Thinking, On The Construction Of The Philosophy Of The Civil Society

With the reform of economic system according to market and the development of socialist market economy, the construction of civil society has already became an attainable target in China, and the probing into this problem has also became a focus in theory circles. The first important task to construct civil society is to define the concept of "civil society" explicitly. "Civil society" is a concept that came from the Western history experience, and went through three development stages as follows: classical concept of civil society—neoteric concept of civil society—modem concept of civil society. Scanning the development of the concept, and combining with the concrete and special context of China, we can define "civil society" as: it is a field of private autonomy, which based on market economy, consisting of the field of private economy and the public field of social culture, independent of the state relatively, and developing with it coordinately. The construction of civil society spreads from two aspects, including the field of private economy and the public field of social culture. It is impossible to repeat the course of the West to construct civil society in China, this is irrational and unpractical.In the progress of Chinese civil society's construction, it is necessary to clarify two relations. The first one is the relation between market economy and the construction of civil society. Undoubtedly, the development of market economy takes an important effect to construct civil society: Market economy is the economic base of civil society; it cultivates the subject of civil society and the modern consciousness of the subject; it stresses competition, efficiency and pursuit to material benefits, which make the society become a field that independent of the state relatively to provide opportunities, resources and a wide space for individuals and organizations to achieve benefits. However, it is not inevitable that the development of market economy can bring up a perfect civil society. Market economy is just a necessary condition rather than a sufficient condition to construct civil society in China. Firstly, as a developing country, the development of both market economy and civil society has an unique track in China. Moreover, in fact, market economy doesn't take a key role to improve and develop civil society consistently. It even takes a certain hindrance to the form and development of social public field. At the same time, it is impossible to form spontaneously a strong body of civil society—social intermediate stratum.The second relation is the one between state and the construction of civil society. This relation in China is different from the West. All the existed researching on this relation ignore the independence of civil society more or less. However, the relative independent relation between state and civil society, particularly the relative independence of civil society is the premise to understand their relation correctly, and only based on this point, can we realize the development and perfection of civil society really, and build the coordinate relation between state and civil society.State has an important effect on the construction of civil society, but as a relatively external power, state runs into a few of paradoxes in the course of construction. Firstly, due to the character of state power itself and incomplete accuracy of governmental policy, it is difficult for state to hold the limitation of guidance and control, which is expressed by "invalid intervention" and "excessive intervention" of state power to construct civil society, then producing the first paradox. Secondly, the construction of civil society depends on the guidance of state power, but the development of civil society has an inherent logicality, and according to this logicality, civil society's functions of supervision and restriction to state will be strengthened gradually. Then the second paradox emerges, that is the power subject—state cultivates consciously another thing to restrict the power. Thirdly, the transformation of government functions leads to the part loss of state authority inevitably, which then cause the disintegration of social structure. However, the essence of authority lies in stability. In the sight of maintaining stability, the political structure will return traditional pattern, which forms the third dilemma in the course of civil society's construction.How to overcome these paradoxes and maintain the relative independence between civil society and state each other? There is no harm in making use of laws to solve these problems. Laws can standardize state and civil society, and make them develop together coordinately. Laws should be made based on the correct understanding of the relation between private right and public right, and complying with two principles as follows: Firstly, to recognize the independence of civil society, secondly, to regulate the interventional limitation of state power and the ways of exercising power definitely.Nowadays, the idea of "harmonious society" and the essential in the civil society have the same view by coincidence. The construction of civil society is an important element and a key step to build a harmonious society, it can satisfied various demands of harmonious society from many aspects, including economic, political and cultural functions and so on.