ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter it was suggested that many interest groups have an educative function and that some of these tend to be classified as manifestations of radical adult education. Nearly all of these groups function in civil society, although their purpose is, above all, to get their private interest placed on the public agenda. Each of these groups is trying to influence either national or local government to make policy and take action to create conditions that could result in what their members regard as a better world. However, it is to be argued in this chapter that a more just and civilised society can only be created, in which more people can enjoy the ‘good life’, when government intervenes in civil society and seeks to impose the conditions under which such a society can be established and maintained, so that this chapter might be regarded as an extension of the previous one. Government must intervene because the market is competitive and, while it adds wealth to society as a whole, it does not have the facility to become co-operative under any circumstances.
