The Comparative Study On Ideology Between North And Marx

North Douglass and Karl Marx, because of the different of historical and cultural background, and their expected goals, all these bring out the different of theoretical level and influence. The theory of Marx for ideology is systematic and detailed, so we are from North's viewpoints about the associated aspects of ideology, then state Marx's views about those viewpoints, through the comparison, we can compare and analyse both types of the theory easily and deeply. This article mainly contains three parts-definition, generating mechanism, social function. They all agree that the ideology is a kind of subjective perception through practical activity, but Marx emphasizes the class attribute of ideology, and superstructure of thinking. In the forming mechanism, North is from individual psychology-micro cognitive, Marx stresses historic and overall macro. In the functions of ideology, North mainly emphasizes the economic function-saving social cost. Marx agrees this view, he also shows ideology bring about the waste of social resources because of the class-consciousness. Marx not only shows the positive effects of ideology to maintain social order, but also points out that the ideology give rise to waste social resource and exploitation to most of people. This will produce negative effects to the social reform and development. In the effects of ideology to institutional change, North suggests the ideology will produce path dependence to the institutional change. Marx agrees that productivity and production relations determine various levels of superstructure, but he doesn't deny the effects of ideology to the social reform. The ideology affect people's thought, and also affect the construction of social structure. So different of country, nationality's culture and ideology, will give rise to different models of social structure. Comparing with Marx, North stands the view of individualism, expound the functions of ideology from the positive side, the result is that North cannot analyze the realized process in the historically and dialectically macro perspective, and cannot explain the ideology bring out double functions and contradictory characteristic. All these show the viewpoint of North is superficial and perceptual. But we cannot deny that North's theories fit the requirement of developing economy of modern countries, and at some degree, it has enlightening significance to enrich and perfect the Marxism.