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What Is Modern American Society

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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 …show more content…

Formal rationality has taken over the workplaces, causing most businesses to find the most efficient way of production at the expense of individual creativity and problem solving. New ideas are being made less, and the skills once required for a job have been automated and now require less skilled workers to go along with it. I feel this is a great way of explaining how things are in America’s societies today in terms of bureaucracies. Looking at McDonalization and the increasing rationalization among today’s bureaucracies, the structural functionalism perspective allows for this to make the most sense in order for society to remain stable and orderly. However, using the idea that society is inherently stable, rationalization to the

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