Collective Conscious

By John Steinbeck

The own­ers of the land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for the own­ers came. They came in closed cars, and felt the dry earth with their fin­gers, and some­times they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The ten­ants, from their sun-​​beaten door­yards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the door­yards and sat in the cars to talk out of the win­dows. The ten­ant men stood beside the cars for a while, then found sticks with which to mark the dust.

In the open doors the women stood look­ing out, and behind them the chil­dren — corn-​​headed chil­dren, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and the toes work­ing. The women and the chil­dren watched their men talk­ing to the owner men. They were silent.

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in some­thing larger than them­selves. Some of them hated the math­e­mat­ics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some wor­shiped the math­e­mat­ics because it pro­vided a refuge from thought and feel­ing. If a bank or a finance com­pany owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank — or the Com­pany — needs — wants — insists — must have — as though the Bank or the Com­pany were a mon­ster, with thought and feel­ing, which had ensnared them. These last would take no respon­si­bly for the banks or the com­pa­nies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and mas­ters at the same time. Some of the owner men were a lit­tle proud to be slaves to such cold and pow­er­ful mas­ters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You’ve scrab­bled at it long enough, God knows.

The squat­ting ten­ant men nod­ded and won­dered and drew fig­ures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If only the dust wouldn’t fly. If the top would stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

The owner men went on lead­ing to their point: You know the land’s get­ting poorer. You know what cot­ton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.

The squat­ters nod­ded — they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land.

Well, it’s too late. And the owner men explained the work­ings an the think­ings of the mon­ster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that.

Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to bor­row money from the bank.

But — you see, a bank or com­pany can’t do that, because those crea­tures don’t breathe air, don’t eat side-​​meat. They breathe prof­its; they eat the inter­est on money. If they don’t get it, they die the way you die with­out air, with­out side-​​meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

The squat­ting men raised their eyes to under­stand. Can’t we just hang on? Maybe the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cot­ton next year. And with all the wars — god knows what price cot­ton will bring. Don’t they make explo­sives out of cot­ton? And uni­forms? Get enough wars and cotton’ll hit the ceil­ing. Next year, maybe. They looked up ques­tion­ing.

We can’t depend on it. The bank — the mon­ster has to have prof­its all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the mon­ster stops grow­ing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.