The government should not be in control of the private sector.

Host: The air in the office was thick with heat and argument. A single ceiling fan turned lazily, pushing the warm air around like words that refused to cool. Sunlight spilled through slatted blinds, cutting across dust particles that danced in slow motion.

Beyond the window, the city buzzed — cranes towered, cars moved, and the hum of commerce echoed through the streets like a heartbeat of ambition.

Inside, Jack and Jeeny sat across from each other at a mahogany desk, papers and blueprints spread between them. Jack, in his rolled-up sleeves and steel-grey eyes, leaned back, the smoke from his coffee curling in the air. Jeeny, poised and focused, her long black hair tied back, tapped her pen against a report marked “Public Infrastructure Partnership Proposal.”

Jeeny: “You really think the government should just step aside?”
Jack: “Absolutely. It’s not their job to run business. The private sector is where growth lives. You want innovation? Competition? Efficiency? You let the market breathe.”
Jeeny: “And what about fairness? Regulation? You give the market too much freedom, it starts eating itself. You’ve seen it happen — 2008, the housing collapse, the greed that wrecked millions of lives.”

Host: The fan creaked above them, spinning like the argument — endless, necessary, heated. The light shifted, casting bars of gold** and shadow across their faces.

Jack: “That wasn’t the market’s fault, Jeeny. That was government meddling — bailouts, cheap loans, moral hazards. They protected the wrong people, and punished the rest. The real economy runs on risk — when you insulate it, you kill it.”
Jeeny: “So you’d rather let people starve than interfere?”
Jack: “No, I’d rather let people build their own way out. You create opportunity, not dependency. Like Mohammad bin Salman said — ‘You create business, you hand it to the investor, and you start creating something new.’ The state should pave the road, not drive the car.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes narrowed, her pen stilled. A gust of wind from the fan lifted the corner of a blueprint, fluttering it like a flag between them.

Jeeny: “You make it sound so simple. But what about the worker, Jack? The one who builds the road but can’t afford to drive on it? What happens when the investor decides profit matters more than people?”
Jack: “Then you find better investors. You don’t trap everyone under bureaucracy just because some men are greedy. The system should reward those who take initiative — not punish them with paperwork and taxes.”
Jeeny: “And yet, every empire that forgot its poor — from Rome to London to Silicon Valley — crumbled from within. You can’t build a nation on profit alone.”

Host: The air crackled, a tension like the moment before a storm. Jack’s jaw tightened. Jeeny’s voice rose, but it trembled, not with anger, but with conviction.

Jeeny: “The government exists because not everyone has the same tools to compete. You can’t tell a child born in poverty to just ‘create opportunity.’ The state must balance the game — not control it, but protect it from devouring itself.”
Jack: “Protection turns to control, Jeeny. Every time. Look at the Soviet Union, at Venezuela. The moment the state takes the wheel, freedom dies — innovation dies. You want growth? You trust the builders, not the bureaucrats.”
Jeeny: “And what if the builders build only for themselves?”
Jack: “Then you build better incentives, not more chains.”

Host: The silence that followed was dense, humid, filled with the weight of two truths at war. Outside, the city moved — a symphony of machines, markets, and dreamers — all caught between necessity and freedom.

Jeeny: “Do you really think freedom is enough to feed a nation?”
Jack: “It’s the only thing that ever has. Look at post-war Japan, South Korea, the Emirates. The state opened the door, but it was the entrepreneurs who walked through it. The government doesn’t create prosperity — it permits it.”
Jeeny: “And yet, without education, infrastructure, law, and healthcare, no entrepreneur survives. Those are the spine of society, Jack. Built not by markets, but by collective will.”
Jack: “I never said the state should vanish. But it should serve, not rule. Like a gardener who tends the soil, not one who dictates how every flower must grow.”

Host: The metaphor hung between them, softening the edges of the argument. The light from the window had shifted, glowing more golden now, painting Jeeny’s face in a warm hue.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe the truth is that we need both — the gardener and the garden. The vision of one, the discipline of the other.”
Jack: “Maybe. But too many gardeners, and nothing grows.”
Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “And too many flowers left wild, and they choke each other out.”

Host: For a moment, neither spoke. The city outside had slowed, the sun now sliding behind the skyscrapers, casting long, melancholic shadows over the desk.

Jack: “You know, I don’t hate government, Jeeny. I just hate when it forgets it’s not the creator — only the catalyst.”
Jeeny: “And I don’t hate the market, Jack. I just hate when it forgets that people aren’t profits.”

Host: The fan slowed its spin. A silence — rich, earned, understood — settled over them. Two voices, once opposed, now folded into a shared truth:

That a nation is not a machine to be controlled,
nor a wildfire to be left to its flames —
but a living thing that thrives when both freedom and responsibility breathe together.

Jack stood, gathering the papers, his movements now calm, almost reverent. Jeeny watched him, her eyes soft, her smile gentle, like someone who understood a storm had passed, even if the clouds lingered.

Host: Outside, the city lights flickered on, one by one, like stars on earth — each a testament to both ambition and order. A bus rumbled, a vendor called, and in the distance, a crane swung, lifting a new beam into the sky.

And as night descended, the two voices — one of reason, one of heart — found their balance in the truth that every system, no matter how brilliant, must always remember the humans it was built to serve.