The Issues of the Hard Times within the Novel 'The Iron Heel»

These predictions can also be applied to the American situation in the 1960s and 1970s. As Professor Franklin from Rutgers University observes, London foresaw the development of beautiful suburbs for upper working class. On the other hand, the poor would have to live in ghettoes with no prospects at all. In addition, London also envisioned the purposeful subversion of the education system with the aim of increasing ignorance and illiteracy among the poor. Besides this, he foresaw that housing, food and health care would be priced at levels too high for the low income groups to afford (London 192). All this eventually happened in America especially in the 60s and 70s decade when the country was engaged in the Vietnam War. Living conditions were bad for the urban poor who also had to attend less than par schools, had no adequate food, gas, heating and medical care and lived in the ghettoes. Through the novel ‘The Iron Heel’ Jack London demonstrates a better insight than any of his intellectual colleagues of the complete ferocity and brutality that the capitalist system would display if at any particular moment it felt that its survival was at stake. These brutal and unimagined predictions were actually the main reasons as to why the novel was rejected even by the socialists of the time.

Consequently, the reactions of the ruling class to threats were not the only predictions the London made in his novel. His most accurate prediction was the strategies that the capitalists would adopt in order to preserve their position within society. The ruling class, as depicted in the novel used their wealth to buy off part of the low income working class. By creating an upper crust of labor, the ruling class was able to control the rest of the masses (Nuernberg 144). This alliance between the owners of labor and the owners of capital gave too much power and control to the ruling class enabling them to maintain their position.