The Comparison Of Marx′s And Habermas′s Theory Of" Civil Society"

Civil society is the significant part of Marx's historical materialism.Based on the history and society, Marx prescribe the essence of civil society according to economic relations. Civil society is dissociated from political state and tied up with commodity economy and capitalist private property. Civil society is the inevitable outcome of commodity economy and private interests. Habermas distinguished his Civil society which based on Marx's concept from the economy and politics portions.There were two stages of Habermas' thoughts:In the first stage, he used the word "public domain" as his research foundation and focused on its concept, formation, intrinsic contradiction and transformation. In the second stage, after eliminating the economic element which plays an important role in traditional civil society concept, he paid more attention to daily life world rather than public domain, and did research in crisis of legitimacy of Late Capitalism.This paper contains five parts:The first part is about the theoretical origin of civil society. Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Hegel, these philosophers used this concept from traditional perspective and modern perspective.In the second part, the starting point and main contentof the Marx's civil society concept is discussed.The third part mainly discusses the difference between public domain and daily life world, also the new definition of civil society formulated by Habermas.The fourth part focuses on the comparison of the civil society concept, the relationship between civil society and political state, and the understanding of historical materialism.The fifth part probes into the significance of the research of civil society in contemporary China, and how Marx's and Habermas's theory of civil society will promote socialist market economic, accelerate the construction of the socialist democratic politics and harmonious society.