higher than prices found in town. “Ain’t that awful high (20 cents /lb. for hamburger)? Seems to me hamburg was 15 fifteen las’ time I got some”. The store clerk responds with asoft, knowing giggle, “Well, yes, it’s high, and same time, it’s not high. Time you go in town for a couple poun’s of hamburg, it’ll cos’ you ‘bout a gallon a gas. So it ain’t really high here, ‘cause you got no gallon a gas.” Ma replies,“It didn’t cos’ you no gallon a gas to get it out here.” He then laughs delightedly, “You’re lookin’ at it bass-ackwards.We ain’t a-buyin’ it, we’re a-sellin’ it. If we was buyin’ it, why, that’d be different.” (Steinbeck, 1939) (pg. 374)The Hooper Ranch owner used his authority position, ability to provide short term loans that could only be redeemedat his store, and his isolated location in combination to establish a “micro-monopoly” at his Company Store. Eventhe store attendant was well aware of the price gouging going on and was controlled by his bosses to show no