Study On The Institutional Thoughts Of Marx And Engels

So far all the social formation in the human history has shown the difference of development level in the way of different systems.Before the socialist system, all the social systems in human history have a glorious history of promoting the progress of the society, and then come to the inevitable decline and changes, and step into more advanced stage of development. About these phenomena, Marx and Engels have carried out the analysis and research on the development of human society institutions in the view of historical materialism, and have made investigation of the meaning, structure, function and development of the social institutions. After reading lots of historical materials, absorption and discarded the idea of European and other contemporary scholars, form their own made thoughts of institutions.Domestic and foreign academia have gotten a lot achievement for the research on the institutional thoughts of marx and engels, but there are still different views on the connotation and institutional changing of the thoughts. This thesis includes the research on Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts, combining with the historical background of the thoughts of Marx and Engels’ s creation and development, as well as the the works of the above great men’s and other contemporary scholars. This thesis is trying to show the institutional thoughts of marx and engels totally, under a deep research and excavation. Meanwhile, combining with the new realization of the Marx and Engels’ idea, the thesis has also shown new thinking on the problem of institutions.This thesis inlcudes six chapters:Chapter one: Introduction. It states the origin and significance of the topic selection, research status, research ideas and methods, innovation and deficiency of this paper.Chapter two: The emergence and development of the institutional thoughts of marx and engels. The thesis describes the emergence background,theory basis and development of the Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts. In the age of Marx and Engels, the capitalist system is widely established and developed in Europe. Although the social productive forces have been greatly promoted, the fatal defects of the institutions have been exposed obviously due to the contradiction of its own. Under the background of this era, young Marx and Engels have formed their own system ideas with their full efforts under the basis of other great ideologists, just like Hobbes, Rock and Rousseau’s social contract theory, Hagel’s civil society theory, and Feuerbach’s theory.Chapter three: Marx and Engels’ definition of the institutions and the method of the research system. The thesis mainly explained the basic definition of Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts. Through the research of the word system and the realization of the system from western scholars, the paper summarizes the general definition of the institutions, that is, the specific social rules and system. However actually Marx and Engels treated the institutions as two parts: the first level is the economic system, which determines the nature of the whole social institutions; in the second level is the political institutions, the legal system and ideology, which maintain the stability of the economic institutions. Based on the definition of the system created by Marx and Engels, the thesis has shown the essence and characteristics of the institutions, and also analyzed the structure and function of the institutions. Marx and Engels’ institutional research, used the method from the concept of the relationship between human and nature, the concept of production practice and communication practice, clarifies the dialectical relationship between the individual and the whole, to reach the conclusion of the combination of macro and micro research methods, that is, the overall institutions of the research methods.Chapter four: Marx and Engels’ theory of institutional change. First, this paper expounds the main role played by people in institutional change, and then reveals the power of institutional change from two perspectives: one is the contradiction between productive forces and production relations, and the other is the change of social interest relations which is the direct driving force. In addition, there are many non economic factors to promote the social institutional change. About the path of institutional change, Marx and Engels pointed out the two basic paths: the former is to change the old institution to create a new institution; the latter is the continuous improvement of the existing institutions. At the same time, the main body of the system should be taken different strategies according to the actual situation in order to guarantee the smooth development of the institutions. Shortly no matter the path or strategy which to choose, changing subject must be steped from the reality, should make the choice to fulfill the law of history.Chapter five: Marx and Engels’ thought of institutional ethics. Based on Marx and Engels’ theory of historical materialism, combining with Marx and Engels’ relevant texts, the paper aims to deal with the relationship between man and institution, and expounds the main contents of Marx and Engels’ institutional ethics from three aspects: "institutions and practice", "institutions and moraliry", "institutions and freedom". In this part, the emphasis has been shown by explaining the three concepts including " institutions are the institutions of humanbeing", "morality is the morality of the institutions", and "the goal created by humanbeing is to pursue freedom and liberation".Chapter six: The history value and challenge of Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts. By expounding the value and challenge of Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts and the new development in the times, the paper draws a conclusion that Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts play an important role in the system practice including system revolution system construction and reform in socialist countries. The paper is to show the necessity and importance of the socialist China in carrying out the Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts. The emphasis of this chapter is to show that although we are facing many challenges, Marx and Engels’ institutional thoughts paracticing through the institutional change and institutional construction in the socialist countries, such as Russia, China and other socialist countries, is to play a major role in guiding the defense of their own truth. Meanwhile, as the theoretical basis of the construction and reform of the socialist state institutions, the institutional thoughts of marx and engels gets further development by great people, confirms its theoretical quality of keeping up with the times.The innovation of this paper is mainly shown as the following four aspects.First, on the basis of the understanding of the system,by comparing Marx and Engels and the ancient literature and the western scholar’s viewpoint, the paper summarized the definition of the institutions again, and also explained the nature, characteristic, structure and function of the institutions.Second, on the basis of comprehensive interpretation of Marx and Engels on the subject of institutional change, this paper systematically discusses the basic ideas of the two great men about the path of institutional change and discusses which detailed strategies to choose.Third, the paper makes the reseach on the Marx and Engels’ thoughts of institutional ethics. On the basis of Marx and Engels, the paper explains the institutional ethics thought from three aspects: the institutions and the people’s practice, the system and the morality, the institutions and the freedom.Forth, this paper discusses the contemporary value and important influence of the institutional thoughts of Marx and Engels, discusses the thoughts faced theoretical challenge, and also makes the research of getting innovation and development of the institutional thoughts of marx and engels during dealing with theoretical challenge.