DAY 28, THE PRIME MINISTER, HONESTY, TROUBLE & a PARTY, book 4, building

 The next morning, Alice was called to an unofficial meeting with the prime minister. The prime minister greeted Alice with a smile and said: ‘Ms Adler, thank you for coming. I know how busy you are. I won’t take up much of your time. The reason I asked you here this morning is that I’d very much appreciate your cooperation. The public is rather impressionable and increasingly seems to be falling for you. That’s why I need some solid arguments against your project.’ Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘And you need me for that?’ ‘You are the best qualified on this topic and,’ the PM added with the flicker of a smirk, ‘you have the reputation of being painfully honest. My advisers suggested that we put your honesty to the test. If you are indeed honest, then you will give us the best arguments against your project.’ Alice’s frown deepened. You want my honesty? one of Alice’s thoughts sneered. She asks for it! another chipped in. Go, go, go. Make her wish never to meet another honest person again. Make her wish to be surrounded by liars for the rest of her life. Alice took a deep breath. Well, let’s give the prime minister a taste of how painful honesty can be. ‘Madam, under different circumstances, I might be sorry to disappoint you. You see, the disappointing truth is, I have no arguments against the town project.’ A playful challenge appeared in Alice’s eyes and she added: ‘Unless, of course, you and your government decided to question and rethink all your policies, the economic system you are complicit in, and if you addressed all present environmental and societal crises heads on. In that case our project might quickly become redundant, and we could all celebrate your outstanding leadership, reshape our economic and political systems together, and restore our planet.’ The prime minister looked unmoved, but her voice betrayed some dissatisfaction and a need to demonstrate her authority. ‘It is out of the question that we’d allow you to run a lawless vigilante experiment, and that for 12 years.’ Alice grimaced, a little impatiently. ‘Twelve years is a bare minimum to see whether our ideas can work. It’s the minimum required to make and test adjustments, and to develop more ideas. Twelve years will give us the time to be relatively thorough on most critical issues.’ The prime minister shook her head. ‘Do you really believe that your town can’t fail?’ ‘Our town will fail, several times, in different ways, in multiple areas. But each time we fail, we’ll have gained new data, new insights, new ideas, and that will allow us to do better in our next attempts. And that’s something you, as a politician, don’t get to do because you don’t have the time and you are always afraid of losing votes. But in our town, we will assemble people who are prepared to test ideas for all of us, for our future. It will be a comparatively small group, compared to the millions of people which you subject to the experiment of leaving the European Union.’ The prime minister raised her head dismissively. ‘Are you suggesting we should have run a Brexit test in a single town?’ Alice smiled lopsidedly. ‘If you had, you’d at least have been prepared for the aftermath. But then, no one expected Brexit to happen, right?’ The prime minister sat down at her desk and began to sort the papers on her desk. ‘I knew this would be a waste of time. But sometimes you have to listen to your advisers to make them see how wrong they are. Good day, Ms Adler.’ Alice shook her head. Waste of time! Right! Waste of my time! On the way back from this unsatisfactory meeting, Alice wondered whether the queen’s Letter of Protection would have made a difference. Probably not. And anyway, how likely was it that the prime minister didn’t know about it? Talking with Any, head of THE, during the drive back, didn’t help much, and he said one thing that stuck with Alice, not in a pleasant way. ‘Keep in mind that there are many interest groups. While the government wants an elegant way out of approving the town project, some interest groups might push for the town project just to oppose their government.’ Back at the Compound, Alice checked in with the Campaigns & Negotiation Team, and a smile had appeared on her face because her team was of the opinion that things were heading their way, and Dennie pointed out: ‘The PM wouldn’t have called you to a meeting if she wasn’t worried about the public’s growing interest in the town project. And you just rattled her that bit more.’ Later, Alice joined the Business Expansion Team in conference room 1 again. She had listened to her team’s optimism, but she was still worried and asked Seth: ‘Are the project businesses affected by the campaigns for our town?’ Seth shook his head. ‘All publicity seems to give our businesses a boost.’ ‘Hm. No attacks?’ ‘There are attacks from corporations and political groups, plus the odd attempts to smuggle in a mole, but nothing major, and overall the expansions of our businesses are on schedule, plus more and more craftspeople, raw material producers, tradespeople and customers join our networks.’ Alice nodded. ‘OK. Is there an update on dot.?’ ‘Yes,’ Tess, co-head of dot. replied. ‘This morning dot. started to produce clothes for construction workers, including work jackets, trousers, shirts, gloves; shoe port starts to produce work boots. The UK dot.workshops can’t meet all our demand. Other dot.workshops in Europe help out. Members of the international teams have their outfits produced in their local dot.workshops.’ Hachiro, dot.designer and Alice’s friend, smiled. ‘Plus, today, dot. will play a special role at the Connections Campaign’s opening. Our team created a large parkour in Hyde Park which illustrates the connections, locally and globally, of the dot.business model, and how those connections create ripple effects and with that additional connections.’ About an hour later, Jazz, head of Project Security, and Dennie (security) picked Alice up from the meeting. ‘Is everything OK?’ Alice asked surprised. ‘Sort of,’ Dennie replied. ‘Just a few troubles at a few campaigns.’ Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘What and who?’ Jazz replied in her calm way. ‘Minor accidents, a few troublemakers who try to incite event visitors to violence, some preacher-kind of people who campaign against the town campaigns, some water supply delays, some complaints about peeing people — at all campaign events.’ ‘Hm,’ Alice mumbled and followed Dennie into a small office where the three of them sat down at a round table, and Jazz said: ‘Water and toilets won’t be a problem again. And we increased the number of ambulances on standby. Preachers and troublemakers are the issue where I need to know what you want.’ Alice raised her eyebrows, and Jazz smiled a little. ‘Not you personally. I know you’re not happy with preachers. I need to know what you as the head of the project want with regard to them.’ ‘Oh. Well. Hm.’ Alice thought for a moment. Then a small smile appeared on her face. ‘Could we solve this pro-actively? Like, each campaign event gets two dedicated areas, one for troublemakers, another for preacher-type people. A bit like a zoo cage with a sign which gives our visitors some background on these people and some information which might be useful in evaluating the statements of these people.’ Dennie shook his head, grinning and bumped fists with Alice. ‘I told, Jazz. You wouldn’t like any of this, but we should tell you because you’d have a fun idea.’ Alice smiled. ‘Yes, let’s give them room while we’re clear about not agreeing with them.’ ‘You can leave this to me Jazz,’ Dennie said. ‘I’ll make this happen with the seven campaign teams.’ Late in the afternoon, the theatre in the Front House filled for the first run of The universe is worried. Kahu (ecologist, town project team) and her friends posed as visitors from other planets and invited the audience to ask these alien visitors how the people of other planets dealt with the troubles and mysteries the people of planet Earth are confronted with, too. This evening Alice, Seth (business liaison), Jack (film), Raiden (town simulation), Hachiro (dot.), Dana (ecology) and Rohana (coordination) went to another party. The second this week. Two days ago, it had been a party with some hundred politicians. Tonight it was a business party. ‘It’s so boring to always play with the same kids,’ a young tech entrepreneur said to Seth (business liaison). ‘I love how much my competitors hate your project,’ another guy in a suit said to Alice. ‘I should have send you flowers.’ ‘Me, too,’ another suit chipped in. ‘I just love it when they panic like upset chickens.’ ‘I also like it when people hop around like flushed ostriches,’ Alice returned with a smile, and the suits laughed. An hour or two later, Alice was running out of smiles, and when a slimy suit parroted the old tales of how to make the most money, Alice squinted her eyes and countered: ‘Cheap is too expensive. Think of all the rubbish cheap products turn into, the toxins, the waste of valuable resources, and consider the people who slave to make cheap possible. The lives damaged. The lives lost. Bloody short-sightedness.’ The suit wanted to interrupt, but Alice wasn’t done yet, and, raising her voice just a bit, she continued: ‘Here we have country A who is determined to outgrow every other economy. What does it do? It’s so afraid of a shrinking economy that it counters national slumps with building more factories and pushing more stuff onto the world markets at prices apparently no one can resist, thereby endangering thousands if not millions of local economies. What for? So that one country can be the best? — and gets to bury the planet in even more rubbish? This is what we need to understand: a healthy economy is like a healthy ecosystem, it doesn’t know boarders, it doesn’t know superpowers, it doesn’t know overconsumption or exploitation. Like a healthy environment, a healthy economy is all about balances and cycles — and that globally. The only economic system that makes sense knows no competition and serves humanity, offering what is needed.’ ‘And that’s where your dot.clothes come in?’ an elder, friendly businessman asked. ‘Yes, and our other project businesses, too. We’re building a businesses ecosystem where pretty much everything is connected, and where we aim at creating balances for everyone involved, including the customers and our habitat.’ ‘Aim at?’ the businessman asked. Alice found a spare smile and replied: ‘We started setting up companies less than a year ago. We’re still learning a lot, testing, adjusting. But so far our ideas have been confirmed, and it’s amazing to see what happens when humans are empowered and have a community, a job, an outfit they feel connected to.’ A businesswoman had been listening with a dismissive expression on her face. Now she remarked: ‘You’re forgetting that people need jobs.’ Alice lost the spare smile, only just kept herself from snorting and retorted: ‘And because people need jobs, we have to witness a ridiculous race to replace humans with more robots and AI?’ ‘You have heard of efficiency gains?’ ‘I have had the pleasure of exploring with my team how inefficient efficiency is.’ ‘Well, well,’ the slimy suit chipped in. ‘We provide the markets with what is needed.’ ‘No, you flood the markets with rubbish and pay billions to make people buy what they don’t need.’ ‘We can only grow our economies if we increase our output.’ Alice stared for a millisecond. Then one of her thoughts remarked: It’s OK to take a break. Breathe. Nodding, Alice excused herself — only to stumble into a related discussion between Raiden (town simulation) and another suit. The middle-management red-tie wearer elaborated why the world depended on using fossil fuels. Raiden used the first gap in the sermon to remark: ‘That would mean, humanity is doomed to kill itself because it can’t live without fossil fuel.’ ‘True. Mars is our only hope.’ ‘At the rate at which we are destroying our societies and our planet, there won’t be enough time to get to Mars, let alone make it habitable. Everything points to only one road.’ ‘And which road would that be, Ms Adler?’ Not quite in the mood to be talking again, Alice smiled nonetheless because one of her thoughts was quite intriguing, and she replied: ‘The one road that’s open to us, is the one where we can’t postpone tidying our room. Like when we were kids. There is that point where you have to wade into the mess and sort your way through it. Sticking gums, heaps of unused toys, stinking socks, the rotting apple under the cupboard, all the books, sketches, cushions, pens and pencils. Sticky, dusty, in a mess. That’s us. Time to face the mess. Time for the big clean-up.’ Sometime later, Alice passed a bar table were Jack (film) had a few drinks and laughs with a bunch of businesspeople, and Jack called: ‘Alice, these gentlemen are concerned about all the job losses our business models must incur if less is produced.’ Alice joined the group, her eyebrow raised, and she asked: ‘Would you say, we should keep eating sugar so that dentists don’t lose their jobs?’ ‘Well,’ several in the group returned. ‘Would you say, we should keep having convoluted tax laws so that tax consultants don’t lose their jobs?’ ‘Hm.’ ‘Would you say, we should keep the political landscape corrupt and ambiguous so that politicians don’t lose their jobs?’ ‘Erm …’ ‘Or would you say, we should keep polluting our water, air and soil so that those people who fail to understand that they, too, need clean water, air and soil, can continue to destroy the basis of all our lives?’ A businessperson shook their head. ‘Alice Adler, you are dangerous.’ Alice frowned. ‘I keep hearing that. But this is the first time that I remember to ask why someone would think that I am dangerous. What is it that makes me dangerous in your eyes?’ The businessperson shook their head again. ‘If people started listening to you, then our days would be counted.’ Alice twitched the corner of her mouth. ‘I wouldn’t call that dangerous. I would call that progress.’ Jack and one of the guests laughed. The former speaker smiled a little. ‘You should be careful, Alice Adler. We don’t like to be threatened.’ ‘I guess you prefer to be the thread.’ ‘Indeed.’ Some time later Alice and Rohana took a break at the bar and had a peppermint tea. Alice tried to empty her mind, but one thought managed to get out nonetheless. ‘Do you think peppermint really helps the mind to take clear decisions?’ Rohana shrugged. ‘I’d still drink it if it didn’t. I like the taste.’ Alice smiled, took another sip and looked up when two entrepreneurs joined them. After some small talk one of them remarked: ‘People need the freedom to open any business they like.’ Rohana rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me, how often have you been to a bar, a shop, a mini golf place and thought: Hell, even I could do a better job than that?’ One of the entrepreneurs smiled. ‘Too often.’ Rohana nodded and Alice said: ‘In our town we don’t just let things happen. We find out whether a business proposal fits into the town’s business composition and stands a chance to generate a healthy income within a healthy work environment and without exploitation. This approach has the longterm benefits of doing business that is sustainable for staff, customer and planet. Plus, we are aware that there are a lot of people with a lot of ideas but with few skills regarding some very fundamental aspects, such as design, management and cooperation. So, when a free person comes to us with an idea, we give them every bit of help they might need to make their business a masterclass in every respect, on every level. And we don’t squeeze all ideas into one corset, or create one ubiquitous brand. No, we are all about diversity and empowerment, and we are curious about where the individual wants to go. There is an additional benefit to our approach. Since we are involved in all businesses, not least because they are part of the experiment, we can find synergies and intertwine business activities. You won’t find competition in our businesses. The freedom we offer is the freedom to become your best in an environment that is cooperative and well composed.’ ‘Hm.’ ‘Think of all the waste created by failed business ideas, small and big. Think of the trauma of failure. Think of all the damages inflicted by people who only care about making some money quick without any thought for customer welfare or the future of the planet. All of this can be prevented if we don’t just stand by and let things happen. And no, no government can possibly know what should and what shouldn’t be produced. And it’s not a government’s task to make those decision. But what we can do is to be open to the suggestions of the towners, to test their ideas, to find out whether we can fit their ideas into our town, and how to do so in an optimal way.’ Later Alice passed Dana (ecology) near the dance floor and overheard a politician say: ‘I’m a conservative.’ ‘Ah, and a conservative conserves ideas but not their habitat? That seem a rather selective kind of conservatism to me.’ Again later, Alice sat at a table with two politicians, three businesspeople, Seth (business liaison) and John (business). Alice sighed. ‘Free trade? There is no such thing. There are bullies, marketing people, and a lot of rubbish. Just think about the waste created by the health industry. People are lured into self-medication, and lured into buying loads of creams and tinctures without anyone caring what their skin really needs. And all the time, the industry floods the markets with products that promise big and at best do little — except end up as plastic and chemical waste. It just doesn’t make any sense as soon as you look at the bigger picture, and as soon as you develop something like respect and care for humans. Free trade is a farce that doesn’t deliver.’ ‘Then what’s the alternative?’ Seth (business liaison) straightened: ‘Our business models. dot. produces only what customers order. Breathe adjusts any medication to the precise needs of the patient. Soap Opera examines your skin before it mixes what you need. And soap opera offers frequent tests plus refills. We even have a body bar now, a personalised arrangement of different containers each with a cream, shampoo, powder or whatever else your skin needs. And the body bar can be refilled in one go after a year or two. You never have to waste time on shopping or searching again, no plastic is in use, no horrendous transport costs. And there is toys around the world, an explosion of rediscovering toys from around the world, the resurrection of various toy-making crafts, and a company which also only produces what has been ordered, at local workshops around the world, where kids and adults can also go to invent and build their own toys. Or highFLY, our tech company, which takes tech to another level by offering modular systems for phones and computers. It’s entirely up to the customer what is part of their phone or computer, and which apps are installed, from super simple to very complex. Everything is possible and nothing is produced on the off-chance that someone will buy it. Nothing is set up with millions of options and functions which only annoy the customer.’ John nodded. ‘Much of the business world have become obsessed with numbers, especially those for productivity, growth, profit, and they lost sight of what is actually needed, what products are actually for.’ Alice nodded. ‘If you look at our economies, you could wonder whether today’s sole purpose for products is to make money.’ ‘Likely,’ a guest at the table remarked. ‘I’ve never looked at it that way. It makes me shudder. All this effort just to have a higher profit with no concern whether a product is actually needed.’ When Alice, Seth and John had a moment to themselves while waiting for their teas at the bar, Alice remarked: ‘It’s great to see you two together again. I remember, back at Tom’s you were this business double act.’ Seth smiled. ‘Until Beatrice snatched John away.’ ‘She didn’t snatch me away, we mutually snatched,’ John returned with a smile. Alice and Seth chuckled. ‘But Alice is right,’ Seth added. ‘I can’t wait to live in our town and have you and Beatrice for dinner. Campaigning and building are all fine, but I miss my friends.’

© Charlie Alice Raya, book 4, building, 2025