市民社会的理念——再论王绍光的“人民社会”构想

The Idea of Civil Society:A Comment on Wang Shaoguang's Ideation of“Socialist Society”

黑格尔—马克思理论传统中的市民社会概念,未能揭示现代市民社会的本质特征。回到近代英美传统中广义的市民社会概念,于今日中国更有意义。广义的市民社会概念指向一种独特的社会政治秩序,它与商业社会相适应,以现代市民为主体,以法治为本质,包含了一系列抽象规则,并要求相应的市民风尚与礼貌。王绍光提出的"人民社会"构想,不符合商业社会的时代精神,指向的是一种集体本位、漠视个体权利与自由的支配体系。中国社会建设的方向是以宽容、文明、和平、诚信、自由为特征的市民社会,而非基于阶级区分构建起来的排斥公民自由、徒具人民之名而无其实的"人民社会"。

The concept of civil society in the tradition of Hegelian-Marxian theory can hardly reveal the essential features of modern civil society. It is therefore more relevant to China nowadays to return to the concept of civil society in modern Anglo-American tradition. In its broad sense,civil society refers to a specific social and political order that meshes with the commercial society,having modern citizens as its subject and the rule of law as its essence. It contains a series of abstract rules and requires the citizens to have civilized customs and manners.The idea of socialist society proposed by Wang Shaoguang fails to be in tune with the ethos of the commercial society. It points to an authoritarian and controlling system that is collective-based,much to the negligence of individual rights and freedom. The direction of Chinese social construction is civil society characterized by tolerance,civilization,peace,trustworthiness,and freedom,not socialist society based on class division,rejecting the citizen's freedom,respecting people in name but not in fact,and characterized by savage,violence,and lies.