The Iron Heel’s Understanding of Legitimacy: The Construction of Power Between Hegemony, Force and Ideology
Jack London’s The Iron Heel is not only a literary dystopia, but also a powerful philosophical text that questions the nature of power and how legitimacy is constructed. The oligarchic regime depicted in the work, namely the “Iron Heel,” bases its power not only on brute force but also on deeper and multi-layered legitimation strategies. In this respect, the work bears the traces of both classical political philosophy and 20th-century critical theories.
- The Difficult Dimension of Legitimacy: A Hobbesian Leviathan?
Like Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, the Iron Heel regime also asserts the necessity of absolute power for the establishment of order. Socialist uprisings, mass labor movements, and the collapse of the capitalist order are presented by the regime as threats of chaos and a “state of nature.” In this context, the government uses violence not only as a means of suppression, but also as a legitimate “protective violence” for the establishment of order. Hobbes’s “renunciation of freedom in exchange for security” proposal is fully embodied here.
- Ideological Hegemony: The Production of Consent as Envisioned by Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is quite functional in understanding the power structure of the Iron Heel regime. The regime maintains its power not only by using force, but also by producing the consent of the masses. Ideological apparatuses such as media, education and religion shape the way individuals perceive the world. At this point, power becomes not only an external pressure, but also a “normal” that takes place in the individual’s inner world of thought. Thus, the individual internalizes his own domination and cannot even think of questioning it.
Especially through the “labor aristocracy” created within the working class, class solidarity is broken, and individual interests are brought to the forefront instead of collective consciousness. This situation is consistent with Marx’s concept of “false consciousness”; the individual begins to see a system that contradicts his/her real interests as legitimate.
- The Distortion of Justice: A Platonic Shadow Play
Like Plato’s cave allegory, the Iron Heel regime keeps the people in a world of shadows. The distinction between reality and appearance is blurred. Laws become tools that reinforce the legitimacy of power, not instruments of justice. In this sense, the regime prioritizes order, not justice. Thus, the concept of “justice” is detached from its internal meaning and redefined by the discourse of power.
- The Monopoly of History: A Foucauldian Critique of Knowledge-Power
Michel Foucault’s proposition that “power produces knowledge” is quite explanatory in the context of The Iron Heel. The regime not only controls the past, but also constructs a form of history that will shape the future. It is no coincidence that the narrator of the work is a “future historian”; because history is not only the narration of the past, but also a means of legitimizing today’s power relations. By controlling the past, the regime presents its own continuity and necessity as a destiny. This also parallels Nietzsche’s warning about the “benefits and harms of history”: history becomes a weapon of power.
- Ontological Insecurity and the Psychology of Legitimacy
The regime constructs not only physical but also existential insecurity. The individual feels a constant threat, an uncertainty. This existential fragility causes the individual to prioritize security over freedom. Thus, the individual voluntarily gives up his freedom and internalizes the oppression of power as a kind of “protective umbrella.” This situation is similar to Erich Fromm’s definition of “authoritarian character” in his work Escape from Freedom.
The Aesthetics of Violence and the Silence of Ideology in the Construction of Legitimacy
In The Iron Heel, Jack London does not only describe an oppressive regime; at the same time, it reveals how this regime is legitimized and what ideological and structural tools it relies on. The legitimacy of power is not provided by brute force, but by fictions that violence is inevitable and justified. Thus, the Iron Heel creates not only a class that is trampled underfoot, but also a consciousness that sees its own oppression as justified.