Mc Donaldization of Society

Pambitsa Swann

OLFCS1044

Mc Donaldization of Society.

A society is a group of human beings from other groups by mutual interests, characteristic, relationships, shared institutions and a common culture.

Mc Donaldization is the process by which the society takes on the characteristics of a fast food restaurant. George Ritzer defines that Mc Donaldization of society is the process by which the principles of the fast food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of the American society as well as of the rest of the world.

It all begun with the McDonald brothers: Maurice and Richard. In 1940, the brothers decided to open a small drive-in restaurant, because the only business that they had seen succeeding in the current economy was a little hot-dog stand. To their own surprise their business was an immediate success. Desiring bigger speed in serving clients, the two brothers closed the store down for a few months to redistribute the store.

The reasons that Mc Donalds became successful were McDonald's organization concentrated on maintaining quality of the food product, also increased store openings in hard economic times; they maintained its safe, clean store image.

Mc Donalds look at the principles of a production line assembly plan refined and applied them to the food industry, reducing manpower, wastage of food, quicker service thus serving more customers and creating more profits. By the 1950's, the combination of technological advances in preserving and storing food, the growing ownership of automobiles and the development of vast new suburbs transformed both shopping and eating habits. Fast food was designed to lure families out of the home, by providing a meal at a price that everyone could afford. The reasons for going out to use one of the new businesses no longer relied on the quality of the service that was given, but the qualities that McDonaldization give emphasis to.

The characteristics of Mc Donaldization are:

Efficiency
Calculability
Control
Predictability

Efficiency: Efficiency is advantageous to consumers who can obtain what they need more quickly and with less effort. Workers can perform their tasks more rapidly and easily. McDonaldization is efficient because everything is done quickly and easily.

Calculability: Customers in fast-food restaurants get a lot of food quickly, while the managers and owner get a great deal of work from their employees and the work is done speedily. Quantification is also linked to the creation of non-human technologies that perform tasks in the given amount of time ...

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The characteristics of Mc Donaldization are:

Efficiency
Calculability
Control
Predictability

Control: McDonaldization involves the search for the means to exert increasing control over both employees and customers. The employees have handbooks to tell them exactly how to look and what to say.

Predictability: Knowing exactly what you are going to get. Franchising plays on predictability to sell its products.

Today most families both parents work, so time is of great consequence. Having to take children to school, not always being able to take meals at regular times, so Mc Donalds provide a service especially for people who work unsociable hours.

Ritzer sees this as an addition of Webers bureaucratization procedure, as an example of the iron cage of rationality'. Efficiency, predictability, calculability and control through non-human technology can be seen as the basic components of a rational system. He argues that this leads, in fact, to irrationality, that "rational systems serve to deny human reason"

The advantages of Mc Donaldization are that goods and services are of a far more uniform quality; at least some people get even better goods and services than before McDonaldization. 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, there is comfort in the comparatively stable, familiar, and safe environment of a McDonaldized system. People can do things, such as obtain money or a bank balance in the middle of the night that were impossible before. People are more likely to be treated similarly, no matter what their race, gender, or social class. Organizational and technological innovations are more quickly and easily diffused through networks of identical operators.

Also Mc Donalds realised by puting events on (birthday parties, entartainment) lots of prime television coverage, lots of special offers, small presents for small children that would atract a lot of people. More over prime locations for their outlets i.e. the centre of towns where is a lot of people working and passing, and sea from premises at nearly all the top tourist locations are noticable.

The down side of Mc Donaldization is that they use cheap labour i.e. students, part time workers, making them work long hours for a small return. What this leads to is a high turn over in staff which can cause a lowering of standarts and lack of loyalty.

Ritzer claims that although Mc Donaldization is supposed to be rational it can lead to results that are irrational.

These include:

Inneficiency and higher costs: Mc Donaldization isnt efficient for everyone especially clients and may cost extra.
The illusion of Fun: Fun has become a guiding principle of many Mc Donalized institutions.
False Friendliness: Genuine fraternization is restricted or eliminated and replaced with either no human relationships or false fraternzation.
Health and environmental hazards: Includes health risks of fast food, food poisoning, litter and environmental hazards of factory farms.
Dehumanization: Mc Donaldization offers low skill jobs, treats customers impersonally, minimizes contact between human beings and has negative effects on families.

Today the products of one culture are more easily diffused to the others. Today we face several choices of how and where to eat. Eating can be described as the process of getting from the state of hunger to the state of satisfaction. All those ways of getting from here to there imply different grades of McDonaldization.

With the great of Mc Donaldization today a lot of companies have been formed using the principles of Mc Donalds, Pizza Hut, K.F.C., Wendys. Other industries have used a lot of the methods of Mc Donalds in their marketing, service, sales staff to enhance their products.

To conclude, there are many points in favor and many points against. But I think since the original concept of Mc Donaldization and for cheap affordable fast food is not necessarily the case. When you break down the items of what they charge they cost more. They use cheap meals just to attract customers. Most of the items they use for packaging people seem to dump them especially in city centre’s, tourist locations and places of beauty. What is more disturbing is the amount of hours people have to do for such small salaries. This is nothing short of exploitation.

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