A STEP FORWARD IN GREECE 



Athenian democracy and its aristocratic enemy 

 were based on slave labor and sought to derive 

 absolute concepts, true for all time, out of rela- 

 tive conditions which were based on a fundamen- 

 tally unethical principle, slavery. The internal 

 contradictions of this economic structure of dem- 

 ocracy and aristocracy in Athens caused the 

 downfall of both of them, and with them fell also 

 the philosophies of their times. 



So much is evident from the testimony of his- 

 tory: Whenever any proletarian movement at- 

 tempted to steal the reactionary thunder of super- 

 natural philosophies or religions, as the early 

 Christian movement seems to have done, it fell 

 so much the quicker under the blows of reaction, 

 for it carried within itself the historical weakness 

 of the ruling class mind. On the other hand, a 

 rising class other than proletarian that takes re- 

 course to materialism in its political struggle 

 against a declining ruling class quickly drops 

 materialism and espouses idealism, when mate- 

 rialisms threatens to further the interests of the 

 proletarian revolution. This is true, for instance, 

 of the modern capitalist class. At the beginning 

 of its struggle against feudal rule, it was com- 

 pelled, by the historical connection of the medieval 

 church with feudalism, and by the requirements 



