Upton Sinclair's novel the Jungle illustrates how greed and ruthless competition has made turn of the century America into a brutal jungle.Take or be taken? was the guiding rule, and everyone was someone else's prey. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder - wage earners and their families were at a particular disadvantage in the capitalist jungle.Workers were slaves to the whims of their masters, the capitalist who own and ran private industry. Many of the workers were immigrants ignorant of the language and ways of their new country were the most vulnerable members of this class.immigrants.gates of the packing houses were There has been a representative of several nationalities in this class First were the Germans, next the Irish, then the Poles. Next the Lithuanians, and the Slovaks. They all came to Packingtown, Chicago to share in the American dream of freedom and prosperity, but all they found were exploitation. .
The Packingtown Beef trust was part of the capitalist jungle. It was made up of a number of large meat packing firms like Nelson Morris and Company, Armour and Company, Swift and Company , Brown, and Durham. Every week the managers of the trust got together and compared notes, and there was one scale for all the workers in the yards and one standard of efficiency. Brown and Durham were the two largest meat packing firms in Packingtown. In addition, them there were a number of canning factories. Durham was own by man who was trying to make as much money out of it as he could. Underneath him managers, superintendents and foremen each one driving the man below him and trying to squeeze out of him as much work as possible. All of the men of he same rank were pitted against each other. An account of each man was kept separately, and every man lived in terror of losing his job. Therefore, from top to bottom the place was full of jealously and hatred, there was no loyalty or decency anywhere in Packingtown.