{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"","title":"The Iron Heel's Oligarchy: Jack London's Fascism Prophecy","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6a28001ca917ce4c7065c483/f7124a32-9122-4e97-aced-90979db66d1e.jpg?height=200","description":"Jack London's The Iron Heel (1908) is arguably the most prescient political novel of the 20th century: a socialist working-class writer predicting the rise of a fascist corporate oligarchy — the Iron Heel — that crushes labor movements, builds fortified enclaves for the wealthy, and rules through terror. London was the most widely read American author of his era (E.L. Doctorow called him 'the most widely read American author in the world'), a committed socialist who ran for Mayor of Oakland twice — in 1901 and 1905 — as a Socialist candidate, and also a man whose racism and white supremacist views were explicit and horrifying. This episode takes the novel's remarkable political prophecy seriously while refusing to ignore its creator's contradictions — modeling the 'critically generous' approach the podcast advocates. The Iron Heel predicts the 20th century's fascist movements with uncanny accuracy, and its architecture of oligarch cities versus labor ghettos speaks directly to contemporary wealth concentration.","author_name":"Atween Studios"}