American sociologist and journalist who used sociological theory to reconcile what he believed were the inherent contradictions of capitalist societies.

Bell was educated at City College of New York, where he received his B.S. (1939), and was employed as a journalist for more than 20 years. As managing editor of The New Leader (1941–45) and labour editor for Fortune (1948–58), he wrote voluminously on various social subjects. After serving in Paris (1956–57) as director of the seminar program of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, he received his doctorate at Columbia University (1960), where he was appointed professor of sociology (1959–69). Bell became a professor of sociology at Harvard University in 1969.

Bell's extensive output has reflected his concern with political and economic institutions and the ways in which they shape the individual. Among his books are Marxian Socialism in America (1952; reprinted 1967), The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the 1950s (1960), The Radical Right (1963), and The Reforming of General Education (1966). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973) and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) attempt to define the relationship between science, technology, and capitalism in society. His views of the nonconformist in contemporary society are expressed in The Winding Passage (1980). His work has stimulated controversy over the ideological biases among leading scholars in the discipline of sociology.