One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism

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

If a socialist economy is opened up to increasing degrees of market forces, a point will be reached at which democratic governance becomes a possibility.

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.

Some people think that as the Chinese economy becomes more and more capitalistic it will inevitably become more democratic

Even if one is interested only in one's own society, which is one's prerogative, one can understand that society much better by comparing it with others.

We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization