While on the road Olivia and Ben are taught many things about politics and the way in which revolutions occur. During one of these lessons, there is a quote by Karl Marx: "Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another" (327). This quote goes with the idea that a slave master is controlled as much by the slave as the slave is controlled by the master. The idea that one cannot be a master without someone below them following orders. The day that slaves refuse and rebel, the power has shifted.
This is a very interesting idea that can apply to other books we have read. In every book, every story, there is someone who is being oppressed by another. In Bone, sweat shop owners keep their employees beneath them. In both novels about the Japanese containment camps, americans were oppressing the Japanese. All the books share a theme of trying to make it in America and struggling to get by. This struggle is due to a careful balancing act of power. Those with money, education, and citizenship are on top. But they would be nowhere if the people below them refused to work for them, all refused to follow their rules, refused to leave the country. It is this idea that, once spread, causes a revolution to occur and the flip of power.
The idea that so much power and what we base our entire political system off of can be flipped so easily is a scary one. Knowledge is a powerful tool, that in the hands of certain people can cause drastic change. This idea is one that could change the outcome of every single book we have read.
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