The Theory Of Marx’s Civil Society And Its Contemporary Value

As the category of the Western political philosophy, civil society, especially the Marx’scivil society, is of huge theoretical significance. It has aroused extensive research amongscholars since it was introduced into China at the end of the20th century. Marx’s civil societyhas important theoretical significance. Since Marx’s civil society is a production of criticalinheritance of the previous studies, it is crucial to know the development of civil societybefore the Marx’s.The civil society of ancient Greek and Roman period was city-state countries, and thecity was composed of a group of people pursuing good karmas, and the status of the citizenswas weighed by the political right they got. Therefore, the civil society in this period was thepolitical country. The civil society in the Medieval Ages was employed to plead the kingshipand religious rights by theorists. The great thinkers of social contract theory in the17and18century elaborated the civil society as civilized society that contrasted to savage society.Hegel was the first to separate civil society from political state. He endowed the civil societywith economic implications and based on the development of ethics, he maintained that statedecides civil society.Owning to the need of expression on the material benefits, Marx began to do research oncivil society: in the Hegel’s philosophy of law critique, based on the critical thought of Hegel’scivil society, he made the correct statement between civil society and the country, that is: civilsociety decides the country; in The Jews’ Problem and Hegel’s law philosophy critiquepreface, he considered that the political liberation could not solve people’s liberation, but onlyliberated people from the political form, and to get people’s all-round liberation, a civilsociety based on a non-civil society class, namely, the proletariat should be formed; in thebook Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in1844, with the analysis on the alienatedlabor from, a conclusion was reached that the only solution to the contradiction of civilsociety was to discard the private; in The Germany Ideology and The poverty of philosophy,he put forward the theory of relations of production in a scientific way, achieved the cohesion between civil society and the relations of production, and established the historicalmaterialism officially. Western Marxist developed Marx’s civil society in the culture fields,and the Japanese scholars think the civil society lasts throughout the history. As a great theory,Marx’s civil society serves as a guide for the construction of a civil society in China.