Mcdonalization A8
“McDonaldization” is the way society adopts the characteristics of the fast food restaurants. A nation driven by rationality, speed and efficiency. Ritzer used the success of the fast food restaurants as a metaphor to explain the trends happening in society.
The Ritzer’s work states five key aspects by which fast food restaurant’s work production and consumption can be compared. These aspects are calculability, efficiency, predictability, substitution of nonhuman technology and control over uncertainty.
The way fast food restaurants are set up to provide food fast make it more convenient, efficient at a high speed for people on the go anywhere at anytime make it efficient which cut time and cost. He spoke about predictable where he compared TV dinners with home cooking from scratch and which one is more predictable than the other. He also spoke about calculability which is the emphasis on quantity over quality. Where he uses McDonald’s burger to make his point about how they tell you about how many burgers were sold than the quality of its burgers.
Also, he touches on the recent events that is happening in society where machines is starting to replace humans in the workplace. For example, the self-help machines in the lobby McDonalds, the ones in the AT&T stores even the ATM machines in the banks they replaced the tellers. It’s funny when he stated that McDonalds haven’t had robots serving food yet which at the rate we are moving it’s a matter of time before it happen. But he stated that their work make them act like robots due to the automated work that they must perform for example drink dispensers that stops when cups are filled. What I found most interesting is when he mentioned religion and mentioned drive in churches and the replacement of human by television screens.
He then draws on control where he states that corporations also have control over uncertainties of life, death, birth, and production and control over the employees and customer who they serve. For example, drive through windows at night when the stores are closed.
The relationship between “McDonaldization” and the economic rationalization of Max Weber is that is used to represent the direction of the changing society. The principles of how the fast food restaurant is dominating society while weber spoke about how religion is pushing capitalism. So, both speak about the force behind the changes in society. Ritzer states that efficiency. Predictability, control and substitution are the force pushing the change in his article.
