The lottery in Babylon
The Lottery in Babylon started as a simple game with a chance to win some silver coins. After some time, the Lottery introduced a negative outcome — instead of gaining a prize someone would have to pay a fine or go to jail. Since then, the Lottery became more appealing because now there was a risk and "a spirit of adventure". Over time the organization that controlled the Lottery — the Company, had become more and more powerful, because everybody wanted to participate, willing to give their fate into Company's hands. The Company began to control every possible aspect of a person's life. Some people even believed that the Company became so powerful, that it was able to control nature itself.
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Today the Company, if one believes in its existence, is an omnipotent force that controls people's lives. It operates secretly through its agents, but the Company itself is hidden in the shadows. Some people believe that the Company "ceased to exist hundred of years ago", and that every choice is free and not predetermined.
“The Company, with godlike modesty, shuns all publicity. Its agents, of course, are secret; the orders it constantly imparts are no different from those spread wholesale by impostors... The drunken man who blurts out an absurd command, the sleeping man who suddenly awakes and turns and chokes to death the woman sleeping at his side — are they not, perhaps, implementing on of the Company's secret decisions? That silent functioning, like God's, inspires all manner of conjectures.”
(“The Lottery in Babylon”, p. 4).
The metaphor for power
The Company clearly represents the power or, on a bigger scale, the source of all decisions, choices, and events.
Here you can see some possible interpretations for this metaphor
1. Totalitarian state
The Company could be seen as a government that controls every aspect of a person's life. Interestingly, Borges suggests that a lot of people are willing to give control of their lives to the Company, which could mean that for many people totalitarianism is more preferable than democracy.
2. Religion
Some people believe in the existence of the Company and its omnipotence, some don't. The religious metaphor is clear. Again, Borges probably gives his opinion at the very end. He suggests that it makes no difference whether you believe in the Company or not because life is nothing but an infinite game of chance. This means that our life isn't predestined anyway and nobody knows what lies ahead.
3. Free will
Borges asks the famous question — do we shape our future or everything has already been decided for us? Again, the answer is probably in the story. The Lottery, in every form of it, is built on a chance of winning and losing, which means that our life isn't predestined and every possible outcome has its chance(maybe a small one) of coming to fruition.
Familiar concept in a new story
Infinity
The number of so-called drawings(the decisions that the Company makes) is infinite, because "no decision is final, all branch into others"("The Lottery in Babylon, p.4). The Company constantly creates new and new drawings(events, choices, nature phenomena) with no visible end to this process. Someone would see this as a metaphor for our life or universe itself, which was born in a distant past and continues to exist to this moment, while people living in it don't fully understand its laws and principles.
As you can see, this is another interpretation of infinity and another great story filled with metaphors, allegories, and interpretations