Business today consists in persuading crowds.

Host: The city hummed beneath a neon sky — a thousand screens flickering, a thousand voices selling, shouting, smiling. Rain slicked the sidewalks, turning the streets into rivers of light and noise. Inside a glass-walled café, Jack and Jeeny sat by the window, the reflection of advertisements dancing across their faces — a digital aurora of desire.

The air was thick with the smell of coffee, perfume, and ambition. A giant billboard across the street flashed the words: “Be yourself — buy more.”

Host: In that moment, the world outside felt like a cathedral — not of faith, but of persuasion.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet for ten minutes, Jack. That’s not like you.”

Jack: (smirking) “I’m just thinking, Jeeny. About something T. S. Eliot once said: ‘Business today consists in persuading crowds.’”

Jeeny: “Persuading crowds…” (she echoes, softly) “He said that almost a century ago, didn’t he? And yet it feels like he was writing about this — our world, our feeds, our screens.”

Jack: “Exactly. Only difference now is — the crowds are voluntary. We invite the persuasion. We follow it. We wear it.”

Host: A passing car splashed through a puddle, scattering light and sound. Inside, the café’s low music throbbed like a heartbeat, almost in sync with the pulse of the city beyond.

Jeeny: “You make it sound so sinister. But isn’t that what business has always been? The art of connection? Of understanding what people want?”

Jack: “No, Jeeny. It used to be about value — about creating something people needed. Now it’s about creating the need itself. About manufacturing desire and calling it choice.”

Jeeny: “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? People aren’t just sheep, Jack. They still make their own decisions.”

Jack: “Do they? You think that when a teenager buys a $900 phone, it’s a decision? Or when millions of people rush to get the latest shoes because a celebrity wore them — that’s choice? No. That’s persuasion wearing the mask of freedom.”

Jeeny: “And yet… persuasion isn’t always evil. Sometimes it’s just storytelling. We’ve been telling stories to move crowds since the beginning — priests, poets, revolutionaries. Isn’t that what Eliot meant? That business, like art, is just another form of influence?”

Host: Her voice was calm, but her eyes were lit with conviction — the kind that cuts through cynicism like light through fog.

Jack: “No. Art gives people something to think about. Business gives them something to want. There’s a difference.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the difference is in the intent, not the act. Persuasion isn’t a crime. Manipulation is. The problem isn’t that crowds are being persuaded — it’s that they’re being emptied, Jack. We’re so busy selling images, we’ve forgotten how to sell truth.”

Jack: “Truth doesn’t sell, Jeeny. Certainty does. Belonging does. You can’t monetize truth because it makes people doubt.”

Jeeny: “And yet, doubt is what keeps us human.”

Host: The steam from her coffee rose, curling in the light — a fragile ghost that dissolved into air before it could speak.

Jack: “Do you realize we’ve turned the marketplace into a theater? Everyone’s performing, selling, branding themselves — their faces, their dreams, their pain. Business isn’t about productivity anymore. It’s about attention. That’s the new currency.”

Jeeny: “Attention has always been currency. You think the Colosseum in Rome wasn’t marketing? You think the church didn’t use awe as advertising? Humanity’s always been in the business of crowds, Jack. It’s just the tools that changed.”

Jack: “No. What’s changed is the intimacy of the invasion. The ads don’t stay on billboards anymore — they crawl into your dreams, your music, your private thoughts. Algorithms know what you’ll want before you want it. You call that connection?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s evolution. Maybe persuasion has become a kind of mirror — showing us what we already crave but won’t admit.”

Jack: “Or maybe it’s a mirror that only shows what someone else profits from.”

Host: His voice grew low, raspy, the kind that carried the weariness of someone who had seen too much of the machine from the inside. The rain outside had thickened, drumming against the glass in steady, mechanical rhythm.

Jeeny: “You make it sound hopeless. But I don’t think it is. Even in persuasion, there’s power — the power to shape, to inspire, to awaken. Look at the abolitionists, the feminists, the civil rights leaders — they all persuaded crowds too, didn’t they?”

Jack: “Yes, but they weren’t selling. They were risking. There’s a difference between a cause and a campaign.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes a campaign is a cause. You just have to choose what it’s selling.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You really believe in that, don’t you? In the idea that persuasion can be moral.”

Jeeny: “Of course I do. Because persuasion isn’t about trickery, Jack — it’s about meaning. It’s about reaching people where logic can’t. That’s what Eliot understood — that in the modern world, you can’t separate commerce from culture anymore. They’ve become the same language.”

Host: Her hands moved as she spoke, graceful, alive, as if she were weaving her words into the air. Jack watched, his grey eyes narrowed, his silence no longer cynical, but curious.

Jack: “So, you think we can save the crowds by just… persuading them better?”

Jeeny: “No. Not by persuading them better — by trusting them more. The crowds aren’t the enemy. They’re the mirror. If business has become persuasion, then the soul of persuasion has to be ethics.”

Jack: “Ethics don’t sell, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “They don’t have to. They endure.”

Host: The café grew quiet, except for the sound of rain and the low hum of the espresso machine. A neon sign flickered outside: “LIMITED TIME OFFER — EVERYTHING MUST GO.”

Jeeny stared at it for a long moment, then spoke softly:

Jeeny: “That’s us, isn’t it? Everything must go. Even our attention, our beliefs, our truths — all up for sale.”

Jack: “Then maybe Eliot was wrong.”

Jeeny: (frowning) “How do you mean?”

Jack: “He said business consists in persuading crowds. But maybe now, it’s the crowds who are persuading business. The market doesn’t lead anymore — it follows our clicks. It’s not dictatorship; it’s addiction disguised as democracy.”

Jeeny: “So we’re both the victims and the architects.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: Their eyes met — two voices in a sea of noise, two souls trying to locate truth in a world of brands. The rain had slowed, the lights had softened, and the city outside now glimmered with that strange, beautiful sadness that comes only when you finally see the mechanism behind the magic.

Jeeny: “Do you think we’ll ever go back — to a time when business was about making, not manipulating?”

Jack: “No. But maybe we’ll evolve past illusion. Maybe people will learn to see the strings and still dance — not because they’re being pulled, but because they choose to move.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s a kind of freedom, isn’t it?”

Jack: “Maybe the only kind left.”

Host: The lights of the billboard shifted once more, casting a warm, golden glow across their faces. For a moment, they looked less like debater and dreamer, and more like two pilgrims — searching not for answers, but for meaning in the marketplace of voices.

Host: And as the rain stopped, the reflection in the window changed — the city still buzzing, still selling, still believing — but inside, for one quiet, flickering moment, there was clarity:

That persuasion without truth is control,
That business without soul is spectacle,
And that the real crowd we must convince is the one inside ourselves.

Host: The neon faded, the lights dimmed, and the city breathed — beautiful, false, and achingly alive.