Private and Public
Once upon a time, (not very) long long ago, there was a corporation.
Private Public Limited.
Born in the image of its first ancestor (The East India Company), it existed to make its shareholders rich.
It did not matter that the shareholders were already rich in the first place (and had money to play with). PPL’s job was to make that money even more.
Entrusted with the noble task of maximising shareholder value, professed by brahamanical management academia and smoothened by the balms of snake oil consultants, it marched on.
It made lots of money but kept insisting that its employees work harder. It choose to hide some of its costs (like the cost of raping nature) so that its profits would be more. It used sex and seduction to sell — so that there would be even more money.
PPL became highly profitable and attracted many shareholders like ants to honey.
But everything around it started to degenerate — the community, its employees, the planet, its vendors, its customers.
It was almost as if the two were opposite — PPL’s thriving and the wellbeing of all else.
One fine day when the director’s wife filed for divorce (because their child could not recognize dad), he said “ENOUGH”
Enough of this old boys club.
Enough of slogging for these greedy shareholders.
Enough exploiting my people and feeding false dreams.
Enough of throwing money at everything.
He passed a motion where his employees could work from home when they wanted to, and work only as many hours as they feel is enough.
(Later he resigned and was replaced by a woman)
Meanwhile customers, vendors and employees all purchased one share each.
Armed with this, they walked into the Annual General Meeting — reminding the already fat shareholders to chill a bit.
They told the shareholders that it wasn’t funny anymore — people were dying and getting converted to digits on their screens.
(Maybe some shareholders did a few vision quests etc)
They decided it was time to melt. It was time to dissolve ownership (while keeping a ‘say’ because they had the experience of maximising value)
The machine cooled down a bit — it started earning more reasonable profits and distributing the rest of the surplus back to the Earth (firstly), then to the community and then to its employees, customers and managers.
It became a dharmic company — totally different from its extractive ancestor. Its existence became a boon for everyone connected to it — for it sustained life, provided livelihoods and nourished the community where it was housed.
It finally became detached with its own perpetual growth and survival — and decided to rest in the wisdom of its collective owners, who would put it to sleep when its time was over.
Thus, PPL lived upto its name — Private and Public (at the same time) and most importantly
LIMITED.