Capitalism In The Meat Industry

The family members have been working for the meat industries, and have learned all their schemes. They describe the many inhuman and gruesome things that occur in the factories. “…The beef had lain in vats full of chemicals, and mean with great forks speared it out and dumped into trucks, to be taken to the cooking room.” (Sinclair 69), the factories found ways to mix spoiled meat with regular meat to sell, one being the amount of different chemicals used to relieve of the stench. They also state that there were rat problems and when the rats die they were usually proceed with the rest of the meat. Even with the fact that the family knew the secrets behind the meat, there are forced to buy and consume the meat. Many immigrants die from the bad meat they had to consumed, most among children and elders. This fact is portrayed by Kristoforas- Ona’s younger sibling, whom died from eating bad meat. Teta brother had also disappeared, he did so to survival. He knew that if he stayed any longer he would die. He adopts “every man for himself”. Capitalism makes immigrants life harder causing misery and betrayal.

They couldn’t get a day to recover or they would lose their jobs; therefore, causing them to become vulnerable to diseases, the children and elder being affected the most. Ona’s job is slowly killing her. The factories were overworking the employees, yet cutting their wages numerous times. Someone who was experiencing this was Marija; she had lost her job in a can painting factory early on in the book. When she had finally regained her job, she lost it two months later for speaking out and saying that she had been cheated out of a portion of her wage. She as well as many immigrants went through the same thing, making it harder to become anybody in