本文採用馬克思主義的理論視角，分析變化中的農民工抗議行動。1978年以來，當中國的新工人階級在重新形成時，勞工研究卻拋棄了馬克思主義的傳統，不再將社會生產關係作為分析的出發點。當下的主流研究將資本主義的生產體制下的中國農民工抗爭理解為市民運動的一部分。作者認為這一點理論視角無法理解和解釋近年來農民工抗爭模式的新轉變。因此他提倡重回馬克思主義的基本觀點，從社會生產關係的分析視角出發，並與工人在特定的社會文化和歷史政治處境下的具體抗爭模式相聯繫，分析當前中國的外資和私營企業中日益嚴重的勞資矛盾。

The author uses a Marxist perspective to analyze changing patterns in migrant worker protests. While a new working class in China has emerged and recreated itself since 1978, today’s labor researchers have mostly rejected the Marxist practice of using the social relations of production as a point of departure for analysis. Instead, Chinese migrant workers’ protests under a capitalist production regime are understood as part of a citizens’ movement.In this paper the author argues that this new approach fails to adequately account for recent changes in migrant worker struggles. He advocates a return to the Marxist tradition to study worker struggle in a specific social, cultural and political context, especially in terms of analyzing the growing number of labor-capital conflicts in both foreign-owned and domestic private enterprises in China.