The McDonaldization of society
Introduction
Trends and technology are so much a part of daily life in our modern culture that people are
starting to use them as verbs and adjectives. For instance, when was the last time you
‘googled’ anything,’ blogged’ about a recent trip, or noticed that ‘Facebookized’ was a new
game? ‘In his best-selling book, George Ritzer practically did the same with the fast food
chain McDonald’s, The McDonaldization of Society describes McDonaldization as the
mechanism by which practically every part of society has come to dominate the values of fast
food restaurants. McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants provide an alternative to home-
cooked, labor-intensive meals that have been appealing since the 1950s to busy families.
Convenience and affordability are two of their most desirable attributes. In all facets of our
modern society, these qualities and related concepts are becoming increasingly important.
The McDonaldization of Society (Ritzer 1993) refers to the growing prevalence of the fast
food business model in common social institutions. This business model includes efficiency,
(the division of labour) predictability, calculability and control (monitoring). You receive the
same kind of items once you visit a supermarket or a grocery chain, see the same store
organization, and see the same labels at the same prices (predictability). You can find that
items are sold by the pound, so that your purchase of fruit and vegetables can be measured
instead of only guessing at the price for that bag of onions, Although the workers use a
timecard to measure their hours and earn pay for overtime (calculability). Finally, you will
find that a uniform (and usually a name tag) is worn by all store workers so that they can be
quickly recognized. There are surveillance cameras to track the shop, and certain areas of the
store are normally considered off-limits to customers, such as the stockroom (control). While
McDonaldization has resulted in improved revenues and expanded access to more people
worldwide for different goods and services, it has also limited the selection of products
available on the market while making products available uniform, generic, and bland. Think
of the difference between a mass-produced shoe and a local cobbler’s one, between a family-
owned farm chicken and a corporate grower, or between a local diner’s cup of coffee and a
Starbucks cup.
CHAPTER 1
Rationalization of society
The building block of McDonaldization is the rationalization principle of Max Weber, which
is the method of replacing rationality and productivity with conventional and emotional
thinking. Weber claimed that most societies in history were regulated by tradition and that the
most important trend in modern sociology is a growing rationalization of every aspect of our
everyday lives. He also assumed that once our culture became an iron prison, rationalization
would proceed, dehumanizing all and producing an intense degree of uniformity. Ritzer
likewise uses McDonald’s as a metaphor for society’s over-rationalization. The success of the
restaurant itself is a prime example of rationalization since traditional family meals, home–
cooked, have been substituted with realistic and easy meals. Continued rationalizations has
led to industries outside the fast food industry becoming more uniform and automated.
Advantages of McDonaldization
McDonaldized structures for strong, solid reasons have worked so phenomenally. These
systems more commonly offer the benefits of efficiency, calculability, predictability and
control associated with their basic principles. Some advantages are listed below:
• A wider range of goods and services is available to a much larger proportion of the
population than ever before.
• Availability of goods and services depends far less than before on time or geographic
location; people can now do things that were impossible previously, such as text
message, e-mail, arrange dates online, make online purchases, and participate in
online social networks in the middle of the night with people halfway around the
world.
• People are able to acquire what they want or need almost instantaneously and to get it
far more conveniently.
• Goods and services are of far more uniform quality; many people even get better-
quality goods and services than before McDonaldization.
• Far more economical alternatives to high-priced, customized goods and services are
widely available; therefore, people can afford things (e.g., IKEA furniture rather than
handmade furniture) they could not previously afford.
• Fast, efficient goods and services are available to a population that is working longer
hours and has fewer hours to spare.
• In a rapidly changing, unfamiliar, and seemingly hostile world, the comparatively
stable, familiar, and safe environment of a McDonaldized system offers comfort.
• Because of quantification, consumers can more easily compare competing products.
• Certain products (e.g., exercise and diet programs) are safer in a carefully regulated
and controlled system.
• People are more likely to be treated similarly, no matter their race, sex, sexual
orientation, or social class.
• Organizational and technological innovations are more quickly and easily diffused
through networks of identical operators.
• One society’s most popular products and services are more easily disseminated to
others.
Irrationality of rationality
Clearly, McDonaldization has strong benefits, but rational systems ultimately spawn
irrationalities. The downside of McDonaldization is most systematically discussed under the
heading of rationality’s irrationality; in fact, paradoxically, rationality’s irrationality can be
considered the fifth dimension of McDonaldization.
• inefficiency (rather than efficiency);
• high cost (even though McDonaldized goods and services are supposed to be
inexpensive); its falseness, especially in the way employees relate to consumers;
• disenchantment;
• health and environmental dangers;
• homogenization;
• dehumanization.
The increase in the number of people crowding the world, the acceleration of technological
change, and the rising speed of life make it difficult to return to a world, if it ever existed,
dominated by home-cooked meals, conventional restaurant dinners, high-quality foods,
surprise-loaded meals, and creativity-free restaurants run by chefs. Unrestricted by the
limitations of McDonaldized systems, but using the technical advancements made possible
by them, people will be much more thoughtful, professional, innovative, and well-rounded in
the future. In short, people would be better able to live up to their human potential, if the
environment were less McDonaldized.
McDonald’s: Creating The “Fast-Food Factory
Two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald, in their first restaurant in Pasadena,
California, in 1937, developed the fundamental McDonald’s method and the foundation of the
McDonaldization process. On the basis of high speed, large volume and low price, they based
the restaurant. They gave consumers a highly circumscribed menu to escape chaos. The
McDonald brothers used assembly-line techniques for preparing and serving food instead of
customized service and conventional cooking methods. Instead of professional chefs, the
limited menu of the brothers helped them to break down food preparation into basic,
repetitive tasks that could be easily mastered even by those who first stepped into a
commercial kitchen. They created guidelines that govern what employees should do and even
what they should say. The McDonald brothers took the lead in creating the rationalized “fast-
food factory” in these and other respects. Some (including McDonald’s) brick-and-mortar
locations have in the last two and a half decades, it has grown tremendously, but many others
have deteriorated drastically (department stores, big-box stores, some chain stores, shopping
malls). Overall, though not in the fast-food industry (among others), brick-and-mortar locales
devoted to consumption are gradually being supplanted in importance by the largely digital
sites. Not just other budget-minded hamburger franchises, such as Burger King and Wendy’s,
but even a wide variety of other low-priced fast-food companies have followed the
McDonald’s model. Yum! Brands, Inc. operated more than 42,000 restaurants in 130
countries and territories in 2015. Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, as well as WingStreet are the
most popular of its restaurant chains. As McDonald’s has become a resounding success in the
international arena, other forms of brick-and-mortar business are gradually adapting the
ideals of the fast-food industry to their operational needs. The bulk of restaurants at
McDonald’s are now outside the United States. More than half of McDonald’s income comes
from supervising activities
McDonald’s has become a sacred institution for many citizens worldwide, and nearly all of
them have attained their exalted place. On many occasions, Americans, and many others,
have gone through its golden arches (or through its drive-through windows). In addition,
most of us have been bombarded with advertisements extolling McDonald’s virtues, Such
ever-present ads, coupled with the fact that without bringing a McDonald’s pop into view,
people cannot drive or walk very far, have embedded McDonald’s deep in common
knowledge.
Chapter 2
Mcdonaldization past and present
While some mainly brick-and-mortar companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are
flourishing, others are dying or dead. Despite the loss of certain brick-and-mortar sites, the
vast majority of the use of those who remain will continue to occur. Nonetheless, most of it
has started to migrate to the Internet, where nearly everything can be accessed from digital
platforms, most notably Amazon (except hamburgers! at least so far). Wal-Mart, whose
thousands of brick-and-mortar stores are solid, is beginning to succeed in becoming a more
significant player in the digital world.
From the perspective of Zygmunt Bauman’s work on solids and liquids, both the distinction
between the brick-and-mortar and the interactive, as well as their relationship to each other,
can be studied. The largely solid world of brick and mortar structures and the far more liquid
facts, as they exist, among other areas, in the digital world, are of special concern here. The
fast-food restaurant is clearly one example of a solid structure. The concentration camp was
seen by Bauman as yet another solid, highly rationalized structure. Solid structures are those
that, including the movement of people and goods, regulate movement of all kinds. In
Weber’s words, all these solid structures (and other)-bureaucracies, fast-food restaurants, and
especially concentration camps-can be considered as “iron cages.” Bauman argues, however,
that while solid structures continue to exist, especially those involved in consumption, they
are largely associated with a bygone age. We are now living in an age that is largely marked
by liquidity rather than solidity. Liquid life, as he puts it, “consumes life.” This has a double
meaning: liquidity embraces more of life, and consumption is increasingly associated with
liquidity, more precisely.
Although the brick-and-mortar and the digital can still be separated, it is easier to think of
them as creating a new augmented reality that is now distinct and separable from either the
brick-and-mortar or the digital. Augmented reality is highly liquid in terms of consumption
today, including places that combine “the digital and the physical in an increasingly seamless
way, allowing a shopper to move seamlessly between the two realms.” Customers appear to
move between the two worlds frequently without realizing it. Increasingly intertwined
realities include these “bricks-and-clicks” firms. For instance, in McDonaldized brick -and-
mortar businesses, Digital components (online ordering; iPads to order food in restaurants)
are increasingly likely to be available to companies and their digital equivalents are
increasingly likely to have material components.
Despite the eroding distinction between brick-and-mortar and digital, if for no other reason
than to make it clear that the McDonaldized world of the late 20th century, and the subject of
early editions of this book, has changed drastically in the early 21st century, it is important to
deploy it in this discussion.
The changing nature of work
Most of the above focuses directly and indirectly on consumption and customers, but the
changes to be described also deeply affect staff. Unlike the industrial revolution that changed
the outlook of the industry and provided the world with jobs that replaced those that were
made obsolete, the revolution we’re facing right now lead by Artificial Intelligence will
decimate both high and low paying jobs and is very unlikely that it creates other areas of
employment. The process of automation and robotization are affecting the employment
globally. Whether it is a cashier or a farmer. Electronic methods of payment are and already
have eliminated the need for a cashier and mechanization have taken away many jobs from
the farmers.
Similarly, the essence of work is drastically shifting. “The shift from solid jobs in material
settings (like the fast-food restaurant) to more liquid virtual work is increasing; to “work
virtualization. To put this somewhat differently, a growing number of people are being forced
or willingly choose to switch from conventional, full-time positions in large organizations for
which they have earned W-2 benefits (e.g. pensions) and so on to the “gig economy”.
Many in the gig (or job) industry are part of a workforce that is “on demand.” In the gig
economy, people switch from one short-term job to another, or gig, on a daily basis. Often
the job is professional and underpaid, micro-paid, or unpaid. It could be argued that these
workers are exploited because “value extraction from their workers” is the foundation for the
networks from which they operate.
Gig staff have a hard time living economically solely on the basis of their gigs, and there is
no protection associated with such work. In addition, with only brief, or even nonexistent,
interaction with those seeking the job, it can be a lonely life. The fact that there is no
interaction with other “taskers” is also possible.
However, there are good jobs in the gig economy (‘venture labour’ where gig employees can
employ others to work for them), such as highly qualified freelance work (e.g. software
development) available on platforms such as Upwork. Gig work also offers its satisfactions,
especially venture labour, such as being inspiring, offering autonomy and great versatility in
handling a wide range of tasks.
It is however important to note that the gain of jobs in e-commerce is far greater than the loss
of jobs in the brick-and-mortar business. Full time work in e-commerce often pays more than
comparable brick-and-mortar jobs. The people however who are losing their jobs does not
necessarily mean are getting jobs in the e-commerce sector, it just means that those jobs are
going to a more educated and a highly trained segment of the population which is much more
familiar and skilled in digital world.
This journey into thinking about solid and liquid consumption puts us in a better position to
discuss and understand not only McDonald’s and McDonaldization’s most important
predecessors, but also other current consumption and McDonaldization developments,
especially digital McDonaldization.
Key predecessors of Mcdonaldization
McDonalds and Mcdonaldization didn’t appear out of nowhere. They were caused by a
number of socio and socioeconomic events that not only anticipated them but also gave them
many of the basic characteristics of Mcdonaldization. Starting from the Nazi holocaust to the
scientific management by F.W.Taylor, to the assembly line by Henry Ford.
The Holocaust had all the fundamental features of rationalisation (and therefore of
McDonaldization). It was an efficient tool for the destruction of large human numbers. In the
irrationality of reason, it represented the ultimate. To some readers, addressing the Holocaust
in the light of McDonaldization might seem extreme. Yet there are clear explanations why
the Holocaust is viewed as a precursor to McDonaldization. First, the Holocaust was
structured around the concepts of formal rationality, relying heavily on the model of that kind
of rationality, the bureaucracy. Second, the spread of formal rationality today reinforces the
view of Bauman through the McDonaldization process i.e. something like the Holocaust
could happen again.
Moving forward to Taylor’s scientific management was basically is an amalgamation of all
four principles of Mcdonaldization. Predictability, calculability and most of all efficiency.
His time and motion studies and his one best way to do the job produced a nonhuman
technology that exerted great control over the workers. But like all rational systems scientific
management also had its irrationalities. Above all, it was a dehumanizing system that treated
people as expendable. Furthermore, since workers only did one or few tasks most of their
abilities and skills remained unused.
Now if we talk about the process of Mcdonaldization and its impact on consumption we can
clearly see that while much more consumption continues and will continue to take place in
the brick-and-mortar world, the core of the McDonaldization of consumption (and much, if
not anything else), as well as the most severe examples of it, can be found not in the brick-
and-mortar world, but rather in the digital world. Digital consumption tends to be much more
effective, consistent, calculable, and regulated than brick-and-mortar consumption. This is
definitely true for users, but it is also truer for the “work” that is done on those platforms in
many respects. Since direct relationships with human staff are reduced to a minimum on
digital platforms and are completely removed in many cases, this work is increasingly carried
out without direct human intervention by a variety of non-human technologies. Since human
beings are a significant, if not the, major source of inefficiency, unpredictability,
incalculability, and loss of control, digital systems that reduce or remove, their position is
likely to approach a degree of McDonaldization unimaginable in the brick-and-mortar world
(although, of course, human beings work behind the scenes in designing, refining, and
sustaining these systems in digital systems).
Chapter 3
This chapter focuses primarily on consumers in terms of two of the four basic principles of
Mcdonaldization that is Efficiency and Calculability.
Efficiency is probably the most frequently connected dimension of McDonaldization to the
seeming rise in the speed of contemporary life. Efficiency is typically a positive thing.
Consumers who are able to access what they need more efficiently and with less effort are
obviously beneficial. Similarly, productive employees are able to execute their duties more
quickly and easily. Managers and owners benefit when more work is completed, more clients
are served, and higher profits are made. But irrationalities such as surprising inefficiencies
and the dehumanization of consumers and workers, as is the case with McDonaldization in
general, and each of its dimensions, are correlated with the quest for increased productivity.
Most importantly, in both brick-and-mortar and digital (e.g. websites) environments, the push
for productivity has the irrational effect of the great reduction, if not near-total removal, of
human workers. Prosumers (a combination of consumers and producers) are gradually doing
the job alongside automated systems, those paying employees once did, for no pay.
Efficiency means selecting (or making someone select for you) the best means to a certain
end. Furthermore, it is rare to find the truly optimum means to an end. Individuals and
institutions rarely optimize because they are Hampered by factors such as historical
constraints, financial conditions, organizational realities, and human race limitations.
Consumers and employees seldom try for the best means to an end on their own in a
McDonaldized society; rather, they prefer to focus on previously discovered and
