If the land belonged to a bank or a trust, the intermediary would say: the bank, the trust needs this and that; the bank, the trust insists, demands… – as though the bank or the trust were some kind of monsters, endowed with the ability to think and feel,

If the land belonged to a bank or a trust, the intermediary would say: the bank, the trust needs this and that; the bank, the trust insists, demands… – as though the bank or the trust were some kind of monsters, endowed with the ability to think and feel, monsters that had caught them in their trap. They, the agents, were not answerable for the actions of banks and trusts: they were merely men, slaves, while the bank was both machine and master. Some of the agents even took pride in being in bondage to such cold and mighty masters. The agents sat in their cars and explained to the people: you know yourselves, the land is worn out. How many years you have been scratching away here, one can hardly remember.

"The Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck, 1939