Amazon Workers Rediscover the Grapes of Wrath: Ezra Klein

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Want to learn about the plight ofunemployed workers during the Great Depression? Head toAmazon.com and order John Steinbeck’s Depression-era epic, “TheGrapes of Wrath.” Want to learn about the plight of workersduring our own Lesser Depression? Head over to Amazon’swarehouse in Lehigh, Pennsylvania, and watch them prepare yourbook for shipping.

What the book will give you is perhaps the most penetratinglecture on labor markets in the American canon. It comes as theJoad family has just completed a long, awful trip from thedesiccated fields of Oklahoma to the rumored paradise ofCalifornia. Their journey was propelled by an orange handbillthat Pa Joad kept folded in his pocket: “Pea Pickers Wanted inCalifornia. Good Wages All Season. 800 Pickers Wanted.” Itseemed to be a ticket to a better life.