The study illuminates many key features of McDonald’s fast food chains, and its applicability of its principles to a variety of other existing phenomenon is dazzling. However, Ritzer’s interpretation is primarily negative, and an extra list of the positive features of McDonaldization was included in an updated version of his study in 1996. Ritzer uses Weber’s concept of irrationality of rationalisation - the ways it happens to contradict its own goals and is both enabling and constraining. McDonaldization creates dehumanising and false atmospheres, as well as inefficiency rather than increased efficiency, high costs, artificial friendliness and false realities.
The subject is highly controversial, especially the irregularities of McDonaldization, although Ritzer does make his key objective clear: to encourage the reader into re-thinking the significant aspects of everyday life. His analysis may create strong perspectives which shed light on such general social dynamics and the mapping of the macro structures of contemporary social organisation, however, using Weberian inspired perspectives often creates a one-sided and limited optic that needs to be supplemented and expanded by further critical perspectives.
Theory of Rationalisation
In Weber’s writings, rationalisation is the progressive disenchantment of the world, the eradication of mystery, emotion, and tradition, and its replacement by rational calculation. The essence of the rationalisation process is the increasing tendency by social actors to the use of knowledge, in the context of impersonal relationships, with the aim of achieving greater control over the world around them. However, rather than increasing freedom and autonomy, rationalisation makes ends of means, and imprisons the individual within the ‘iron cage’ of rationalised institutions, organisations and activities. Weber has also been accused of being pessimistic over the prospect of the human future, more so than any of his contemporaries. Marx saw an upcoming revolution, whereas Weber’s prognosis was grim, determining that only the emergence of a charismatic figure could provide an antidote for such a dismal outlook.
Ritzer’s critique of McDonaldization criticizes the increase in the contemporary world of standardised sameness and homogenisation, and the decline of individuality, diversity and multiple taste cultures. Ritzer seems to assume that McDonald’s is unavoidably and relentlessly homogenising the world, destroying individuality and diversity.
McDonalds has now blended into an already heterogeneous urban landscape. In areas such as Hong Kong and Britain, the transnational is now the local. Seven of the world’s ten busiest McDonalds restaurants are located in Hong Kong, the epicentre of Cantonese culture and cuisine. Are food chains helping to create a homogeneous, “global” culture better suited to the demands of a capitalist world order?
Ritzer argues that McDonaldization has four dimensions which account for its phenomenal success. One of these is efficiency, for example, McDonalds offers the quickest available way to get from being hungry to being full. In such a struggling society, efficiently satisfying hunger is very attractive. Workers in a McDonaldised system also function efficiently following pre-designed steps in such a process. They are trained to work in such a way by managers, who watch over them closely to make sure that they obey the rules. Organisational rules and regulations also help ensure highly efficient work.
Calculability is an emphasis on the quantitative character of products sold and services offered. In McDonaldized systems according to Ritzer, quantity has become equivalent to quality; a lot of something, or the rapid delivery of it, means it must be good. Many customers of the McDonalds chain tend to try and calculate how much time it will take to drive to McDonalds, be served the food, consume it, and return home; then, they compare that interval to the time required to prepare food at home. The conclusion often steers towards the idea that a trip to a fast food restaurant will take less time than eating at home. Workers in McDonaldized systems also tend to emphasise the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspects of their work. In a system comparable to that of the customer, workers are expected to do a lot of work, very quickly, for low pay.
McDonaldization also provides predictability, the assurance that the products and services will be available to the same degree over time. In McDonalds, for example, the Egg McMuffin in New York will be the same as an Egg McMuffin in Hong Kong. Also, those eaten today will be the same as those yesterday and tomorrow. Customers, according to Ritzer “take great comfort in knowing that McDonalds offers no surprises. People know that the next Egg McMuffin they eat will not be awful, although it will not be exceptionally delicious, either.” The workers in McDonaldized systems also behave in conventional ways, following corporate rules and the dictations of their managers, often using scripts, leading their behaviours and interactions with customers to be highly predictable. Customers know that they are likely to be served equally, despite their age, gender race or social class.
McDonalds offers many praiseworthy programs, which benefit society, for example the Ronald McDonald houses which permit parents to stay with children undergoing treatment for serious medical problems and an enviable record of hiring and promoting minorities.
With so many apparent advantages to McDonaldization, there has to be a downside. The efficiency, calculability, predictability and control through non-human technology Ritzer explored whilst discussing the advantages of such a system can be thought of as the basic components of a rational system. In order to resist McDonaldization as a societal rationalisation, one needs to organise oppositional practices and subcultures that provide alternatives to more rationalised corporate forms of social and economic organisation.
To conclude, Ritzer’s study is valuable for helping us better understand important changes in the contemporary world that enable us to shape the social conditions that define our everyday experience and to empower us against oppressive forces. His critical analysis sheds light on the dehumanising and irrational sides of McDonaldization and encourages us to embark on our own critique and consider forms of resistance and alternatives. Ritzer primarily focuses on the event from the vantage point of the Weberian theory of rationalisation, however, adding other perspectives may add to a fuller understanding of the phenomenon. Ritzer’s own critics do not outline specific social alternatives, yet Rinehart (1998) believes that Ritzer’s approach is too individualistic and fails to express collective responses to McDonaldization.
Ritzer challenges the reader to consider precisely what form of society, values, and practices we desire. There is no question that McDonaldization is here to stay and that we need to decide how social rationalisation can serve individual and social needs and what sort of alternative we need to McDonaldization. The social dynamics of McDonaldization are extremely hard to evaluate, and Ritzer leaves us with the challenge to determine which forms of McDonaldization are positive and beneficial and which are harmful and destructive.
Ritzer has essentially begun most contemporary discussion into the problems of McDonaldization, however in the future; another term will be needed to explain a more rationalised society where McDonalds is no longer be an ideal concept.
