George Ritzer's The Mcdonaldization Of Society: Sociology
Jennifer Kleinhenz
Sociology 465
Dr. Li
June 7, 2010
McDonaldization of Society
In the novel “The McDonaldization of Society,” George Ritzer defines 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” (Ritzer 1) and explains how this concept not only affects people who eat at fast food restaurants but basically every citizen of the United States. Since the beginning of Ray Kroc’s revolutionary idea to bring the franchise concept to the McDonald brothers’ small hamburger restaurant in 1940, McDonald’s has dominated the fast food industry in sales as well as their conception of how to run their restaurants. The idea of McDonaldization has been applied to many other areas of society …show more content…
besides McDonald’s, such as other restaurants and fast food chains, the healthcare system, tourism, media, and especially higher education and retail stores such as Wal-Mart. By following Max Weber’s theory of rationalization and applying Ritzer’s theory of McDonaldization, the Western society has knowingly (or unknowingly) changed its leisurely pace of business to a world where every aspect of business is designed to run efficiently, predictably, calculably, and completely controlled in order to make the maximum amount of money possible, no matter who is harmed in the process.
George Ritzer builds his thesis on the fundamental foundations of Max Weber’s theory of rationalization.
Max Weber, a German sociologist, viewed bureaucracy as the most efficient way of running a large-scale business, and McDonald’s is the epitome of this type of company. His theory of rationalization assumes that social interaction and institutions progressively aim for mastery of all actions by calculation and that values, traditions, and emotions are all being replaced by formal, impersonal practices. Ritzer takes Weber’s assumptions and incorporates them into his own hypothesis of McDonaldization, which basically turns rationalization into a theory involving McDonald’s and their business interactions and rules. By building their business on the three principles of large volume, high speed, and low price, Dick and Mac McDonald led the way for Ray Kroc to develop the idea of franchising, where a large firm can sell the distribution of its products and ideas to smaller firms and collect the profit. Kroc eventually went on to become a billionaire due to his ingenious business ethics and revolutionary ideas, and fully achieved the “American
dream.”
The four main dimensions of McDonaldization, according to George Ritzer, which dominate the aspects of modern business, are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control by non-human technology. The first dimension is efficiency, or finding the optimum means to a given end or task completion and working towards it as fast as possible. Ultimate efficiency discourages creativity and can result in greater productivity, increased profit, and less discretion for workers. At McDonald’s, they demonstrate this dimension by simplifying every aspect of preparing the food, from preparation to serving to dealing with customers in an assembly-line type process. In mainstream society, efficiency has broadened to many institutions, such as shopping malls, supermarkets, online dating websites, and higher education. Some other examples that Ritzer gives are Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and salad bars, which seem convenient, but actually decrease the level of human interaction between the employees and the customers, and make the customer do the employee’s work to maximize efficiency (McDonaldization.com - What Is It?). The second dimension involves calculability, or carefully calculating and quantifying each aspect of the take-out process. In calculability, all features of products sold and services offered are carefully measured out in order to produce, “a number of positive consequences, the most important being the ability to produce and obtain large amounts of things very rapidly. Customers in fast-food restaurants get a lot of food quickly; managers and owners get a great deal of work from their employees, and the work is done speedily,” (Ritzer 79). This dimension is especially linked with the other dimensions, and can especially increase efficiency, which can make the results more predictable, and help to control the other variables. McDonald’s particularly emphasizes the quantity aspect of its meals to attract customers, using names such as the “Big Mac” and “Extra Value Meals,” rather than quality, which is usually jeopardized in the standardization of its meals. Other fast-food chains have caught on to this idea, particularly Burger King, which features “BK Stackers” and “Whoppers” (where customers can choose three to four burger patties) and Denny’s, which features “Grand Slam Breakfasts” (where customers can consume up to 1,270 calories and 77 grams of fat in one meal) (Ritzer 81-82). Outside of the fast-food industry, calculability can be linked to healthcare, where increased profits are more important than the quality of the care, and television shows, where the ratings and number of viewers of the show are more important than the content of the program. Predictability, the third dimension of McDonaldization, includes knowing what to expect at all times throughout the business transaction. Knowing what will be the outcome of an action gives comfort to customers as they can expect they will be given the same product no matter their location, to workers as they can expect to perform the same actions each day, and to managers in the restaurant, as they can rely on corporate guidelines to dealing with each situation that may arise throughout the workday. As Ritzer puts it, “to achieve predictability, a rationalized society emphasizes discipline, order, systematization, formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation” (Ritzer 97). Outside of McDonald’s, this may be applicable to motel chains, such as Best Western and Holiday Inn, which offer the exact same hotel service in 80-100 countries, much like McDonald’s, which offers the same restaurant in 118 countries across the world. The final dimension of McDonaldization is control, or controlling humans through nonhuman technology. By using uniform materials, skills, rules, regulations, procedures, and techniques, employees begin to operate in the same manner as machines, which is the ultimate goal of those trying to increase production and eliminate error, uncertainty, and unpredictability. Obtaining control also brings increased productivity, greater quality control, and lower cost to the business. Also, ensuring technological control gives customers assurance of consistency of their products and services and helps eliminate error. McDonald’s has perfected this by regulating every step of the employee’s job, from cooking French fries with a pre-determined timer to dispensing soft drinks by pushing a button that automatically fills the cup to a certain level. This level of control has been expanded to many other industries, such as infertility clinics, which allow unnatural births to take place, and childbirth, which is more regulated by birthing machines than by trained midwives or doctors.
Although the four dimensions presented by Ritzer were perfected by Kroc in order to maximize profit and keep customers and employees satisfied, quite often the opposite is the end result. “For customers, calculability often means eating on the run and consuming food that is almost always mediocre. For employees, calculability often means obtaining little or no personal meaning from their work; therefore the work, the products, and services suffer,” (Ritzer 79). Over-predictability of the workday “has a tendency to turn everything – consumption, work, management – into mind-numbing routine,” (Ritzer 98) and rationality ultimately ends up becoming increasingly irrational as customers and employees become disenchanted with their lives, feel dehumanized, and lose contact with others. High cost, health/environmental dangers, homogenization, and false friendliness are just a few of the other negative aspects that result from trying to over-rationalize too much of the business world.
The first contemporary case of McDonaldization is especially pertinent to this Sociology class and Ohio University as an institution. Higher education has increasingly become more rationalized over the past few decades, making men and women feel alienated and objectified. College education has traditionally been in a classroom involving teachers and students, where learning a specialized trade has been the main focus, and where main concepts and ideas were passed back and forth toward teacher and learner. However, with increasing numbers of student bodies, the student to teacher ratio has grown larger and larger across the nation. Rather than lose money by hiring more professors, colleges and universities have solved this problem by allowing larger and larger lecture halls, where class sizes of two hundred or more are not uncommon. Instead of grading those two hundred exams or papers by hand, electronic ScanTron tests are used to demonstrate efficiency, calculability, and control by non-human technology. Grades and grade point averages are now more focused on than the learning aspect and mastery of a subject. Predictability is more widespread throughout the country as the same editions are used for each class and teachers are given less choice as to what materials they are able to use for their courses. Perhaps the most extreme form of efficiency is the growing popularity of online education. Online colleges and universities such as the University of Phoenix and Walden University completely eliminate professor to student contact and students are expected to master all materials in the privacy of their own home. Students may be attracted to the flexibility of online education but may not realize the importance that comes from discussion and one-on-one interaction with peers and teachers. In the process of earning a degree without human interaction, students may be alienated in the process, which is one of the undesired byproducts of irrationality.
Another case of McDonaldization is the Wal-Mart Corporation. Sam Walton began his business ventures opening up a small thrift store in the 1950s. He took a gamble and opened up his first Wal-Mart later that decade in hopes of changing the way Americans bought retail. His idea caught on to millions of Americans, and by 1962 he had franchised eleven Wal-Mart Stores, similar to Ray Kroc’s idea of expanding the McDonald’s corporation. Wal-Mart has since opened business in approximately 6,200 stores across the world and had sold more than $312.4 billion in products in 2005. Because Wal-Mart is known as the McDonald’s of retail industries, its business tactics, which include offering the lowest prices possible as whatever detrimental cost possible, some Americans have major problems with the way Wal-Mart runs its business. An editorial from the New York Times states that “Wal-Mart 's prices are about 14 percent lower than other groceries ' because the company is aggressive about squeezing costs, including labor costs. Its workers earn a third less than unionized grocery workers, and pay for much of their health insurance. Wal-Mart uses hardball tactics to ward off unions. Since 1995, the government has issued at least 60 complaints alleging illegal anti-union activities….This Wal-Martization of the work force, to which other low-cost, low-pay stores also contribute, threatens to push many Americans into poverty. The first step in countering it is to enforce the law. The government must act more vigorously, and more quickly, when Wal-Mart uses illegal tactics to block union organizing. And Wal-Mart must be made to pay if it exploits undocumented workers,” (The Wal-Martization of America). Just as McDonald’s has done, Wal-Mart has also perfected its business using efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. However, trying to regulate every single aspect of business comes with unintended and harmful consequences that the general public has to pay for.
In conclusion, the way that Ray Kroc proposed that business should be run was meant to help customers and employees alike, in the way that products were handled, the way that food is served, the way that uniformity was supposed to bring reassurance to diners no matter their location. His idea of franchising was supposed to bring prosperity to business owners and to help capitalism flourish throughout America. McDonald’s was supposed to allow cheap, hot, and fast food to be available for Americans with even the smallest of incomes, while being a modern convenience for even the busiest of schedules or largest of families. And it was. The McDonald’s Corporation is now a global icon of fast food and the Golden Arches are now a recognizable symbol for the entire world. But what consequences does this type of success bring? The extreme rationalization of a fast-food corporation who abides by the four dimensions of calculability, predictability, efficiency, and control, and who follows those dimensions in every aspect of business, not only dehumanizes the employees, but alienates customers as well. It has forced American society into a type of fast paced and uncaring landscape where increased profits are the main goal of every line of business, from health care to education. Because this type of business has also transferred to retail stores such as Wal-Mart as well as the popularity of higher education, McDonald’s should stop and reconsider the repercussions of its actions. Should the ultimate goal of every business be to make the most profit allowable? Should worker happiness and satisfaction be sacrificed? Should customers be handled like cogs in a machine that are dealt with as quickly as possible and forced out even quicker? And finally, how many other institutions across the United States are going to adopt this line of thinking? If America does not slow down and change its priorities, there is no telling where the McDonaldization concept will spread and how many will be harmed in the process.
References
"McDonald 's History." About McDonald 's. Web. 06 June 2010. .
"McDonaldization.com - What Is It?" McDonaldization.com - Exposing the Iron Cage! Web. 06 June 2010. .
Phenix, Cecilia. "George Ritzer 's Theory of McDonaldization: A Modern Weberian Theory?" Associated Content - Associatedcontent.com. 14 May 2007. Web. 06 June 2010. .
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Pine Forge, 2008. Print.
"The Wal-Martization of America - Editorial - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 15 Nov. 2003. Web. 05 June 2010. .
Sociology 465
Dr. Li
June 7, 2010
McDonaldization of Society
In the novel “The McDonaldization of Society,” George Ritzer defines 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” (Ritzer 1) and explains how this concept not only affects people who eat at fast food restaurants but basically every citizen of the United States. Since the beginning of Ray Kroc’s revolutionary idea to bring the franchise concept to the McDonald brothers’ small hamburger restaurant in 1940, McDonald’s has dominated the fast food industry in sales as well as their conception of how to run their restaurants. The idea of McDonaldization has been applied to many other areas of society …show more content…
besides McDonald’s, such as other restaurants and fast food chains, the healthcare system, tourism, media, and especially higher education and retail stores such as Wal-Mart. By following Max Weber’s theory of rationalization and applying Ritzer’s theory of McDonaldization, the Western society has knowingly (or unknowingly) changed its leisurely pace of business to a world where every aspect of business is designed to run efficiently, predictably, calculably, and completely controlled in order to make the maximum amount of money possible, no matter who is harmed in the process.
George Ritzer builds his thesis on the fundamental foundations of Max Weber’s theory of rationalization.
Max Weber, a German sociologist, viewed bureaucracy as the most efficient way of running a large-scale business, and McDonald’s is the epitome of this type of company. His theory of rationalization assumes that social interaction and institutions progressively aim for mastery of all actions by calculation and that values, traditions, and emotions are all being replaced by formal, impersonal practices. Ritzer takes Weber’s assumptions and incorporates them into his own hypothesis of McDonaldization, which basically turns rationalization into a theory involving McDonald’s and their business interactions and rules. By building their business on the three principles of large volume, high speed, and low price, Dick and Mac McDonald led the way for Ray Kroc to develop the idea of franchising, where a large firm can sell the distribution of its products and ideas to smaller firms and collect the profit. Kroc eventually went on to become a billionaire due to his ingenious business ethics and revolutionary ideas, and fully achieved the “American
dream.”
The four main dimensions of McDonaldization, according to George Ritzer, which dominate the aspects of modern business, are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control by non-human technology. The first dimension is efficiency, or finding the optimum means to a given end or task completion and working towards it as fast as possible. Ultimate efficiency discourages creativity and can result in greater productivity, increased profit, and less discretion for workers. At McDonald’s, they demonstrate this dimension by simplifying every aspect of preparing the food, from preparation to serving to dealing with customers in an assembly-line type process. In mainstream society, efficiency has broadened to many institutions, such as shopping malls, supermarkets, online dating websites, and higher education. Some other examples that Ritzer gives are Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and salad bars, which seem convenient, but actually decrease the level of human interaction between the employees and the customers, and make the customer do the employee’s work to maximize efficiency (McDonaldization.com - What Is It?). The second dimension involves calculability, or carefully calculating and quantifying each aspect of the take-out process. In calculability, all features of products sold and services offered are carefully measured out in order to produce, “a number of positive consequences, the most important being the ability to produce and obtain large amounts of things very rapidly. Customers in fast-food restaurants get a lot of food quickly; managers and owners get a great deal of work from their employees, and the work is done speedily,” (Ritzer 79). This dimension is especially linked with the other dimensions, and can especially increase efficiency, which can make the results more predictable, and help to control the other variables. McDonald’s particularly emphasizes the quantity aspect of its meals to attract customers, using names such as the “Big Mac” and “Extra Value Meals,” rather than quality, which is usually jeopardized in the standardization of its meals. Other fast-food chains have caught on to this idea, particularly Burger King, which features “BK Stackers” and “Whoppers” (where customers can choose three to four burger patties) and Denny’s, which features “Grand Slam Breakfasts” (where customers can consume up to 1,270 calories and 77 grams of fat in one meal) (Ritzer 81-82). Outside of the fast-food industry, calculability can be linked to healthcare, where increased profits are more important than the quality of the care, and television shows, where the ratings and number of viewers of the show are more important than the content of the program. Predictability, the third dimension of McDonaldization, includes knowing what to expect at all times throughout the business transaction. Knowing what will be the outcome of an action gives comfort to customers as they can expect they will be given the same product no matter their location, to workers as they can expect to perform the same actions each day, and to managers in the restaurant, as they can rely on corporate guidelines to dealing with each situation that may arise throughout the workday. As Ritzer puts it, “to achieve predictability, a rationalized society emphasizes discipline, order, systematization, formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation” (Ritzer 97). Outside of McDonald’s, this may be applicable to motel chains, such as Best Western and Holiday Inn, which offer the exact same hotel service in 80-100 countries, much like McDonald’s, which offers the same restaurant in 118 countries across the world. The final dimension of McDonaldization is control, or controlling humans through nonhuman technology. By using uniform materials, skills, rules, regulations, procedures, and techniques, employees begin to operate in the same manner as machines, which is the ultimate goal of those trying to increase production and eliminate error, uncertainty, and unpredictability. Obtaining control also brings increased productivity, greater quality control, and lower cost to the business. Also, ensuring technological control gives customers assurance of consistency of their products and services and helps eliminate error. McDonald’s has perfected this by regulating every step of the employee’s job, from cooking French fries with a pre-determined timer to dispensing soft drinks by pushing a button that automatically fills the cup to a certain level. This level of control has been expanded to many other industries, such as infertility clinics, which allow unnatural births to take place, and childbirth, which is more regulated by birthing machines than by trained midwives or doctors.
Although the four dimensions presented by Ritzer were perfected by Kroc in order to maximize profit and keep customers and employees satisfied, quite often the opposite is the end result. “For customers, calculability often means eating on the run and consuming food that is almost always mediocre. For employees, calculability often means obtaining little or no personal meaning from their work; therefore the work, the products, and services suffer,” (Ritzer 79). Over-predictability of the workday “has a tendency to turn everything – consumption, work, management – into mind-numbing routine,” (Ritzer 98) and rationality ultimately ends up becoming increasingly irrational as customers and employees become disenchanted with their lives, feel dehumanized, and lose contact with others. High cost, health/environmental dangers, homogenization, and false friendliness are just a few of the other negative aspects that result from trying to over-rationalize too much of the business world.
The first contemporary case of McDonaldization is especially pertinent to this Sociology class and Ohio University as an institution. Higher education has increasingly become more rationalized over the past few decades, making men and women feel alienated and objectified. College education has traditionally been in a classroom involving teachers and students, where learning a specialized trade has been the main focus, and where main concepts and ideas were passed back and forth toward teacher and learner. However, with increasing numbers of student bodies, the student to teacher ratio has grown larger and larger across the nation. Rather than lose money by hiring more professors, colleges and universities have solved this problem by allowing larger and larger lecture halls, where class sizes of two hundred or more are not uncommon. Instead of grading those two hundred exams or papers by hand, electronic ScanTron tests are used to demonstrate efficiency, calculability, and control by non-human technology. Grades and grade point averages are now more focused on than the learning aspect and mastery of a subject. Predictability is more widespread throughout the country as the same editions are used for each class and teachers are given less choice as to what materials they are able to use for their courses. Perhaps the most extreme form of efficiency is the growing popularity of online education. Online colleges and universities such as the University of Phoenix and Walden University completely eliminate professor to student contact and students are expected to master all materials in the privacy of their own home. Students may be attracted to the flexibility of online education but may not realize the importance that comes from discussion and one-on-one interaction with peers and teachers. In the process of earning a degree without human interaction, students may be alienated in the process, which is one of the undesired byproducts of irrationality.
Another case of McDonaldization is the Wal-Mart Corporation. Sam Walton began his business ventures opening up a small thrift store in the 1950s. He took a gamble and opened up his first Wal-Mart later that decade in hopes of changing the way Americans bought retail. His idea caught on to millions of Americans, and by 1962 he had franchised eleven Wal-Mart Stores, similar to Ray Kroc’s idea of expanding the McDonald’s corporation. Wal-Mart has since opened business in approximately 6,200 stores across the world and had sold more than $312.4 billion in products in 2005. Because Wal-Mart is known as the McDonald’s of retail industries, its business tactics, which include offering the lowest prices possible as whatever detrimental cost possible, some Americans have major problems with the way Wal-Mart runs its business. An editorial from the New York Times states that “Wal-Mart 's prices are about 14 percent lower than other groceries ' because the company is aggressive about squeezing costs, including labor costs. Its workers earn a third less than unionized grocery workers, and pay for much of their health insurance. Wal-Mart uses hardball tactics to ward off unions. Since 1995, the government has issued at least 60 complaints alleging illegal anti-union activities….This Wal-Martization of the work force, to which other low-cost, low-pay stores also contribute, threatens to push many Americans into poverty. The first step in countering it is to enforce the law. The government must act more vigorously, and more quickly, when Wal-Mart uses illegal tactics to block union organizing. And Wal-Mart must be made to pay if it exploits undocumented workers,” (The Wal-Martization of America). Just as McDonald’s has done, Wal-Mart has also perfected its business using efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. However, trying to regulate every single aspect of business comes with unintended and harmful consequences that the general public has to pay for.
In conclusion, the way that Ray Kroc proposed that business should be run was meant to help customers and employees alike, in the way that products were handled, the way that food is served, the way that uniformity was supposed to bring reassurance to diners no matter their location. His idea of franchising was supposed to bring prosperity to business owners and to help capitalism flourish throughout America. McDonald’s was supposed to allow cheap, hot, and fast food to be available for Americans with even the smallest of incomes, while being a modern convenience for even the busiest of schedules or largest of families. And it was. The McDonald’s Corporation is now a global icon of fast food and the Golden Arches are now a recognizable symbol for the entire world. But what consequences does this type of success bring? The extreme rationalization of a fast-food corporation who abides by the four dimensions of calculability, predictability, efficiency, and control, and who follows those dimensions in every aspect of business, not only dehumanizes the employees, but alienates customers as well. It has forced American society into a type of fast paced and uncaring landscape where increased profits are the main goal of every line of business, from health care to education. Because this type of business has also transferred to retail stores such as Wal-Mart as well as the popularity of higher education, McDonald’s should stop and reconsider the repercussions of its actions. Should the ultimate goal of every business be to make the most profit allowable? Should worker happiness and satisfaction be sacrificed? Should customers be handled like cogs in a machine that are dealt with as quickly as possible and forced out even quicker? And finally, how many other institutions across the United States are going to adopt this line of thinking? If America does not slow down and change its priorities, there is no telling where the McDonaldization concept will spread and how many will be harmed in the process.
References
"McDonald 's History." About McDonald 's. Web. 06 June 2010. .
"McDonaldization.com - What Is It?" McDonaldization.com - Exposing the Iron Cage! Web. 06 June 2010. .
Phenix, Cecilia. "George Ritzer 's Theory of McDonaldization: A Modern Weberian Theory?" Associated Content - Associatedcontent.com. 14 May 2007. Web. 06 June 2010. .
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Pine Forge, 2008. Print.
"The Wal-Martization of America - Editorial - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 15 Nov. 2003. Web. 05 June 2010. .