The Iron Heel

Rating:
Summary: 1984 and after ?
Review: Everyone reads Jack London's wildlife novels and they are true classics in modern literature, however I find Mr. London's social commentary in "The Iron Heel" even more worthy of the word classic. He sees the world of the future as workers against the upper crust and their minions. I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in the working class.

Rating:
Summary: Socialism? Nah, but the story still entertains
Review: I am certain most people have heard of Jack London before, probably due to his stories about nature and man's place in it. But London was also a hard-core socialist, a big name in a time when industrialism and its deleterious effects swept the country like a tidal wave. Upton Sinclair went so far as to refer to this offer, albeit obliquely, in his seminal 1905 novel THE JUNGLE. London's socialism emerged from his rough childhood in California and a period spent in a New York prison as a convict laborer. Through rigorous self-education, the author raised himself out of the squalor of the lowest classes and began to write stories and books. He became wildly popular, eventually becoming the highest paid writer of his time. London's own success hardly quelled his love for socialism. He spoke to workingmen across the country, touting socialist candidates for political office while scorning the plutocrats who ran the country. London eventually took his political views one step further, penning THE IRON HEEL in 1907 in order to express his views on how the capitalists and socialists would eventually lock horns. The result is a bleak novel about how capitalism will eventually resort to fascistic principles to protect the wealthy.

The structure of this novel takes the form of a diary, written by one Avis Everhard, the wife of socialist firebrand Ernest Everhard, in the early part of the twentieth century. The diary contains footnotes inserted 700 years after the events depicted in the novel, after the socialists won the battle against capitalism. The first part of Avis's account describes her first encounter with Ernest, at a dinner her famous physicist father threw to see how his capitalist friends would deal with a young socialist. Avis predictably falls in love with the virile, intelligent Ernest and quickly falls under his spell. The following chapters describe Avis's conversion to socialism under the tutelage of Ernest. She discovers that the law courts and print media are under the control of industrialists, and the universities and social organizations function as mere shills for big business. Avis's father soon converts as well, as does a bishop who originally opposed Ernest's brash ideas. Ernest continually preaches that the capitalist system will collapse, citing as proof Karl Marx's idea about surpluses. In short, according to Everhard, capitalist countries always produce too much. In order to get rid of this abundance of goods, corporations must move into underdeveloped countries and dump their products. This leads to rapid development and then a new surplus in this region that must then seek another area to develop. Eventually, capitalism will reach a finite limit as all areas of the globe attain development. This eventuality, according to Marx/London, will lead to socialism's triumph.

Of course, the collapse comes quickly when an economic downturn leads to widespread strikes. The plutocracy, which London refers to as the oligarchs, seize power using totalitarian tactics. Relying on laws passed through a corporate friendly congress, the oligarchs sends in troops to crush labor uprisings. The upper classes want all of the wealth, so they squeeze out the middle class in order to dominate everybody else through the creation of giant trusts. Threats soon lead to gunshots as the lower classes battle the rich for control of the country. With the power of the military and institutions on their side, the oligarchs gain control over most of the country and its citizens. The rest of the book describes the civil wars and rebellions that break out in America, with footnotes from the future describing how things eventually turned out. The book concludes with a grim chapter about an enormously bloody uprising in Chicago where the oligarchs and the socialist revolutionaries finally duke it out in large numbers.

The introduction explains that the Ernest character is actually a symbolic representation of London himself. This makes sense because Ernest Everhard is one of those perfect souls who can do no wrong. During the dinner at Avis's house, Ernest holds his own against a slew of highly educated individuals who simply cannot form a coherent argument against socialism. For Everhard, and by extension London, a man who uses "facts" always defeats those who do not. The facts here concern the realities of the working classes and the condition of the factories. Theories cannot and will not solve the problems of capitalist exploitation because these theories assume that business has little or no responsibility for the well being of humanity. I would simply ask Everhard one question: how will you solve the inevitable problem of motivation? That is, under socialism, how will you convince people not to strive for a higher social station? We know how the communist regimes in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe answered this dilemma; they simply killed off anyone who dared question the dictatorship of the proletariat (as if the proletariat ever had any influence whatsoever in any of these governments). In London's futuristic socialist world, one assumes there are no secret police directorates, no political intrigues, and no questioning of the system. Yeah, right. Like every human being will embrace one overarching political regime.

THE IRON HEEL contains copious amounts of action, espionage, political intrigue, and even a little romance. Although I don't agree with London's ideas, at least he knows how to write an appealing story. The book is difficult to classify since it embraces both dystopian and utopian ideas. London never leaves the reader in doubt as to ultimately wins the war for control of the world, and reading about it does provide a measure of amusement that makes THE IRON HEEL a worthy read for socialists and capitalists alike.

Rating:
Summary: Everhard or London: which was the rapid socialist here?
Review: I did enjoy the book myself though it dragged in many parts and in some parts confusing, especially in the chapter known as "Mechanics of a Dream" which was a troulbing chapter. The book was a rapid apporach on socialism and the evantually downfall of captialism which i agree with, with captailsim being the downfall of everything.I would recommend this book to many people who have any views or intrest on communist or socialist history and plus its a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: Everhard or London: which was the rapid socialist here?
Review: I did enjoy the book myself though it dragged in many parts and in some parts confusing, especially in the chapter known as "Mechanics of a Dream" which was a troulbing chapter. The book was a rapid apporach on socialism and the evantually downfall of captialism which i agree with, with captailsim being the downfall of everything.I would recommend this book to many people who have any views or intrest on communist or socialist history and plus its a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: A foreboding tale
Review: I have consistently believed that Jack London's social writings are even better than his fictional works. The Iron Heel actually gives a realistic though (on a time scale) exaggerated view of the oppression of individual rights under a government based on a symbiosis between business and the state. London predicted the rise of European fascism with chilling accuracy. London was brilliant to have seen the evils of an all powerful state, but he errs in believing the working class is the only hope against totalitarianism. This work will appeal to social thinkers, historians, literary junkies, science fiction addicts, the dispossessed, as well as people of mass wealth. It would be worth reading once, but it gets better with each subsequent reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Diary of A Death Foretold of Labor
Review: I have read nearly all London's works. The Iron Heel is not as well
known. He weaves a tale of fact and some fiction of the crushing of
the union movement in Chicago. A diary of relentenless persecution, by friends and foes of organized labor and how it is done. A Marketing Strategy of Demonizing and Crushing The Poor Working Stiff, or any movement that questions motives.

Interesting read

Rating:
Summary: The Iorn heel has become My left foot!!!
Review: I read this book almost 50 years ago. I was so taken with it I made a secret pact with my self, when "when I get out of school, I'm going to become a revolutionary, or at the least a great union leader, I will bring the Iorn Heeled Devel's to thier knees"' Jack London's portrait of the workers vs capitalist was from his view at the turn of the century probably very accurate. The masses had to free the world, they had to rise up, fight for a fair share. Well it happened, some of the battle's were more violent,in Russia the workers won; or at least they believed thay had. It took another 50 years to find the down troden had traded one form of terror for another. I went out of my way many miles to visit Jack London" estate in California, this was just a few years ago. It seemed in one short lifetime he had won; but he had joined the enemy. He had surronded himself with things for which all men strive. wealth comfort and fame. Jack London was one of the great authors of all times, but until he discovered his God given talent and exersized it in a way to achive in a socity that will pay for excellents, he might for ever struggled under the "Iorn Heal".

Ron Steele Moab Utah

Rating:
Summary: the only book which must be read nowadays
Review: I think this is the book that everybody must read it.Written at the beginning of the 20th century and showing the real face of capitalism,even if it concerns the theories of Karl Marks about socialism,it can be read very easily.From first pages you get into very excited debates and you cannot help reading it. I strongly advice it

Rating:
Summary: Iron Heel bogged down by its own weight
Review: I wonder if the author forsaw the ending, or it just happened as he wrote? I can't say this would do a thing to promote Socialism. If Orwell ("Animal Farm") and London are the friends of Socialism, does the movement really have need of enemies? Clearly "anarchist" is another word for "socialist" as this book progresses, whether or not we consider the real evil to be them or the capitalist. No mater who is evil and underhanded, bombs fall, people are shot and killed. Anyway, the movement totally fails, a thing that the protagonist seems to have foreseen.

Still, the left sees some good in it. London never foresaw a "Dinner Party Revolution," that's for sure. Trotsky gave London great credit for seeing that the "Labor Aristocracy" would not support the prolaterian movement. This may be the best insight that Jack London had. One can see over and over that labor is narrow and short sighted, and the "Labor Brotherhood" is a fiction that does not appear during a strike. Consider the air traffic controllers, after all, the pilots kept flying allowing Regan to deal labor a massive blow.

The book is an important, largely overlooked work, and some like Trotsky consider London a better prophet than the passivists and idealists of the left during London's day, who supposed a logical, rosy ending was soon coming.

Rating:
Summary: Carried by its own weight
Review: I wonder if the author forsaw the ending, or it just happened as he wrote? I can't say this would do a thing to promote Socialism. If Orwell ("Animal Farm") and London are the friends of Socialism, does the movement really have need of enemies? Clearly "anarchist" is another word for "socialist" as this book progresses, whether or not we consider the real evil to be them or the capitalist. No mater who is evil and underhanded, bombs fall, people are shot and killed. Anyway, the movement totally fails, a thing that the protagonist seems to have foreseen.

Still, the left sees some good in it. London never foresaw a "Dinner Party Revolution," that's for sure. Trotsky gave London great credit for seeing that the "Labor Aristocracy" would not support the prolaterian movement. This may be the best insight that Jack London had. One can see over and over that labor is narrow and short sighted, and the "Labor Brotherhood" is a fiction that does not appear during a strike. Consider the air traffic controllers, after all, the pilots kept flying allowing Regan to deal labor a massive blow.

The book is an important, largely overlooked work, and some like Trotsky consider London a better prophet than the passivists and idealists of the left during London's day, who supposed a logical, rosy ending was soon coming.