George Ritzer's The Mcdonaldization Of Society

Efficiency is one of the characteristics of McDonaldization that has played a great part in shaping society. We often try to achieve a sense of stability and familiarity around us. I agree with Ritzer’s examination on efficiency, how people in society are trained to work the way they do, either because of

McDonald’s, one of the most well-known fast food chains with over 32,000 stores worldwide is also one of the worst places to eat. McDonald’s restaurants and their food items have a negative impact on American society because the food is unhealthy, the food poses many health risks to individuals, and McDonald’s targets children as their main audience. Food items at McDonald’s contain excessive amounts of calories, fat, sugar, sand sodium. For example, there are over 540 calories in just a Big Mac sandwich alone. It would take around 45 minutes running on a treadmill to burn the same amount of calories in a Big Mac sandwich. Also, there are 28 grams of fat in a Big Mac, which accounts for 43% of your daily value of fat for the day. Not to mention

The way that Burger King and other fast food restaurant chains do business and markets their products to consumers is due to the change in our society to where the consumer wants the biggest, fastest, and best product they can get for their money. This change in society can be attributed to a process known as McDonaldization. Although McDonaldization can be applied to many other parts of our society, this paper will focus on its impact on Burger King and Taco Bell restaurants. My belief is that the process of McDonaldization has lead our generations toward a more a much more efficient lifestyle, with much less quality. From my observations and studies of these fast food resturants, several themes have become

When more fast food restaurants opened across America, the “Speedee Service System” was imitated by others, and competitors sold the same items on their menu as McDonald’s. Schlosser stated, “Entrepreneurs from all over the country went to San Bernardino, visited the new McDonald’s, and built imitations of the restaurant in their hometowns.” (22) By 1976, beef consumption has risen to 94 pounds per

McDonald’s is a drive thru restaurant where customers need to wait in line to order as well as pick up their food. This is likely the most dehumanising aspect of the company since they treated people as parts of an assembly line. Moreover, routinization such as maximising managerial control can be found in McDonald’s and it is related to the idea of Taylorism. Where Max Weber used bureaucratic model to describe the movement of the shifting society, George Ritzer believed the operation of fast food restaurants have become a more suitable contemporary paradigm in modern community. Therefore, Ritzer introduced his idea of McDonaldization in 1993 and it comprises four key dimensions: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Among these components, ‘control’ represents workers become standardized and nonhuman technologies would substitute for them. He declared that the principles of fast food restaurant would dominate more and more regions of American society and throughout the world. In fact, apart from food industry, McDonaldization expands all over the world which include bookstores (B.Dalton’s) and toy stores (Toys R Us) (Ritzer, 1993:1).

The New York Times bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is one of the most riveting books to come out about fast food restaurants to date (Schlosser, 2004). Fast food consumption has become a way of life for many in the United States as well as many other countries in the world. The author Eric Schlosser an investigative reporter whose impeccable researching and bold interviewing captures the true essence of the immense impact that fast food restaurants are having in America (2004). Beginning with McDonald’s, the first fast food restaurant, which opened on April 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois to current trends of making fast food a global realization McDonald’s has paved the way for many fast food

McDonaldization effects all aspects of today’s society—even the venues we often overlook. Two examples of some commonly overlooked McDonaldized venues are the Kimmel Center and the Hard Rock Cafe. Both of these venues emphasize the McDonald elements of success according to George Ritzer: efficiency, Calculability, predictability, and control. (14, Ritzer). Although these places may feel like a luxurious break from the everyday fast food trip, they are not all that much different.

I agree with the general stance of the author, and that is that I am extremely suspicious of McDonaldization and whether it is really a harm to society rather than a blessing. I disagree with three of the five key elements of McDonaldization, those being predictability, calculability, and control by non-human technologies. Firstly, by making the daily interactions of life more and more predictable, life loses some of its meaning. People are meant to confront all different types of situations and interactions to get a feel for the possibilities of life. For example, in the case of home-cooked meals, if people were not to occasionally receive a meal which was bad tasting, how would they be able to appreciate a really delicious meal. The whole idea of predictability goes against our ‘human-ness’, because we were all created to perform differently. Secondly, calculability leads to a belief that quantity is more important than quality. According to Ritzer, “In terms of processes, the emphasis is on speed(usually high), whereas for end results the focus is on the number of products served(usually large).”(pg. 59) In my opinion, the reason the majority of Americans are overweight is because of this “bigger is better” theory. The quality of other things is also affected in this way, such as of education, healthcare, and general productivity in a business. Thirdly, I think the increasing use

As to perfectly punctuate the paper “The McDonaldization of Society” by George Ritzer, I got tired of reading it and made my computer read it to me while I listened, which although efficient added an emphasis on all the topics Ritzer discussed in his writing. McDonaldization is the sociological term used to describe the wide spread affects of fast food restaurants on society, whose affects can be seen in almost all aspects of todays society.

George Ritzer 's book The McDonaldization of Society opened and exposed one of what can be considered societies major flaws: McDonaldization. Ritzer suggests that in the late 20th century the socially structured form of the fast-food restaurant has become the organizational force representing and pushing rationalization further into everyday lives and individual identity. Henry Ford was the first McDonaldization pioneer with his vision of an assembly line for improving the production of automobiles. His revolutionary idea dramatically changed how many automobiles could be produced and was very efficient.

Mr. George Ritzer explain that Mcdonaldization can be avoided, he gave us good explanation the only time he goes to McDonalds is to use the bathroom he also mentioned that if you have to take your kids there blind fold them something that might not sit too well with the American people . But his theory and concept states that it’s very hard to avoid Mcdonaldization because it has taken over the American society and has become part of our life’s simply what he calls the “Iron Cage” (http://www.learningace.com)

George Ritzer describes McDonaldization as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world”. McDonaldization is the idea that our society is becoming more efficient and more fast paced. Rational systems can be defined as “unreasonable, dehumanizing systems that deny the humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within them or are served by them”.1 Today there are many types of businesses that are increasingly adapting the same values and principles of the fast-food industry to their needs. Rational systems are dehumanizing our society and seem to be even more irrational than convenient. “Almost every aspect of

Fast food is currently one of the biggest businesses in the United States due to the hectic schedules that the average person has to deal with. It is often necessary to grab food on the go because there just isn’t enough time to cook at home. This is the main reason behind the tremendous success of fast food giants such as McDonalds and Burger King. McDonald 's Corporation is the world 's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948 they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles.

McDonaldization involves a process of rationalization described by George Ritzer that is utilized by sociologists (Ritzer 292). Ritzer elaborates the aspect of McDonaldization of society is manifested in situations, for example, where a society adopts the features of a fast-food joints. Worth a note, fast-foods are growing very popular because they highly fits with most individual contemporary lifestyle.

The McDonaldization theory defines the process of which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world (Ritzer 1). Within McDonaldization there are five different concepts embedded into this theory, which are efficiency, calculability, predictability, control and lastly irrationality of rationality. These concepts are not just used in fast-food restaurants, but are becoming more