A Study Of Marx 's Political Socialization

Political socialization is concomitant with the political community. Taken from the long history, the progress of a nation’s political socialization and its effects impacts the stability and development of the country, also relates to the survival of its political system. Although the concept of "political socialization" emerged in the late1950’s, but in the history of ideas, the genuine research on political socialization came along with the beginning of the political theory. In the Western society, no matter Plato, Aristotle in ancient Greece, or Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau in modern age, there were many political and social discourses and profound insights within their theory. Though Karl Marx did not propose explicitly the concept of "political socialization" in his own theoretical system, he has plenty thoughts related to political and social theory. While modern western theories of political socialization focused on the phase-analysis of the development of individual behavior and thought, Marx’s theory of political socialization put particular emphasis on the macro-analysis of the process of the state ideology’s production, distribution and recognition in a whole, and developed closely with the construction, communication and recognition of the political and ideological system.In his study to the ideology, Marx not only revealed the general law of the class society, which means the dominant thought in any age was always that of the ruling class, but also pointed out ways of the realization for the ideology of the ruling class to be the dominant one, i.e. political socialization. The rulers in any society regulates the production and distribution of the ideas in its own era, so that to achieve the manipulation of all thoughts. The production of ideas, is the ideology which the ruling class needs to form the political domination, to systematize the argumentation and interpretation in legal of the ruling class’s political values, political ideas and principles of governance; the distribution of ideas, is the education and formation of the social members by the given thought system such as the formed ideology, which help them to accept, endorse these ideas, concepts and principles, thus to build the basis for the consolidation of its political domination. With this kind of production and distribution of its idea, the ruling class believes that their political domination on the basis of political principles is consistent with justice, and the political values they uphold to be the noble and eternal one, whose regime represents the general interests of the majority of the ruled class. Simply put, the production and distribution process of the ruling class’s thought is the process of political socialization.Marx’s thought on political socialization not only stressed the necessity and importance of political socialization from the point view of macro-social structure, and put it on the actual basis constructed by the productive forces and production relations, but also highlighted role of people in the process of political socialization, and closely linked their demands and interests, their real living world, their heir practices with the political socialization, gave the prominence to the status of "human". Marx started from the individual in the real world, revealed the possibility and necessity of political socialization within the interaction of "individual-society-nation", explained the origin, condition, and process of historical development of consciousness and ideology in a critique way. Marx not only discussed the important role and function of ideology, revealed the root cause of the ideology’s emergence, i.e. the actual social and material relations, but also pointed out the principles of the ideological construction and its running laws, so that to clarify the the prerequisite conditions, realistic way, and real foundation of the political socialization, helping us to outline its clear path. In Marx’s view, to give the full scope of the dominant ideology’s function, it must firstly construct a concept of "universality", which task will be fulfilled by the ideological classes due to the labor division; and secondly instill these thoughts with "universality" into people’s minds by means of tradition and education, public opinion and media, and make people eventually accept, recognize these ideas of "universality" within the ways of interactions and participations, in order to consolidate the legal foundation of its political domination.Marx’s thoughts on political socialization have an important theoretical and practical significance for the contemporary China in her political socialization and ideological construction. The political socialization of China today is confronted with many new situations and new problems, such as the economic globalization, cultural diversity, networked media whether its process goes well or not, how its effect to be carried out, which relates to the survival of our party and our country. Deepening the study of Marx’s thoughts on political socialization, will help us to grasp the general principle, process and law of the political socialization, so as to guide our ideological construction of contemporary China, which will be of great inspiration and guidance for the solutions of those epochal issues such as how to firmly grasp the leadership and leading rights in the ideological affairs, how to continuously enhance the attractive and persuasive power of ideological contents, how to extend the transmission route of ideology, how to make it eventually rooted among the people’s identity, and so on.