许多朋友和批评家都认为,《工业人的未来》是笔者所写的书中最好的一本。这无疑是本人最寄予厚望的一本书,也是本人惟一的一本公开阐述基本社会理论的书。事实上,本书试图阐述的不是一个、而是两个社会理论。其一也许可称为“一般社会理论”,这一理论提出了任何一个社会都必须是功能性的,而且是合法性的这一要求。另一理论也许可称为“特殊的工业社会理论”,这一理论将这些一般概念应用于工业社会这一特殊案例,而工业社会是在20世纪出现并在第二次世界大战中占据主导地位的。我当时给书加了一个副标题:“保守之路”;因为书 Many friends and critics agree that “the future of industrial people” is the best book ever written by the author. This is undoubtedly my most high hopes of a book, but also my only one publicly stated basic social theory book. In fact, the book attempts to explain not one but two social theories. One might call “general social theory,” which put forward the requirement that any society must be functional and legitimized. Another theory may be called “a special theory of industrial society,” a theory that applies these general concepts to the special case of industrial society, which emerged in the twentieth century and dominates the Second World War of. I added a subtitle to the book: “The Road to Conservatism”; because of the book