50年代初美国的一位著名社会学家赖特·米尔斯完成了他的一部巨著《白领——美国的中产阶级》。米尔斯在其著作中将白领阶层视为美国的新中产阶级。那么谁是老中产阶级呢?米尔斯认为,在美国,上一个时代中众多的小企业主构成了当时的中产阶级。而自世纪初至世纪中叶,随着垄断的发展,小企业主的数量锐减。与此同时,一个被雇佣的白领阶层取代了社会结构上中间层出现的真空。这是一个巨大的变化,其影响将极为深 In the early 1950s, Wright Mills, a famous American sociologist, completed one of his masterpieces, “White Collar - American Middle Class.” Mills sees white-collar workers as the new middle class in the United States in his book. So who is the old middle class? Mills believes that in the United States, many small business owners in the previous era formed the then middle class. From the beginning of the century to the middle of the century, with the development of monopoly, the number of small-business owners dropped sharply. In the meantime, a hired white-collar worker replaced the vacuum that emerged from the middle of the social structure. This is a huge change whose impact will be extremely profound