Tory MP Graham Stuart was on fire during the BBC’s Politics Live on Monday (September 8, 2025 – and yes, that was today if you’re reading this immediately after it was published) – or at least his pants should have been.

He came out with another hoary old Tory attack line: “It’s private business that brings wealth and stability – not the state.”

Amazingly, he didn’t get shot down for it, despite the fact that his claim is not true.

Let me explain:

“Private business brings wealth and stability – not the state” is a classic pro-market, small-state argument often used by conservative commentators. It implies that wealth and stability arise mainly from private enterprise, while government involvement is a hindrance.

In reality: while private businesses do generate wealth through production, innovation, and employment, they don’t operate in a vacuum.

Stable infrastructure, the rule of law, education, healthcare, and research—all largely funded by the state—are essential for private businesses to flourish. Without roads, courts, schools, or scientific research, many private businesses would struggle or fail.

Economic stability often relies on state intervention.

Would you like an example? Here’s the 2008 financial crisis: Left entirely to private finance, the system collapsed, requiring massive state intervention to prevent total economic chaos.

Similarly, social safety nets like unemployment benefits, healthcare, or pensions help maintain social and political stability.

Public-private symbiosis: Most successful economies are mixed economies. In the UK, US, Germany, and elsewhere, both private enterprise and the state contribute to wealth and stability. It is misleading to credit one while completely dismissing the other.

So the claim that “the state doesn’t bring wealth or stability” is a myth.

History and economic evidence show that state action and private enterprise complement each other.

Both are necessary, and they are not mutually exclusive.