The+Consequences+of+the+Profit+Monster

Jacob Weiss Kaplan E   April 19th, 2012 The Consequences of the Profit Monster In the big picture chapters of the first half of the novel Steinbeck is pointing out that the profit monster is creating a nation where self-interest and self improvement trump communal needs and issues. The profit monster makes business men want to be as selfish as possible. They make more money by being greedy. An example of how the profit monster makes people greedy and disinterested in communal needs is the hardships of the migrant men. The migrant men are plagued by the selfishness of landowners and businessmen. They are obligated to sustain a system, which sinks thousands into the depths of poverty. The landowners and businessmen might not be selfish people at heart, but they are motivated to be as long as there is the existence of the selfish profit monster (banks). To Steinbeck, people aren’t selfish unless they are motivated to be. In this case they are motivated by banks, which Steinbeck believes men can’t even control. When it comes down to it, food is the necessity of human life. People will do whatever it takes to feed their family. This it what drove people like the tractor driver in chapter 5 to work against his own people. He got “sick of creeping for [his] dinner---and not getting it” (Steinbeck, 37). He needed to feed his family, even if it meant hurting his family. He needed a constant inflow of money, and his tractor job got him “Three dollars a day, and it comes everyday” (Steinbeck, 37). Steinbeck stresses the wickedness of the profit monster because he sees that “the monster isn’t men, but it can make men do what it wants” (Steinbeck, 34). The bank has no morals, no feeling, what keeps it alive is any kind of profit. This reckless drive for profit makes banks monsters, “Men made [them], but they can’t control [them]” (Steinbeck, 33). This monster was essentially running the nation, breathing the profits of the capitalist enslaved men. These examples from the big picture chapters capture Steinbeck’s most important point: If //I// am hungry, //I// am jobless and //I// am tired nothing will change, but if //we// are hungry, //we// are jobless and //we// are tired change is imminent. Power and change come in numbers, and until the poor individuals realize this, they will remain poor and miserable. Personal possession and remorse “freezes you forever into ‘I’, and cuts you forever from ‘we’” (Steinbeck, 152). The profit monster eliminates solidarity. It keeps people focusing on their struggles, rather than their community’s struggles, and creates an immense gap between the rich and poor.

The narrative chapters of the first half of the novel, like the big picture chapters, exemplify the hardships of the migrant men. Steinbeck is trying to make his point that the profit monster is ruthless and destructive through a different lens. He does this by focusing on a single migrating family and their fight against the consequences of the profit monster. By focusing on a single family he is able to amplify the hardships of the migrant men. He uses the narrative to compliment the issues brought forth in the big picture chapters. The Joads were hungry, tired and jobless. They needed to make money, so they went to California to find work. Their miserable conditions were a result of the profit monster. The Joads had as steady, sustainable living up until banks controlled the nation. They lost their land because the “profit monster” needed to be fed by wealthy businessmen that took their land. They had lived in the same place all their lives. Sustaining themselves through there own production of crops. It wasn’t until banks came around that land was looked at as a moneymaker. Before, people had deep sentimental value in their land, now people like businessmen stripped the emotional value away for profit. In the beginning, one of the only people to even hint at the power of ‘I’ to ‘We’ was Reverend Casy. He believed that “all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of (Steinbeck, 24).” This is the type of outlook on community that Steinbeck preaches for. In order for all to be fed individuals must look at themselves as part of the community. Muley Graves gives an example of the much-needed communal mindset, “If a fella’s got somepin to eat an’ another fella’s hungry-why, the first fella ain’t got no choice” (Steinbeck, 49). This is how American’s needed to act in order to keep the community health and fed. This was the best way, in Steinbeck’s opinion, that they could combat the profit monster. The first half of the novel’s narrative and the big picture chapter work off each other: the big picture provides Steinbeck’s major concerns (profit, business, “I to We”) and the narrative gives examples of how the migrant men think and act in a nation dominated by the profit monster. Steinbeck’s concerns of profit and the “I” mentality had yet to completely resonate with the migrant men, but it is obvious that the two are affecting the quality of the migrant men’s lives. The people were being directly affected, but they still weren’t taking action. He is pointing out the flaws of capitalism and the power of the profit monster without interference.

In the second half of the novel’s big picture chapters Steinbeck focuses on the significance of blue-collar work and how the profit monster is unappreciative of back breaking, labor intensive work. The profit monster only cares about money. This is what scares him. He sees the working class as the “glue” of the nation. They do good, honest work. They create with their hands and not with their paycheck. He is fearful that their work will be diminished by the influence of the profit monster. He sees laborious work as a necessity, but he sees that the work isn’t being used to its full capability. Without laborious work there wouldn’t even be businesses or banks. Those two things were created to manipulate and extract profit out of the honest work of people like farmers. In chapter 25 Steinbeck uses the example of fruit growing, and how fruits have been used to produce a profit. It seems as though the men are creating perfect fruits, fruits that “resist the million enemies of the earth: the molds, the insects, the rusts, the blights” but it is revealed that these super fruits aren’t being created primarily for consumption, but instead for making a profit (Steinbeck, 346). The harvesters of these fruits are so focused on profit that they destroy the crops in order to maintain high prices. This profit-driven mindset leaves people dyeing of malnutrition “because the food must rot, must be forced to rot” in order for there to be a large profit (Steinbeck, 347). The profit-driven mindset is forcing people to sacrifice the health of the individuals in their community for profit. If there wasn’t profit, people wouldn’t be intentionally destroying crops before they are used. The profit monster makes people so focused on self-improvement that they don’t care that they are throwing away good crops. When there is money involved, people aren’t very concerned about morals.

In the second half of the novel’s narrative Steinbeck points out the benefits of “I to We”. This is the philosophy that he is preaching for. It replaces self-interest with a communal mindset. He believes in the good of mankind and is pointing how great society could be without the capitalist system. Weedpatch resembles the “I to We” philosophy. The camp essentially runs itself without any law enforcement. The people govern themselves. There are no cops and there are no landowners. No one forces each other to work; yet the people naturally do so. Almost everything is communal: the toilets, the food and most resources. This is the world Steinbeck envisions. He believes that people care about the well-being of the members of the community. This is why “I to We” is the ultimate solution to him. There are no fights in the camp, and everyone is cared for. The camp makes people feel human again, which infuriates the surrounding landowners enough to start a fight in the camp. “Folks in the camp are getting used to being treated like humans. When they go back to the squatters camps they’ll just be hard to handle” (Steinbeck, 296). The landowners feared that they’d lose workers if people felt human again. The landowners “Figger maybe if [the people] can gove’n ourselves, maybe [the people will] do other things” (Steinbeck 297). Individuals were beginning to imagine the power they possessed if there was a change from “I to ‘We” Landowners made sure this would never happen: they made sure that there was a blockade of ‘I’ to ‘We’. Later on in the narrative we get an example of Muley Graves’ way of thinking when the Wainwrights help out the Joads during the flood. Afterwards, Ma thanks Mrs. Wainwright for helping out and she gets a very Muley-like response. “No need to thank. Ever’body’s in the same wagon. S’pose we was down. You’d a give us a han’” (Steinbeck, 445). The “I to We” mentality was spreading. Steinbeck stresses the point throughout the novel that it isn’t the people who are bad and selfish, rather it’s the thing they have created, profit, that makes them act like selfish individuals. He uses weed patch to exemplify what he believes to be the better alternative. He is a socialist. The big picture narrative chapters of the second half of the novel supported the narrative chapters. The big picture chapters in the second half of the novel touch on the selfishness created from profit, and how people remain dignified as long as “fear could turn to wrath” (Steinbeck, 435). The Joads exemplified a family that could not be broken. They remained dignified and maintained self-respect. The narrative showed how strong the Joads were in their fight against society, and how they began use the values of the “I to We” philosophy. This was what Steinbeck was preaching for in the first half of the novel.