继“知识分子与工农大众相结合”之后，中产阶级开始寻找学术语言界定它自身的阶级属性，从而回答“为谁服务”的终极问题。中产阶级理论在从“文革”到改革的社会转型时期扮演重要角色，一方面完成个人主义的自然化，另一方面完成阶级意识的自然化。中产阶级理论能否依托新自由主义建立阶级的独立性、实现文化领导权，面临诸多解释困境。本书正是在中产阶级的事实与幻想之间，从中产阶级的历史脉络、制度现实以及个体主义的起源，找寻新阶级的未来。

Following the "combination of intellectuals and the masses of workers and peasants," the middle class began to look for academic language to define its own class attributes and thus answer the ultimate question of "for whom?" The theory of the middle class played an important role in the period of social transition from the "Cultural Revolution" to the reform, completing the naturalization of individualism on the one hand, and the naturalization of class consciousness on the other. Whether the theory of the middle class can rely on neoliberalism to establish class independence and achieve cultural leadership faces many interpretive dilemmas. It is between the facts and fantasies of the middle class that this book looks for the future of a new class from the historical context of the middle class, the institutional reality, and the origins of individualism.（AI翻译）