Answer:
Man created the banking system to create wealth for himself, but the system took over to a point where it became uncontrollable.
Greed is a major motif in this chapter and this quote is a Prime example.
It’s insane to think that these families can be scared of a machine, a tractor. Tractor’s are usually run by man, but in this situation the man’s life and decisions are run by the tractor.
Take a look at that interaction at the top. The farmer continues speaking, and so offers one of the most powerful rallying cries in literature. Here’s the fuse being lit:
‘I got to figure,’ the tenant said. ‘We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.’
There are passages of writing that resonate so fiercely and deeply throughout our society – that express the truth so clearly and poetically, so perfectly – that to read them is to understand, instantly. They are the clearest images we can draw of our grand narrative. This chapter is one of those.
Nothing has improved since Steinbeck warned us. The Bank has gotten stronger, gotten out of control by all conceivable measures. Joe Davis’s dead-eyed boys, more than ever, shuffle off to work for it every day, for the 2012 equivalent of three dollars a day. What they do is called a McJob, or sometimes Rick Perry’s Texas Miracle. It is an evil system, Steinbeck tells us. But as last fall, and the Occupy movement, taught us, it is not invincible. It is oppressive but fallible. It is efficient but heartless. It is destructive but unsustainable.
And by God, that’s something we can change.
Explanation:
https://genius.com/4536146
https://davisdunavin.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/rereading-the-grapes-of-wrath-chapter-5/
Hope this helps.
