Mcdonaldization

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

McDonaldization of society- the process by which ordinary aspects of life are rationalized and efficiency comes to rule them, including such things as food preparation p. 173

“The ‘McDonaldization’ of Society” George Ritzer explains what rationalization does to a community. In this essay the word rationalization can be condensed to making a society more efficient. Using the fast-food chain McDonald’s to symbolize the American culture, Ritzer efficiently conveys his idea. Ritzer focuses on five key aspects -efficiency, predictability, quantitative results, technology and control- to show the role that rationalization has on America.

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).

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

This quality diminishes uncertainty by which the unexpected is limited. Predictability becomes the most popular trait of McDonaldization when it creates identical or very similar environment with predictable employees, standardizing items and procedures.it is trusted that in the condition that is unsurprising there is less risk and offensiveness. All of the behaviors are accepted as a standard routine. Workers are prepared to utilize the contents rather than common sense while speaking with clients. In the meantime, clients are familiar with the same item displayed similarly on regular schedule.

Health care is something that affects every person in this country, and the rising cost is making it nearly impossible for people to afford. In The McDonaldization of Society, George Ritzer shows how the health care industry is changing and how the phenomenon of McDonaldization is effecting how we receive health care. Healthcare has become more efficient, calculable, predictable, and controlling. In the following sections, I will explore further these aspects of McDonaldization and how they relate to the health care industry.

Since the 1950s, food production has been transformed, that transformation has affected most of our lives. McDonalds is a perfect example of

Modern American society is difficult to explain fully. There are many aspects that must be considered in order to form a cohesive definition of modern society and how each part comes together such as bureaucracies and individual thinking. McDonaldization within bureaucracies allows us to explain how it has changed over the years and gain an understanding as to why society is the way it is now. According to George Ritzer, McDonaldization is when tasks in everyday society, specifically within bureaucracies, are rationalized to the point that they are as efficient as possible. To me, this makes sense as an explanation of what has happened to society. Emphasis is placed on how much of something can be made and with the least amount of materials necessary and least steps in order to make a profit. When Max Weber defined

McDonaldization is becoming the new wave of job types where workers are being deskilled, dehumanized and exploited. Machines are taking over tasks which the employees used to do such as bank machines (interact). The McDonaldized jobs now instead of making the employee do all the work they have the customer working too, for example when the customer cleans up after eating. These jobs are becoming less interactive and personal because workers are becoming dehumanized and only allowed to follow a script, there is also the fact that fast food Company’s use drive through, where limited interaction occurs and are many restrictions. These types of jobs which the author George Ritzer labeled

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.

. Through his research which states that by simply neglecting the variety and diversity of consumer practices in different regions and parts of the world and the various uses to which consumers can put McDonaldization, using its products and procedures to serve their own needs. There are many ways Mcdonaldization can be resisted in: social institution, education, the economy, family, as well as religion and military that our society can reverse the effects on the way we live.

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

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