The Interpretation of the Concept of Marx's Civil Society

Before 1844, in criticizing Hegel's Grundlinien Der Philosophie, Marx criticized Hegel's reversed account of relationship between the state and the civil society. At that time, Marx always usedcivil society, which meant the society in the capitalist period, together with the state. After 1844, when Law philosophy criticism transformed into the study of economics, Marx went deep into the interior part of the civil society to reveal its economic nature. The civil society at this stage refers to the total material relations. The concept of civil society embodies the mature process of Marxist thoughts in this aspect. At the same time, the change also reflects the change of the Marxist research methods, and generally shows the basic process in which Marx farmulates the idealist conception of history.