Poverty In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

The most common theme I noticed throughout The Grapes of Wrath was poverty. Poverty struck the Joad family and changed everything for them. Granted, poverty was caused by environmental issues and by the economy, but either way poverty is a constant struggle in humanity. In this book the Joad family is forced to leave their land, leave family behind, and change their way of life. At the end of the day all they are left is the hope to survive another day, and maybe...just maybe that someday things will be better.
I believe that poverty is a large contributor to the corrupted food system we have today. If you are poor you are left with unhealthy choices for your diet. There are of course two ends of the spectrum. People are always talking about starving children. It’s so terribly sad and there is no reason for it. I am sure that enough farmers would be willing to donate seeds to impoverished villages if they were not tied to contracts by big companies. These big companies are obsessed with their money and thus think that if they cannot have the advantage of making people starve than their business will die; and the rich keep getting richer. It is not just the food companies fault (like Monsanto) but water and landowners as well. We live in a world of greed as sad as that is. This
No matter how much we all want and try to deny it our world is run by the rich. Today if you have the money you have the power. You can try to work your way to the top, but those who are already on top don’t want anyone else even close to them. That would mean they would have to share and be logical and let’s just admit, this is not how the rich become rich. Poverty will follow humanity until we all come to a common ground. Given that humanity seemed to have been bred for competition, chances are greed and poverty will be a concept that will stick around for a long time. Long before The Grapes of Wrath and long after