What does Steinbeck mean when he writes: "If you buy a farm horse and only feed him when you work him, the horse will die. No one complains of the necessity of feeding the horse when he is not working. But we complain about feeding the men and women who work our lands. Is it possible that this state is so stupid, so vicious and so greedy that it cannot feed and clothe the men and women who help to make it the richest area in the world? Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?"

The first two lines are metaphors of what the author stated after it. He made the comparison between the work of a farm horse and the actual farmers (the people who work in the lands). We could say that the primary sector of the economy has always been marginalized by the other sectors, making it the "less desirable" to work. Working as a farmer is hard work and it's the sector that least benefits have. In this statement we could see that "wealthy people" become some vicious and greedy with their work that they forget the importance of the primary sector. We can state that without a primary, there should not be a secondary or third sector. The sad part would be to conclude that farmers need to be angry or furious with "wealthy people" for them to open their eyes and realize the truth, and consequently start doing some actual changes and start taking care of the primary sector.