In Jack London's dystopian novel The Iron Heel, the oligarchic ruling class is called the Iron Heel.
The novel, published in 1908, imagines the United States falling under the control of a brutal corporate oligarchy. Its story is presented through the papers of Avis Everhard and later scholarly notes, creating a fictional historical framework for a failed revolutionary movement.
Ernest Everhard becomes the movement's major political speaker and theorist, while Avis records the struggle and its consequences. The Iron Heel is not simply the name of a government office: it is the symbol and title used for the ruling oligarchy's authoritarian power.
The book is often discussed as an early modern dystopian novel and as a work of political science fiction. It predates Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four by four decades and influenced later writers who explored corporate rule, repression, and revolutionary resistance.