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A review by scrooge3
The Iron Heel by Jack London
3.0
This book is a thinly disguised manifesto of the socialist ideals in vogue at the beginning of the 20th Century. It is only science fiction in the sense that the conceit of the book is that this is the 700-years-in-the-future annotated text of the biography of a key socialist revolutionary.
The interesting thing about the book is how its details of the strife of a hundred years ago is eerily similar to many of the current issues and debates, topics such as income inequality, the aggregation of wealth by a few, the control and corruption of government and the press by powerful business trusts (monopolies), white-collar crime, moral hypocrisy among the wealthy, relief for the unemployed, and worker safety. In other words, not much has changed in over a hundred years. For example, the book states that:
“Of the total number of persons engaged in occupations in the United States, only nine-tenths of one per cent are from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the total wealth. The middle class owns twenty-four billions. Twenty-nine per cent of those in occupations are from the middle class, and they own twenty-five per cent of the total wealth. Remains the proletariat. It owns four billions. Of all persons in occupations, seventy per cent come from the proletariat; and the proletariat owns four per cent of the total wealth.”
The book assumes that socialism will ultimately replace capitalism:
“Not only is it inevitable that you small capitalists shall pass away, but it is inevitable that the large capitalists, and the trusts also, shall pass away. Remember, the tide of evolution never flows backward. It flows on and on, and it flows from competition to combination, and from little combination to large combination, and from large combination to colossal combination, and it flows on to socialism, which is the most colossal combination of all.”
Despite its polemics, the book is actually quite readable, with a fair amount of action and romance to carry the plot forward. The reader gets to know the revolutionists and is sympathetic towards their plights.
The interesting thing about the book is how its details of the strife of a hundred years ago is eerily similar to many of the current issues and debates, topics such as income inequality, the aggregation of wealth by a few, the control and corruption of government and the press by powerful business trusts (monopolies), white-collar crime, moral hypocrisy among the wealthy, relief for the unemployed, and worker safety. In other words, not much has changed in over a hundred years. For example, the book states that:
“Of the total number of persons engaged in occupations in the United States, only nine-tenths of one per cent are from the Plutocracy, yet the Plutocracy owns seventy per cent of the total wealth. The middle class owns twenty-four billions. Twenty-nine per cent of those in occupations are from the middle class, and they own twenty-five per cent of the total wealth. Remains the proletariat. It owns four billions. Of all persons in occupations, seventy per cent come from the proletariat; and the proletariat owns four per cent of the total wealth.”
The book assumes that socialism will ultimately replace capitalism:
“Not only is it inevitable that you small capitalists shall pass away, but it is inevitable that the large capitalists, and the trusts also, shall pass away. Remember, the tide of evolution never flows backward. It flows on and on, and it flows from competition to combination, and from little combination to large combination, and from large combination to colossal combination, and it flows on to socialism, which is the most colossal combination of all.”
Despite its polemics, the book is actually quite readable, with a fair amount of action and romance to carry the plot forward. The reader gets to know the revolutionists and is sympathetic towards their plights.