In a market economy, however, the individual has some possibility of escaping from the power of the state

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

There is an intrinsic linkage between socialism and economic inefficiency.

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

The human organism is thus still developing biologically while already standing in a relationship to its environmont. In other words, the process of becoming man takes place in an interrelationship with an environment. (...) From the moment of birth, man's organismic development, and indeed a large part of his biological being as such, are subjected to continuing socially determined interference.

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.

Institutions provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned, compelled to go, in grooves deemed desirable by society. And this trick is performed by making these grooves appear to the individual as the only possible ones.