Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.

Even in a society as tightly controlled as Singapore's, the market creates certain forces which perhaps in the long run may lead to democracy

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.

I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization

In all advanced industrial societies, education has become the single most important vehicle of upward mobility.

The negative side to globalization is that it wipes out entire economic systems and in doing so wipes out the accompanying culture

In acute suffering the need for meaning is as strong or stronger than the need for happiness.