The Trans-epoch Conversation Between Giddens And Marx

Facing the dramatic arrival of "modernity", China, as a later-emerged modernity country, has been experiencing the rapid change on life style and intercourse mean. As a result, the identity and mobilize way of ideology also changed, through which the problem of ideology attracted attention. Based on the dimension of social relation, Marx firstly focused ideology critique on the basic economic fact, for the goal of debating. To Engels, this work also contained he and Marx’s common fault, which is "neglected the formal side for the sake of the content". So the "formal" side becomes the growing point of Marx’s ideology critique thought. A century later, the Britain famous sociologist, Anthony Giddens, who has paid long time on Marxism theory research, made a critique on Marx’s "social relation" thought in his books. A trans-epoch conversation unfolded. Giddens also formed much original view on ideology critique based on the dimension of social relation, which, although was presented with an obscure way. This "conversation" gave rise to heated discussions and deputy in the educational circles. For the lack of common platform, scholars’ evaluation was different even contradict. This research tries to reconstruct the conversation between Giddens and Marx, focusing on the ideology critique with the dimension of social relation, so as to reconstruct our theory confidence to Marxism and promote the contemporary development of Marx’s thought. This "conversation" constructing is established on the probability of the common critic dimension—social relation—of the two, as well as the necessity of the different emphasis on the dimension.Giddens’ direct critique to Mars is the logic start of this research (the first side of "conversation"). Based on the dimension of "production relation", Giddens made an annotation and critique to Marx’s ideology critique thought. To Giddens, Marx reduced social relation to production relation. This reduction logic not only contains theory defect, but also faces practical criticism. Giddens tried to reconstruct the analytic framework of social relation, to probe other mediums of shaping social relation and other style of social relation beside production relation. All these work precisely contained the possibility of Giddens’ surpass Marx on the "formal" side research of ideology.The fruit of Giddens’ reconstruction is structuration theory, in which Giddens mainly caught two points:one is the mediums of knowledge, the other is people’s psychology need of stability pursuit. Giddens supposed that individual in normal life lie to seek a kind of stable life and hope to be acquired of identity recognition constantly, not being isolated. As a result, people often act in the light of the general knowledge and routines, leading to the reproduction of social relation. Giddens is aim to find the hidden root that the social relation can be reproduced across time and space, and make further efforts to probe the possible way of shaping social relation, overcoming the so called Marx’s reduction logic from the formal side. Giddens’ theory hypothesis was kept a foothold in the field of daily life, and was of thick psychology color.Giddens made a further research to the modern social relation and ideology both on the substantial evidence and theory sides. To Giddens,"knowledge" medium (especially general knowledge) has been playing an more and more important role in shaping modern social relation, with the rise of informatization degree, the enhancement of cognition ability and the escalation of stability needs, influenced by which, traditional dematerialization ideology (religion and nationalism) has been got remold, and modern materialization ideology (money and technology) are formed. Basic on the "knowledge" angle and the "formal" side, Giddens not only exposed ideology, but also revealed the isomorphism process of social relation and ideology. With the help of general knowledge and routines,people can keep the continuation of social relation; and the goal of ideology mobilization is just to maintain the already existing relation. So, Giddens pointed out that the most ingrained ideology is found on the general knowledge and daily routine.On the standpoint of historical materialism, we consider that Giddens misjudged Marx’s social relation thought, which provides the necessity of returning to Marx’s book and context, defending Marx. That’s the critique’s critique. In our opinion, the "production relation" is the core of Marx’s social relation, but Marx has never tried to reduce social relation to production relation and always proposals the variety of social relation. Based on "production relation", Giddens’ ideology critique is aim to demonstrate the source of ideology concept form the "first" determinant of production relation, exposing ideology from the "content" side. Marx’s goal of critique on capitalism ideology words, like religion, money, capital, salary, profit, freedom and justice, is just to reveal the production relation instinct behind these words. Giddens’ try of prominent the social relation with "knowledge" medium, dispelled the determination place of production relation in the final analysis, which should be given criticism. In this sense, Marx still possesses the theory thoroughness that Giddens can not surpass. We should be provided with such theory confidence.Based on the dimension of social relation, this research also made a comprehensive comparison between Giddens’and Marx’s ideology critique thought (the second side of "conversation"). Seeing form the commonness, both of them regard "social relation" as the activity product among different individuals, and the social relation could not exist without interpersonal practice."Ideology" is seen as a kind tool that certain class or group used to consolidate current social relation and social order, as well as to demonstrate their legal allocation. However, their thought also contain difference because of their different life background and subject background. Marx was apt to material need and the analysis route of political economics, and emphasized on "content" side to starts ideology critique, with the dimension of social relation (focusing on production relation). Giddens paid more attention to the psychological need of perusing stability, which is the analysis route of social psychology, and emphasized on "formal" side to unfold ideology critique.Some inspiration can be extracted from this conversation to promote the construction of dominant ideology of China. This is the logical end-result of this research. At the theoretical aspect, we should rate on the epistemology perspective and clarify those misunderstanding of the "content" aspect, to enhance our theory confidence to Marxism, meanwhile to strengthen its inclusiveness by expanding the study on the ontology perspective, from the "formal" aspect of construction, such as strengthening the "knowledge" angle, expanding the instinct intension of ideology, as well as its permeate fields and demasking perspective. At the practical aspect, we can cultivate socialism core values with the help of "social relation" dimension, and reconstruct ideology identification and interpersonal trust with the "knowledge" angle, by which to enhance Marxism’s guiding position in the ideology area.From this conversation, certain explanation can be provided to some ideology problem that appeared in modern China, but new theoretical question are generated after these explanation. For example, how to keep the critique and rethink of ideology in modern society, in which the psychology need of stability becomes more and more prominent, and how to fuse the two sides of content and formal of ideology. All the above questions can be list into the following work of this research.