Grapes of Wrath and It's a Wonderful Life

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Grapes of Wrath and It's a Wonderful Life

Following the relatively prosperous era nicknamed the "Roaring Twenties" came the Great Depression. Unemployment skyrocketed and good times were hard to be found. In the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" - we see the transformation from stability to utter chaos.

With World War I freshly over, there was joy and celebration to welcome American 'boys' coming back home. Huge technological improvements and scientific breakthroughs paved the way for larger, more stable and profitable financial markets. Fast and easy money was too be made by playing the booming stock market - many lay men took advantage of these opportunities without having a complete understanding of what exactly they were doing. This inevitably led to the crash that sent America and the world into the Great Depression.

In the movie - we see the first stages of the panic that spread throughout the country. People got scared and ran to the bank to take out their life-savings. What they did not understand was that no bank carries all its customers money at the same time. Profits are made off loans (which come from money kept in the bank by customers) with interest rates. This is what George Bailey tries to explain to the people of Bedford Falls, when they come to take their life-savings out of Baileys Building and Loans.

However, not everyone was satisfied with George Bailey's explanation. They much preferred to have hard cash on them, which led some to turn to Mr. Potter (the stereotypical evil character who represents all that is bad), who offered fifty cents for every dollar. This of course allowed Potter to make huge profits out of other peoples loss.

George's institution was unable to match Potter, not only because he believed it was unethical, but also because they were not a big and strong enough institution.

Realizing this, Potter tried numerous times during the course of the movie to shut down the Buildings and Loans or take it over - to no avail. It was his aim to capture a monopolistic market over Bedford Falls that would allow him to charge any rates he wanted and thereby ensure himself a sufficiently large profit. It would also mean the end of a free market in Bedford Falls. A likely byproduct of a monopoly is feudalism, which could have arisen, given half a chance. It was the Bailey bank that always stood in the way of this happening.

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