再论中产阶级:理论、历史与类型学 兼及一种全球化的视野

The emergence of the middle class was closely related to the appearance of industrial society and its consequential constant changes in the social structure. Karl Marx and other theorists in the same camp were among the earliest scholars who discussed that topic. For a quite long period of time, the debate was mainly focused on the characteristics of the “new middle class.” The middle class, however, has undergone a categorical transformation from the old to the new middle-class, and furthermore, this transformation itself has signified the transition in social patterns from industrial to post-industrial society as well as economic globalization, both of which have contributed to the growth and global expansion of the middle class, having thus fundamentally renovated the middle class.