Social Transformation Perspective Of Chinese Civil Society

Civil society is one of the key concepts of western political philosophy. The Chinese academic field began to pay attention to the concept of civil society from 1980s while the systematic and serious reflection on civil society began from 1990s. With the transition of ages and the transformation of social structures, some realistic problems appeared: Should civil society exist in China? How to construct civil society in China? In the course of transferring system, some folk communities and nonprofit organizations appeared with the color of civil autonomy, which indicates that a new social field between government and enterprises is arising. It is a diversified area where various interests exist, and all independences and individualities grow together. At the same time, together with modern government and enterprises, it forms a new integrated social structure. This new social system can be called as civil society. The mature civil society has strategic impact on the establishment of harmonious society, the crux of which is to reform the traditional pyramidal social structure—power orientation, upper-to-lower, up-down difference, to establish a new one—three parties balance, to treat the relationship between government, market and civil society reasonably, to improve citizens'qualities and to form a democratic state in socialism.Basing on the realistic problems of Chinese social development, leading with the Marxism point of view, using the methods of unifying history and logic, unifying scientific and valuable principles, unifying theoretical review and practical analysis, this thesis analyses the recent transformation of Chinese social structures and the changes it brings. This thesis mainly discusses the characteristics and roles of new-appearing civil society, reviews its historical resources and idealistic pattern, and expounds the relationship between government, market and civil society. At the same time, it demonstrates the practical paths of civil society development scientifically and puts forward the social structure to construct modernism.The first chapter—Society: from Region Unification to Region Separation. First of all, with the developing clue of our social history, this chapter investigates the recent reform of Chinese social structure, which brings the polarization of social classes and different groups, and concludes that its aim is to strengthen the nation and the society, on the basis of which, it also discriminates the social concepts, public realm and private realm.The second chapter—Civil Society (the first half): from Western Context to Chinese Context. This chapter studies the connotation of western civil society and its evolution from classic to modern and contemporary, from which we can know western civil society undergoes a process from integration, dichotomy to trisection, with which the concept of civil society changes. Therefore, we can conclude the connotation and characteristics of civil society. The concept of civil society is also suitable to Chinese context and it is the actual theoretical grasp of the new social structure elements which are brought by the social transformation.The third chapter—Civil Society (the second half): from Ideality to Formation. With the conclusion of Chinese civil society's characteristics and problems, this chapter demonstrates the necessity of developing civil society in China and sorts the different domestic scholars'ideas of developing civil society in China. On the basis of it, this chapter puts forward that the structural models of constructing civil society in China mainly consist of subjective demands, cultural characteristics, systematic atmosphere, and valuable modes and so on. The construction of civil society must be integrated with the different roles of citizens.The forth chapter—Market: from Founding to Basically Establishment. This chapter mainly discusses the relationship between market and civil society, the crux of which is to give trisection theoretical and realistic support. Market has its own developing logic, the development of which needs establishing its relationship with the country. The essence is to emphasize the role and position of market and to make clear the necessity of establishing the market system. Market-oriented economy is the foundation of civil society, but we should pay attention to the passive influences of market.The fifth chapter—Country: from Almighty to Limited. This chapter first discusses the origin and connotation of the country and government, the role and limitation of the country, and lays that we must be on guard against the extension of the country's power. At the same time, this chapter makes some demands to the ruling mode and administrative reform of the government. It also analyzes the limitation of civil society and brings forward to establish benign interactive relationship between civil society and political country.The sixth chapter—Social Structure: from Traditional to Modern. The main aim is to analyze the obstacles in Chinese civil society's development----traditional social structure and authority-oriented power system, which is a new theoretical frame of political philosophy in China. Thus we search for its fundamental theory, forming course and centre concept, and distinguish its relationship with materialistic outlooks on history and Marxism theory of social structure. By analyzing the influence of traditional social structure and its relationship with democratic politics, this chapter puts forward that we should establish a new social structure---- three parties balance and develop civil society.