Let us have a brief look at the working out of the Materialist conception of history, in a general way.

Trading has been one of the principle means of welding the world into one vast whole bringing people of all parts of the world into close contact with each other. The impetus has not been a benevolent desire to enable all to enjoy the full fruits of the earth. At the root of trading was the pursuit of economic interest - the wealth to be acquired from successful trading, but reserved for the sole benefit of the trader.

The Phoenicians were the greatest traders and mariners of antiquity. In their frail boats they searched the Mediterranean for the little fish that yielded one drop of the precious Tyrian dye, purple dye; then they went further afield in the search for copper and tin for the making of bronze, their travels taking them to the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Finally, in the pursuit of amber, they sailed to the coast of the Baltic. All of which served to expand the influence of trading.

In the fifteenth century, when the Arabs had blocked the caravan routes to the East, the traders and merchants sought an alternative route westward to the spice lands. The upshot of this was the voyages of discovery. The voyages of Columbus and others, at the end of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth centuries, to the new world of America and further afield, opened up vast markets for trade, reduced the commercial power of Venice and brought the traders of Spain, Portugal and England into the main current of trade and the forefront of trading powers, at the same time dealing a crushing blow to feudal economy. Out of these discoveries and rivalries to exploit the earth and the people thereon by the growing capitalist powers sprang wars with Spain, Portugal, Holland and the American, English and French revolutions that finally brought the rising capitalist class to political power.

Writing of the position in Greece in the sixth century B. C. Calhoun, in his "Business Life of Ancient Athens" has this to say:
"Thus the end of the sixth century saw the agricultural activities of Attica, which had once been the economic dependence of the middle classes, completely in the hands of a wealthy minority. Manufacture and trade had attained considerable importance, but apparently were, for the most part, carried on by aliens who came from other states, attracted by the mineral wealth of Attica and her advantageous location for trade. From this time on for nearly a century the history of Attica is the history of a three-cornered struggle between the landed aristocracy, the poor and oppressed labouring population of native birth, and a prosperous industrial element, mainly alien, who were still debarred from the participation in government to which their economic status would seem to entitle them."

The introduction of coined money was one of the principal causes of the ruin of the small farmer in early Greece. Before the introduction he could borrow supplies of corn from the large landowner in hard times and repay in kind when the harvest was reaped. After the introduction he borrowed money at a high rate in lean times, and was compelled to sell his products at low prices when corn was cheap, in order to re-pay his loan in money. The result was that when he was unable to repay the loan, his land, which he had pledged, came into the possession of the wealthy land-owner and he became a tenant. Thus a landed aristocracy was gradually built up.

One unusual method of acquiring economic standing was adopted during the later Roman republic by Crassus, a name that became a byword for enormous wealth. Crassus, one of the First Roman Triumvirate, along with Caesar and Pompey, had a band of five hundred trained slaves. When he heard of a place where there was a fire he hurried along to it and offered to buy the property or the one next to it. The owners were glad to sell for a trifle. As soon as the arrangement was completed his private firemen rushed in and put out the blaze. By this means the greater part of property in Rome eventually fell into his hands.

In the class struggle in Rome, Caesar took the side of the group which at any moment seemed to favour his pursuit of power. Amongst others he was supported by Brutus, an under the counter money lender (and "an honourable man" who only charged 48 per cent for his money lending) and Cassius who amassed riches as a tax farmer. Brutus and Cassius between them brought a number of Roman municipalities to ruin by their extortion. When Caesar acquired power he cheated Brutus and Cassius by placing a limit on the extortions of money lenders and tax farmers and thereby signed his own death warrant.

The foreign wars of the old Roman republic ruined large sections of the peasants and concentrated landed property in the hands of a small section which formed the aristocracy, or patrician class; fostered the growth of a class living partly on commerce and partly on usury which fought for political representation; developed military forces giving allegiance to leaders; and further increased the impoverishment of the poor by bringing in masses of chattel slaves to work the huge estates. The conflicting interests of classes threw up names like the Gracchi, Cataline, Pompey and Caesar. The fierceness of the political struggles in the Roman republic were illustrated when the ruins of Pompeii were excavated. Tombstones were found bearing ap-peals to political agents to abstain from painting their candidates' names on them.

In the Roman empire the ruin of small farmers, the wastefulness of slave labour, the condition of the poor freemen who lived on the free distribution of corn and sold their votes, all contributed to the decline of Rome when it could no longer depend upon the pouring in of wealth from foreign conquests. Slaves escaped and settled on land, others were given their freedom in return for land and labour dues. As Roman power commenced to disintegrate, owing to invasion from outside and disorder inside, tribal chiefs and civil and clerical potentates set up stronghold castles against the warring bands that were ravaging Europe, and fought each other and the central power for land, eventually growing into feudal proprietors in gradations up to bishops, princelings and kings.

The traders who visited these castles eventually be-came so numerous that they could not be housed. Burgs, or ramparts, were built around these castles to house the traders. Later burgs for the traders were built apart from the castles. In these burgs, or townships, which developed their own jurisdiction, gilds grew up. First merchant gilds to defend foreign traders, then artisans, attracted by the collecting of merchants in favourable spots, formed craft gilds to defend crafts and custom-ers. New townships sprang up on waste land and, in these, workshops or small factories grew up financed by wealthy traders and free from the impositions of feudal restrictions. All these new towns provided markets for feudal produce, broke down the closely knit feudal communities and commenced the destruction of the feudal system. Incidentally, the traders originated largely from vagabonds of all kinds including escaped serfs.

The Crusades, the spread of money payments, the periodical fairs, the substitution of money rents for bond servitude, the driving of peasants off the land to make way for sheep for wool production, and other economic developments, finally set the scene for capitalism in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and brought about the English and French revolutions which consolidated the political power of the capitalists as a class.

Later still the manufacturing section of the capitalist class grew in influence and struggled with the financial and landowning interests for participation in political control. By the middle of the last century they achieved their object in England with the help of the workers - and then turned against the workers when the latter were striving for political representation.

History has seen the rise and fall of civilisations. Some early civilisations have relapsed from a high state of achievement to a lower owing to the effects of conquest - like the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Arabs and the Ottoman Turks. These people were responsible for accomplishments like geometry, the compass, gunpowder, and advances in medicine, architecture and craftmanship that are remarkable considering the relative smallness of their populations compared with modern times. Some early civilisations, like that of the Indus, have left relics of their immense achievements buried in the sands.

In most instances what these civilisations achieved was eventually passed on to their conquerors. All modern developments have been built up out of the work of past generations and would not have been attained now without the work that was done in remote ages. Like the traditions, the work of past generations lives on in the brain of the living.