"Your job would be to get Earth's psychology and sociology ready for the Matter Repositor."
Jerry reflected. "You mean I'd have to eliminate war, supplement the Voice of America, and so on? I'd have certain advantages over the Voice of America, at that. I wouldn't have a bunch of politicians playing football with my appropriations."
"This campaign would have to go further and deeper than the Voice of America. You might call it the Voice of Conscience. Its aim would be to make every human being on Earth care more about the welfare of his fellow-man than he cares about his own."
"A couple of thousand years back," Jerry said, soberly, "a better Promoter than I tried to put that idea across. The campaign He started is still running. It's taken hold in some quarters, but I wouldn't say public acceptance is anything like worldwide yet."
"Then you don't think you can do it?" the Ambassador asked, his eagerness somewhat deflated.
"I'm not committing myself to whether I could or couldn't. I could put the Ten Commandments on an international hookup. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor his goods. I could get Walt Disney to dramatize the golden rule."
"Ah, I see you have some ideas for the copy already," the Ambassador said. "I thought I could get you interested in it. Then you'll sign a contract?"
"No," Jerry said, briefly and definitely.
"Now, wait a minute, Mr. Jergins," the Ambassador protested. "Why do you suddenly become blunt and unqualified? Do you realize what I'm offering you? In return for ceasing this tourist promotion, I'm offering you the invention that obsolesces all others—the Matter Repositor!"
Jerry stood up and placed the palms of his hands flat on his desk. "I told you that you'd learn something in our primitive jungle, Mr. Ambassador. Well, this is it. We may be mechanical morons, according to your standards, but we naked savages can produce anything we need. Since we've corrected the misconception that what Earth produces isn't good enough for Earthmen, and whipped up a tourist trade, business is booming. And when it booms, we can distribute those Earth products in a way that suits us pretty well. A primitive way, you may think, but one that is adapted to the unfortunate circumstance that we aren't a bunch of little tin saints living in an ideal world.