ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that establishment interests and their intellectual allies do in fact have the understanding and that they are effectively acting upon it. It analyzes the phenomena and examines the African Growth and Opportunity Law, passed by the United State Congress in 1998, and the reaction of the World Bank to the 1997–1998 world financial crisis to illustrate the nature of the "cruel capitalism" and "cruel democracy" advanced by their proponents. The "Goldilocks" society will also have just the right amount of democracy. The chapter focuses on the political and economic functions of establishment-liberal civil society theory because it is the most misunderstood version and the most pernicious in its consequences. It argues that it is misleading to refer to either "the state" or "civil society". Pluralism and pluralist assumptions about society lie at the heart of most of the Western Africanists' assumptions about civil society.
