McDonaldization of Society: Definition and Examples
Charlotte Nickerson
Research Assistant at Harvard University
Undergraduate at Harvard University
Charlotte Nickerson is a student at Harvard University obsessed with the intersection of mental health, productivity, and design.
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Key Takeaways
- McDonaldization is a term used to describe the penetration of American cultural and economic products throughout the world. It is used symbolically and is drawn from the market and ideological success of Mcdonald’s fast-food franchises all over the world.
- McDonaldization is a process through which certain principles of fast food management, such as efficiency, come to dominate the ethos of various sectors of society. It was developed by sociologist George Ritzer in his 1995 book The McDonaldization of Society .
- McDonaldization is an updated version of Max Weber”s rationalization, which argues that the traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society are being replaced with rational and calculated ones.
- The four characteristics of McDonaldized systems are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. In essence, McDonaldized systems are built to provide consistent services to many customers in a way that is often quick and low-cost.
- Critics have argued that McDonaldization spurs on effects contrary to its principles, in some cases decreasing efficiency, introducing costs that cannot be seen until far after the fact, and reducing the rights and wages of workers.
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History and Overview
McDonaldization is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant — efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control — come to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world (Ritzer, 2018).
McDonaldization, as described by Ritzer (2013), is a reconceptualization of rationalization and scientific management.
Rationalization refers to the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with rational and calculated ones.
Whereas the sociologist Max Weber (2015) used the model of bureaucracy to represent the direction of his changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as being more representative of how contemporary societies are changing.
What are the Four Principles of McDonaldization?
McDonaldization, according to George Ritzer (2018) has four key principles: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control through non-human technology.
These lie at the heart of the success of McDonald”s, and, more generally, of all McDonaldized systems.
Ritzer argues that McDonald”s and other McDonaldized systems have succeeded because they offer consumers, workers, and managers the advantages of these.
Efficiency involves finding and using the optimum method for getting from one point to another.
McDonald”s drive-through, for example, provides one of the fastest possible ways to get from being hungry to being full. The fast-food model also offers other methods for satisfying needs.
A business fashioned on the McDonald”s model may offer, or claim to offer, efficiency in, say, exercising, losing weight, lubricating cars, getting new glasses, completing taxes, making online purchases, or ride-hailing.
The workers in a McDonaldized system function by following steps in a predesigned and generally well-choreographed process (Ritzer, 2018).
Calculability
Calculability emphasizes the quantitative aspects of the products sold — such as their portion size or price — and services offered (how quickly someone can get the product).
In McDonaldized systems, quantity is equivalent to quantity — services that provide a lot of something, or are inexpensive or very fast are automatically better.
For example, the McDonald’s “Dollar Menu” quantifies both a low cost and the feeling that people are getting a lot of food for a small sum of money (Ritzer, 2018).
Consumers can also make calculations in terms of time. They may calculate, consciously or not, how much time it would take to go to a McDonald”s, be served food, eat it, and return home in comparison to the time required to prepare food at home.
Ritzer argues that this is important to other food delivery chains — say, pizza restaurants — as well as brands that emphasize obtaining any good or service quickly, such as fast fashion.
Workers within McDonaldized systems emphasize the quantitative, rather than the qualitative aspects of their work. Because the quality of work must be uniform, workers focus on how quickly tasks can be accomplished.
Ritzer (2018) argued that digital services such as Facebook and Amazon are heavily McDonalized, and that the calculability aspect of McDonaldization has been enhanced by “big data.”
Predictability
McDonaldization is also built on predictability, meaning that the products and services will be more or less the same over time and in all locations.
McDonald” ‘s hamburgers should be virtually identical today in New York as they will be next week in London. Consumers, according to Ritzer, take comfort in knowing that McDonald’s offers no surprises.
The workers in McDonaldized systems also behave in predictable ways, by following corporate roles and the demands of the systems in which they work. What workers do and even say is highly predictable (Ritzer, 2018).
The fourth element of McDonaldization, control, is exerted over the people who enter a McDonald’s. The lines, limited options, and uncomfortable seats of a McDonald’s encourage its customers to eat quickly and leave.
Workers in McDonaldized organizations are also controlled, often in a more blatant way. These employees are trained to do a limited number of tasks in exactly the way they are told to do them.
This control is reinforced by both the technologies used by the company and the way the organization is set up (Ritzer, 2018).
Advantages of McDonaldization
McDonaldization has numerous advantages, both for consumers and businesses. According to Ritzer (2018), these include:
A wider range of goods and services available to a larger proportion of the population
Availability of goods and services depends less on time or geographic location.
People can acquire what they want or need near-instantaneously
Goods and services of more uniform quality
Widely-available and economical alternatives to high-priced, customized goods and services
Services for a population that has less time due to longer working hours
The comfort of stable, familiar, and safe products
Consumers can more easily compare competing products due to quantification
Some products, such as exercise and diet programs, become safer in a carefully regulated and controlled system
People are more likely to be treated similarly despite their race, sex, social class, and so on
Organizational and technological innovations can be diffused quickly and easily through networks of identical businesses
The most popular products and services of one society can be more easily disseminated to others.
Downsides of McDonaldization
Although McDonaldized systems can enable people to do many things they were not able to do in the past, these systems also keep them from doing things they otherwise could do.
Ritzer notes that McDonaldization brings with it a number of seemingly contradictory inconsistencies, such as:
Inefficiency (rather than efficiency);
High cost (despite the promise the McDonalized goods and services are inexpensive);
falseness in the way employees relate to consumers;
disenchantment;
health and environmental dangers;
homogenization;
dehumanization.
Ritzer argues that, Although there have been many benefits that have resulted from McDonaldization such as variety, round-the-clock banking and shopping, and often speedier service, these rationally built services can lead to irrational outcomes.
By this, Ritzer means that they “deny the basic humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within or are served by them” (Ritzer, 1996).
For instance, the lines at a fast-food restaurant can be very long, and waiting to get through the drive-through can take longer than going inside. This rational system does not save people money: while people may spend less, they may do more work in the form of waiting for food.
Additionally, the food that people eat at restaurants is often less nourishing and contains high levels of flavor enhancers, fats, salt, and sugar. This contributes to the downstream health problems of society, such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, ultimately costing more than was saved by the convenience of this fast food.
As children grow up within these systems, they can develop habits that ensure their increasing dependency upon the systems.
The packaging used in the fast food industry pollutes the environment. And the ritual of fast food may take the place of that of the communal meal, reducing quality social time (Ritzer, 1996).
Examples of McDonaldization
Worker’s rights and wages.
One notable criticism of McDonaldization is that it has, in many ways, replaced skilled work with workers who must engage in repetitive, routinized, highly focused, and compartmentalized tasks.
This, sociologists have observed, has reduced workers’ rights and wages throughout the world, as workers have become easier to replace and in higher supply due to the lack of skill required to do McDonalized jobs (Ritzer, 2013).
McDonaldization occurs when any institution follows its four principles: control, predictability, calculability, and efficiency. Amazon has a large database of items that they work with and sell. This includes groceries, electronics, and digital content.
With Amazon, consumers can order virtually any item online and these products will be delivered quickly and inspected carefully. This embodies the principle of efficiency.
Amazon also exhibits calculability — an emphasis on the quantitative aspects of products served and services offered. Amazon”s price listings provide the perception that one can seek out the best deal.
Amazon has also trained its employees to behave predictably. Customer service agents follow scripts when dealing with inquiries, and Amazon moderates what sellers can sell on their website. As a result, customers can make purchases, in theory, without worrying about whether or not sellers are trustworthy.
Finally, Amazon exerts control on both its consumers and employees. The company — albeit not without ethical criticism — emphasizes timing their workers when packaging goods to ensure that these are delivered within a specific amount of time.
Robots also automate the picking of some products from warehouses. In all, this allows the company to provide a reliable and uniform experience to customers throughout the world (Ritzer & Miles, 2019).
Essay Question
In a culture built on the diverse contributions of various immigrant groups over time and the development of innovative technology, what will be the long-term effect of increased McDonaldization?
Hartley, David. “ The ‘McDonaldization’of higher education: food for thought ?” Oxford Review of Education 21.4 (1995): 409-423.
Ritzer, George. “ An introduction to McDonaldization .” McDonaldization: The Reader 2 (2002): 4-25.
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of society: Into the digital age. Sage Publications, 2018.
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of society. Sage, 2013.
Ritzer, George. “The McDonaldization thesis: Is expansion inevitable?.” International Sociology 11.3 (1996): 291-308.
Ritzer, George, and Steven Miles. “The changing nature of consumption and the intensification of McDonaldization in the digital age.” Journal of Consumer Culture 19.1 (2019): 3-20.
Weber, Max. “Bureaucracy.” Working in America. Routledge, 2015. 29-34.
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McDonaldization: Definition and Overview of the Concept
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McDonaldization is a concept developed by American sociologist George Ritzer which refers to the particular kind of rationalization of production, work, and consumption that rose to prominence in the late twentieth century. The basic idea is that these elements have been adapted based on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant—efficiency, calculability, predictability and standardization, and control—and that this adaptation has ripple effects throughout all aspects of society.
The McDonaldization of Society
George Ritzer introduced the concept of McDonaldization with his 1993 book, The McDonaldization of Society. Since that time the concept has become central within the field of sociology and especially within the sociology of globalization .
According to Ritzer, the McDonaldization of society is a phenomenon that occurs when society, its institutions, and its organizations are adapted to have the same characteristics that are found in fast-food chains. These include efficiency, calculability, predictability and standardization, and control.
Ritzer's theory of McDonaldization is an update on classical sociologist Max Weber's theory of how scientific rationality produced bureaucracy , which became the central organizing force of modern societies through much of the twentieth century. According to Weber, the modern bureaucracy was defined by hierarchical roles, compartmentalized knowledge and roles, a perceived merit-based system of employment and advancement, and the legal-rationality authority of the rule of law. These characteristics could be observed (and still can be) throughout many aspects of societies around the world.
According to Ritzer, changes within science, economy, and culture have shifted societies away from Weber's bureaucracy to a new social structure and order that he calls McDonaldization. As he explains in his book, there are four principles of McDonaldization.
- Efficiency entails a managerial focus on minimizing the time required to complete individual tasks as well as that required to complete the whole operation or process of production and distribution.
- Calculability is a focus on quantifiable objectives (counting things) rather than subjective ones (evaluation of quality).
- Predictability and standardization are found in repetitive and routinized production or service delivery processes and in the consistent output of products or experiences that are identical or close to it (predictability of the consumer experience).
- Control within McDonaldization is wielded by management to ensure that workers appear and act the same on a moment-to-moment and daily basis. It also refers to the use of robots and technology to reduce or replace human employees wherever possible.
Ritzer asserts that these characteristics are not only observable in production, work, and in the consumer experience , but that their defining presence in these areas has a ripple effect on all aspects of social life. McDonaldization affects our values, preferences, goals, and worldviews, our identities, and our social relationships. Further, sociologists recognize that McDonaldization is a global phenomenon, driven by Western corporations, the economic power and cultural dominance of the West, and as such it leads to a global homogenization of economic and social life.
The Downside of McDonaldization
After laying out in his book how McDonaldization works, Ritzer explains that this narrow focus on rationality actually produces irrationality. He observed, "Most specifically, irrationality means that rational systems are unreasonable systems. By that, I mean that they deny the basic humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within or are served by them." Many people have no doubt encountered what Ritzer describes here, when the human capacity for reason seems to be not at all present in transactions or experiences are marred by rigid adherence to the rules and policies of an organization. Those who work under these conditions often experience them as dehumanizing as well.
This is because McDonaldization does not require a skilled workforce. Focusing on the four key characteristics that produce McDonaldization has eliminated the need for skilled workers. Workers in these conditions engage in repetitive, routinized, highly focused, and compartmentalized tasks that are quickly and cheaply taught, and thus easy to replace. This kind of work devalues labor and takes away workers' bargaining power. Sociologists observe that this kind of work has reduced workers' rights and wages in the U.S. and around the world, which is exactly why workers at places like McDonald's, Amazon, and Walmart are leading the fight for a living wage in the U.S. Meanwhile in China, workers who produce Apple products face similar, if not worse, conditions and struggles.
The characteristics of McDonaldization have crept into the consumer experience too, with free consumer labor folded into the production process. Ever bus your own table at a restaurant or café? Dutifully follow the instructions to assemble Ikea furniture? Pick your own apples, pumpkins, or blueberries? Check yourself out at the grocery store? Then you have been socialized to complete the production or distribution process for free, thus aiding a company in achieving efficiency and control.
Sociologists observe the characteristics of McDonaldization in other areas of life, like education and media too, with a clear shift from quality to quantifiable measures over time, standardization, and efficiency playing significant roles in both, and control too.
Look around, and you will be surprised to find that you will notice the impacts of McDonaldization throughout your life.
- Ritzer, George. "The McDonaldization of Society: 20th Anniversary Edition." Los Angeles: Sage, 2013.
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The McDonaldization Thesis Explorations and Extensions
- George Ritzer - University of Maryland, USA
- Description
Part One centres on a discussion of Karl Mannheim's theory of rationalization. The author also assesses the degree to which sociology in general and sociological theory in particular have been `McDonaldized'. The second part demonstrates the empirical reach of the `McDonaldization' process with discussions on work, credit and globalization. Part Three moves beyond `McDonaldization' to the worlds of `new means of consumption' and the postmodern perspectives that best illuminate them. The author concludes with a re-evaluation of the McDonaldization thesis and its future. Introduction: McDonaldization and Beyond THEORETICAL ISSUES Mannheim's Theory of Rationalization An Alternative Resource for the McDonaldization Thesis?
`Ritzer here revisits and extends the ground-breaking theory he first fully expounded in 1993 in The McDonaldisation of Society, since when he has published a number of papers which take the thesis further and on which this book builds....
This is exciting, readable, provocative modern sociology that sets out to challenge the dominant trends in the construction of our brave new global world....
His work constitutes a serious academic challenge from within the very heartland of McDonaldisation and I highly recommend it to those who want to gain a perspective on post-modern society (and
sociology)' - Self & Society
`The new book will underline the importance and usefulness of the concept of McDonaldization and I fully expect that it will become a standard topic for years to come.. Fascinating, it will make an ideal focus for lectures, seminars and so on' - Alan Bryman, Loughborough University
``McDonaldization' I came to appreciate long ago - it is by now a household term!' Professor Zygmunt Bauman, Department of Sociology, University of Leeds .
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The McDonaldization of Society
- George Ritzer - University of Maryland, USA
Format | Published Date | ISBN | Price |
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Good, lively introduction to globalization that students can easily relate to
The classic text for any course exploring aspects of globalization, culture and consumption. The text provides an up-to-date analysis of the homogenisation (or McDonaldisation) of society, drawing on the most recent examples, which students can easily apply at any level of study. A fundamental and essential text for any course exploring globalisation in the context of Sociology, Geography, Politics or Economics.
This updated edition offers a new chapter which examines Starbucks. Students felt they could relate to many of the updated examples and support the ideas on environmental issues and McDonaldization
Thought provoking, helped make sense of many theories and myths around our changing society.
This is a book that applies classical sociological theory in a very interesting and wise way and so it is very insightful in explaining and understanding sociological theory in practice.
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Based upon George Ritzer's McDonaldization of Society thesis and incorporating aspects of social theory, this book examines the introduction of care management to social work practice. Donna Dustin analyzes care management as an example of the managerial application of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control to social work practice. These principles, put to good use in organizations that produce tangible outputs at a profit, are being increasingly applied in non-profit public sector organizations where the outcomes require intangibles such as professional relationships. The author examines whether the McDonaldization process heightens dilemmas such as cost versus rights for professionals working in the social services. Using social theory to frame her research with care managers and their managers in the UK, the author examines the day-to-day implications of care management for social work practice and questions whether the construction of service users as customers contributes to empowering practice. The book's in-depth analysis of the policy background, implementation and practice of care management will resonate with social workers in other national contexts, such as the US, where the care management model has been introduced.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter | 10 pages, introduction, part i | 45 pages, the macro perspective, chapter 1 | 18 pages, theorizing social change, chapter 2 | 25 pages, the context of social change: globalization, mcdonaldization and the introduction of care management, part ii | 63 pages, the micro perspective, chapter 3 | 22 pages, the impact of care management on social work practice, chapter 4 | 19 pages, consumerism, choice and empowerment in care-managed services, chapter 5 | 19 pages, the professional status of social workers practising as care managers, part iii | 44 pages, considering the macro and the micro, chapter 6 | 20 pages, care management as the commodification of care within postmodernity as late capitalism, chapter 7 | 22 pages, social work practice in the specialist field of care management.
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How JD Vance Thinks About Power
Mr. Vance has been blunt about wanting to break norms and test constitutional limits to execute his ideas: “We have to get pretty wild, pretty far out there.”
In recent years, Senator JD Vance of Ohio has been unswerving in his assessment of how Republicans should carry themselves when they win: Use every available lever of state, even if that means testing the bounds of the constitutional system. Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times
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In September 2021, JD Vance offered two predictions about former President Donald J. Trump and one piece of advice.
Mr. Trump would run again in 2024, Mr. Vance said. He would win.
And when he did, Mr. Vance counseled, he needed the right people around him this time.
“Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” Mr. Vance said on a podcast .
He continued.
“Then when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did,” Mr. Vance said, citing a (possibly apocryphal) quotation long attributed to America’s seventh president, “and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
In his U-turning path from anti-Trump author to MAGA-approved Ohio senator and running mate, Mr. Vance has developed a reputation for being ideologically pliable — open-minded, supporters say; core-less, critics counter.
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COMMENTS
In McDonaldization Ritzer expands and updates central elements from the work of Max Weber and produces a critical analysis of the impact of social-structural change on human interaction and identity. The central theme in Weber's analysis of modern society was the process of rationalization; a far-reaching process whereby traditional modes of thinking were replaced by an ends/means analysis ...
McDonaldization is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant — efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control — come to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world (Ritzer, 2018). McDonaldization, as described by Ritzer (2013), is a reconceptualization of rationalization ...
The process of rationalization leads to a society in which a great deal of emphasis is placed on finding the best or optimum means to any given end. Whatever a group of people define as an end, and everything they so define, is to be pursued by attempting to find the best means to achieve the end.
This research report provides a comprehensive analysis of the McDonaldization thesis as expounded by renowned sociologist George Ritzer from the University of Maryland. The thesis postulates the pervasive influence of fastfood values and methods in diverse domains of contemporary society.
This edition (the 6th) of The McDonaldization of Society makes much of the same argument as the previous editions, although its nature and structure have been altered somewhat to better reflect developments in the McDonaldized world as well as in the growing amount of scholarship associated with it. The McDonaldization thesis was created with the material world and material structures ...
According to Ritzer, the McDonaldization of society is a phenomenon that occurs when society, its institutions, and its organizations are adapted to have the same characteristics that are found in fast-food chains. These include efficiency, calculability, predictability and standardization, and control. Ritzer's theory of McDonaldization is an ...
McDonaldization of Society as a pivotal In this exercise, students were divided into between students' observations and Weber's teams, and each team presented to the class theory of bureaucracy and rationality.
The McDonaldization Thesis. : George Ritzer. SAGE, Feb 17, 1998 - Social Science - 212 pages. In this major new book, the author of the bestselling McDonaldization of Society provides an exploration of one of the most innovative and imaginative sociological theses of the last decade of the twentieth century - `McDonaldization'.
The McDonaldization of Society. TL;DR: McDonald's has been a global icon for decades as mentioned in this paper and has been widely recognized as one of the most successful fast-food chains in the world, despite the fact that McDonald's has a reputation for irrationality of rationality. Abstract: Preface 1. An Introduction to McDonaldization ...
Explorations and Extensions. In this major new book, the author of the bestselling McDonaldization of Society provides an exploration of one of the most innovative and imaginative sociological theses of the last decade of the twentieth century - `McDonaldization'. Part One centres on a discussion of Karl Mannheim's theory of rationalization.
McJobs and the Dimensions of McDonaldization. Efficiency: It's a Fetish. Calculability: Zeal for Speed. 6. Predictability and Control: McJobs and Other McDonaldized Occupations 2. Predictability: Scripting and Controlling Employees. Control: Even Pilots Aren't in Control. 7. The Irrationality of Rationality.
Review. The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of. Contemporary Social Life by George Ritzer. Revised edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1996. Pp xxi + 265. $17.95. George Ritzer's The McDonaldization of Society is a lucid, and, in many. ways, provocative analysis of the increasing entrenchment ...
The McDonaldization of Society, Revised New Century Edition discusses how McDonaldization and the broader process of globalization (in a new Chapter 8), are spreading more widely and more deeply into various social institutions such as education, medicine, the criminal justice system, and more.
The temporal growth is discussed from the point of view of the expansion of McDonaldization to birth and before and death and beyond; rationalization is coming to contain the entire life course (and more). Evidence of expansion does not, of course, necessarily mean that growth is inevitable. There are some hopeful social developments and there ...
Abstract In this article, we re-examine the McDonaldization thesis in light of social changes that occurred since the 1990s and notably in light of the onset of digital forms of consumption. The argument is presented that while the theory of McDonaldization remains profoundly relevant to the consumption of bricks-and-mortar locales, it is even more applicable in the digital age, as well as ...
Learn about George Ritzer's book: The McDonaldization of Society. Understand the theory of McDonaldization through its principles and examples.
The "McDonaldization" of society thesis echoes Weber's belief that rational systems are efficient, but also dehumanizing.
The "McDonaldization" of society thesis echoes Weber's belief that rational systems are efficient, but also dehumanizing.
Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like To members of a social group, people usually think of themselves as?, The sociologist who explored the primary group was ?, Generally, people in secondary relationship think of others as? and more.
Based upon George Ritzer's McDonaldization of Society thesis and incorporating aspects of social theory, this book examines the introduction of care management
The dissident Ilya Yashin calls his release in a prisoner swap last week an 'illegal expulsion' by Russia that damages his ability to be heard at home.
While Belarus played a role in the sweeping prisoner exchange last week, none of the 1,400 people classified as political prisoners in the country by a human rights group were freed.
Sociology Exam 3 T/F: Ritzer's "McDonaldization" of society thesis echoes Weber's belief that rational systems are designed to be efficient, but are dehumanizing Click the card to flip 👆 TRUE Click the card to flip 👆 1 / 25
Mr. Vance has been blunt about wanting to break norms and test constitutional limits to execute his ideas: "We have to get pretty wild, pretty far out there."