The Importance of Commerce

I used to buy from online stores from time to time because I liked the idea of going to a store and look around. Now that I have two daughters, a job and I am going to school, I do not have as much free time as before.

It is amazing to see how easy is to buy online and of course you have to be very careful from which web sites you buy otherwise, you can lose the money that you have in your bank account. But commerce was not always easy, especially without the technology that we have now. In the world of 500-1500 where people used to have disadvantages in resources because everything was far from them, the idea of trade from distant societies could change their consumption and their activities of their daily life.

For them, commerce was not just a way to have things that they could not obtain in the place that they live. Because of commerce, religion spread, especially Buddhism in china and Christianity and in Europe. A new social group emerge called “Merchant” and under Chinese eyes they were suspicious because they were obtaining wealth without producing anything; but Islam was friendly with them because their prophet Muhammad was a merchant just like them. There were three major ways in which people used to transport their goods:

1. - Across Eurasia in which people transported silk.

2. - Across the Indian Ocean in which they used ships that could accommodate more things and heavier things making the price of goods lower.

3. - Across the Sahara in which people would just transport gold using camels because those animals could last several days without water.