While we are most likely to read The Grapes of Wrath as a novel that is centered on a set of compelling characters who attempt to overcome significant personal hardships, we may also read the book as something of an economic primer, for it allows us to understand in a very concrete way how the lives of individuals are affected by the larger structural forces of economics. By understanding how the characters in the book are affected by the economic A market characterized by a large number of independent sellers of standardized products, free flow of information, and free entry and exit. The sellers are "price takers" rather than "price makers". circumstances of their times, we can come to understand how we are affected by the economic structures of our own times. Steinbeck makes personal the seemingly impersonal forces of economic change.
The novel tells the story of the Joad family, who are driven from their family farm in Oklahoma by the Dust Bowl. In desperation, they come to California in search of work in the fruit orchards but the older generation dies along the way and Tom, the son, kills another man during a strike. In the end they remain united as a family but still defeated by the economics of their times.
We can see in the novel an example of pure competition in terms of the labor that is offered by the farmworkers who have been displaced by the Dust Bowl. They are "price takers" because so many others can offer the same services.
A market characterized by a large number of independent sellers of standardized products, free flow of information, and free entry and exit. The sellers are "price takers" rather than "price makers" (http://www.investorwords.com/cgi-bin/getword.cgi?3962).
There are also examples in the novel of a market situation that is monopolistically competitive.
A market structure in which several or many sellers each produce similar, but slightly differentiated products. Each producer can set i...