Read "A Cityless and Countryless World" by Henry Olerich online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Now, I do not wish to be understood that I am ridiculing your social and industrial institutions, or that I blame any one for these poor, pitiable conditions we find existing here on earth. We passed through the same woful stages. Every well-informed person knows that your world, as a whole, is better to-day than it ever was before. You enjoy more security, more kindness, more intelligence and more freedom than you ever did in any preceding age. The conditions which we find on earth are, as a whole, undoubtedly nearly in tune with your social and industrial culture; and the only known power in the universe that can substitute a higher and nobler order of things is additional intelligence. Acts, as we have seen, are always in harmony with the intelligence of the actor.
"We can not hope to find much good work done in a world where the division of labor is so imperfect as it is here with you. Your so-called farmer is, as a rule, at the same time agriculturist, horticulturist, stockbreeder, butcher, dairyman, shepherd, carpenter and poultry raiser. On the other hand, your city laborer must frequently be idle, or accept any kind of labor he can get, whether he is proficient in it or whether he is a bungler at it."