McDonald’s is a fast-food restaurant (in case you are from Mars and didn’t know). Other fast food restaurants have modeled themselves after McDonald’s, which suggests they had a business model that was successful. McDonaldization, on the other hand, is a social process. It is the process by which various aspects of society take on many of the features of McDonald’s restaurants. It is the adoption of the fast food principles to a broader social context. More generally, it is an example of what sociologist Max Weber referred to as rationalization. As sociologist George Ritzer says in his book, McDonaldization of Society:

McDonaldization is an amplification and an extension of Weber’s theory of rationalization. For Weber, the model of rationalization was the bureaucracy (or thought of another way, the bureaucracy is the organizational variant of rationalization); for me, the fast-food restaurant is the paradigm of McDonaldization (p 23).

So McDonaldization is really a variant of a process identified by Max Weber, which he coined rationalization.

Weber and rationalization – a BIG process

Weber said that societies are becoming more formal, more ordered, more institutional. In essence, as societies grow and become more complex, new arrangements are necessary to maintain social order. Look at school, care for the elderly (nursing homes …), transportation (traffic, road systems, mass transit, air travel, etc.), government, customer service, newspapers, law enforcement, child care, telephone communications, markets, recreation (no we interpret nature for park visitors), time, warfare (technology, specialization, media) . . . even the holocaust. How? Well, what would your society do if it had tens or hundreds of millions of people? How do you handle mass production and mass consumption? Weber says that rationalization implies:

• There are more formal rules about how things work or ought to work (think welfare bureaucracy);
• There is a separation of office and officeholders. If officeholders considered their jobs as private property, we’d probably see a lot more bribes and corruption. Imagine having to bribe the registrar to get your grades recorded . . .
• Hierarchies. As institutions get bigger, more complex, how do we manage them? How does a welfare bureaucracy look? Top down?
• The bureaucracy. This is the organizational expression of rationalization. We’re not talking about the ‘red tape’ definition that is synonymous with bad administration, though. Bureaucracy is the rationalization of social organization. Bureaucracies have evolved because they are seen as more efficient, predictable ways to control people and organizations (think of the typical organizational chart, how responsibilities are delgated, etc.). One way we do this is by specializing tasks.

Ritzer is basically claiming that fast food is the model to explore rationalization; Weber said the same about bureaucracies. What Ritzer’s saying is really pretty revolutionary. He’s contending that not only is society becoming more and more rational, rule-bound, formal, and specialized, but it’s becoming more like a McDonald’s restaurant. Chew (or choke?) on that one for a few minutes.

Ritzer talks about the four features or characteristics of McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. We’ll get to how this relates to welfare (though the low-wage work angle should already be apparent). But first, some background.

What’s so revolutionary about McDonald’s?

• Franchising-chains. Thousands of them. Think of malls–the stores at one mall in Tri-Cities are about the same at another mall in Biloxi, Mississippi. They’re franchised chains.
• Uniformity of product. You can get the same product or service wherever you go, whether it’s Kyoto, Japan or Dalhart, Texas (a little more local feedlot stench in Dalhart, though). It may not be good, but it’s predictable.
• Control over production, from the potato farmers to the trainees in restaurants. Also, specialization.
• Spawned a shift in eating habits. For both good and bad … does this affect welfare recipients?
• Don’t forget profit-most of McDonaldization is done for commercial gain, but not all-efficiency is a powerful motivator, and that’s why we even see elements of McDonaldization in the public sector (e.g., EOU, welfare bureaucracy).

What other fast-food chains have taken on the McDonald’s model?
Do any offer themselves as an alternative??

Let’s look at the four basic features that Ritzer says characterizes the process of McDonaldization:

This should help you if you’re struggling with understanding the four features of McDonaldization, and trying to come up with your own examples of how they operate (which I strongly encourage).

Efficiency

Ritzer says efficiency increases profit:

• Streamlining processes–getting customers in and out more quickly, making sandwiches more quickly, dealing with rush hour traffic through the store/restaurant.
• Getting customers to perform unpaid work. Do they fill their own drink orders? Rewind their own videotapes? Clean off their own tables? Check out their own groceries? Do their own course registration?
• Simplifying choices. Think of the McDonald’s menu–limited choices makes it easier for employees, who then don’t require extensive training and can be paid low wages, (making them of little value to the company and likely increasing turnover rate). How about radio stations? Do they have simplified menus, formulas? Do mainstream movies deal with an extremely limited range of topics, in extremely limited ways that involve sexual tension, some gun-related violence, possibly massive retribution of demonized villains, and heroic white male characters? What about the nightly network news? Candidates for political office?

Remember this key question: efficiency for whom? Who really benefits from efficiency? The workers? Customers? Owners? Shareholders? Hopefully you’re seeing how this stuff relates to low-wage work opportunities. What about the process of applying for or receiveing welfare assistance? Any elements of McDonaldization there? As Hays describes it, is it designed to efficiently place workers into low-wage employment? Jump through hoops (as opposed to following beeps and buzzers) like applying for jobs/attending classes?

Calculability

There are a couple of key points here:

• Quantity over quality. Does the quality of the product or service suffer because they’re trying to crank out a lot of it, to mass produce it? If so, they’re likely to emphasize things like the size of the drinks or hamburgers, or the number sold (presidents don’t talk about the quality of their policies, they talk about ‘approval ratings’). If quality isn’t suffering, this may not apply. The Merry Maids were more about speed than killing germs. WalMart doesn’t say they offer the best brands in the world–just everyday low prices and refund policies when your plastic stuff breaks. If a firm is in the business of mass production, it is likely making a choice that quantity is more important than quality, and will find ways to justify this choice.
• The money thing. How meticulous is the company in trying to control costs? For instance, some factories in Mexico will ask applicants to do an hour of unpaid ‘probationary’ work, to see if they have the skills and qualifications to do the job. No doubt this is part of the business model–the more hours of unpaid labor, the greater the profits for the company. Local, independent stores are not likely to look at their operations in terms of profits. For some businesses, the most important product wasn’t the product at all, but the atmosphere–people may come to a coffee house for the conversation, the ambiance, for instance.

With respect to welfare, much is often made about the amount of money spent, usually as if it’s a large sum being provided to people many of whom may be among that ‘undeserving’ population we’ve discussed in class (the ‘able-bodied’…). What about the outcomes of this welfare? Is it in fact leading to greater self-sufficiency for single-parent families? Do people gain the skill sets they need to navigate the work world? Are those on or near the ‘bottom rung’ able to compete successfully with those slightly higher, so that they don’t end up being trapped in low-wage employment with no benefits?

Control

All control shouldn’t be equated with McDonaldization. Just because a company doesn’t let its employees work in bikini thongs or unpatriotic T-shirts doesn’t mean that it’s controlling them in the sense Ritzer describes. You might think about control in different way:

1. Control over employees might mean they have to follow scripts, have to wear uniforms, have to perform their tasks in a very specific way, have little to do besides watch machines, etc. Control helps to standardize products or services, which leads to greater, what (fill in the correct principle of McDonaldization–you have a 1 in 3 chance… )? At the extreme end would be companies or organizations that have employees posing as customers to enforce the standardization of their behavior. The ‘secret shopper’ phenomenon. Better be on your best behavior . . . . (and remember, in the syllabus I expressly state that if you’re ‘secret shopping’ in my course, you must disclose this before the midterm exam!).
2. Control over customers can be seen when you examine the ubiquitous theme parks–the way visitors to the parks are herded around, to avoid crowds, to keep flow constant, handle parking, to take them to the gift shops, create the illusion they’re almost at the front of the line for a ride, etc. How about control over welfare recipients? Do any of our readings suggest this? Hays’ critique talks at length about the social control of and private intrusion into recipients’ lives, in the names of ‘accountability’ and ‘personal responsibility.’

Predictability

The idea behind predictability is that people don’t like getting something different every time they visit–they want the same product, they want the same floor plan, they want the same smiling faces in the same brightly colored uniforms saying the same sunny scripted phrases, because statistically this might increase the chances we’ll come back again (just in case the need for a complete happy meal collectible character collection isn’t sufficient motivation). Predictability doesn’t just mean knowing the store will be there next time you visit, or you’ll have a place to park the car–look at it this way–if all places of business do it, it’s probably not a property of McDonaldization (for instance, having the cash registers in the front of the store–true it’s good, and it’s efficient, but it’s also standard business practice). Here are some examples:

• The French fries and the potatoes that make them (McDonald’s and others are relentless about how potatoes must be grown if they’re to end up in their computerized fry vat)
• The flight attendant’s smile, the script, the product, the service–some companies build their reputations on the friendliness of their customers–you WILL smile.
• Hollywood’s major film studios–how many plot formulas actually exist in mainstream cinema (let’s see, there’s simmering romance with a side of sexual tension, wholesome family flick with lovable critter subplots, coming-of-age, done-me-wrong followed by violent retribution, down-and-outer finds redemption, macho action hero with female groupies in lieu of plot . . . . )
• ‘Dressing’ burgers in the proper order–who’s worked in a McDonaldized workplace?
• Talk shows–why does Rush Limbaugh say essentially the same thing every day? How often did Jay Leno go with edgy jokes (hint: never)?
• Higher education–University of Phoenix faculty basically use cookie cutter syllabi, and are paid what amounts to less than $10/hr
• WalMart’s store layout–every store is essentially the same, with a right or left entry variation
• Sports–how much has become dictated by TV? The tiebreaker in tennis (length, advertising, etc.); making baseball games shorter . . . changes in scoring, . . .
• The news–format, sequence, etc. We want ‘news’ first, then weather teasers, then the consumer alert story, then sports with the ex-jock, then more weather, then a human interest, then the hard-hitting consumer report, sprinkled generously with commercials . . .

Control gives predictability. But in terms of meaningful work, work that an employee can put as a resume-builder, there’s not much. It benefits the employer. So does welfare when it kicks in the difference between the wage and what it takes to get by (e.g., with the EITC or other benefits). Many McDonaldized businesses offer products and services ‘cheaper,’ which becomes attractive to those with less income, those working in the low-wage sector, those drawing welfare.

Okay, but what does it mean??

So, what does all this suggest for the job market? What kinds of jobs are out there for TANF recipients pushed into ‘work first’ programs? In terms of advancement, learning new skills, maintaining their health, pulling out of poverty? Who benefits from these? From this perspective, does the earned income tax credit look more like a beneficial program for welfare recipients, or a subsidy for employers who offer jobs at far below living wages?

In the case of fast food (more and more jobs becoming McDonaldized):

• Little opportunity for advancement—these are low wage, low-security jobs, with little ability to build human capital, to increase social mobility, or income for that matter
• Need for public subsidies–to what extent to taxpayers subsidize these low wage jobs, because those who must take them can’t survive without some forms of public assistance?
• More control, less creativity–if the business model is about increasing sales, and that means employees are scripted, or their jobs very specialized, how are people spending 1/3 of their lives? As a society, would we rather have (for instance) singles mothers balancing child-rearing and work, or consigning their kids to a day care facility?
• Work and satisfaction–is it unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to realize some job satisfaction? Karl Marx long ago recognized that mass production could alienate of the worker from the product (that is, take some of the meaning out of work, unless one finds his/her meaning in increasing company profits)
• Feminization of low-wage work? In the film we watched, Fast Food Women, a few interesting statements are made:
  • Men won’t apply for these jobs, especially if they’ve got a wife and kids at home
  • Most of these workers don’t need benefits, because Dad’s got all the benefits ‘under the sun’ working at the mine (or at least did, until he was laid off)
  • Many of the women in the movie are working these jobs to make ends meet because their spouses lost their better paying jobs in the mines (and would these jobs, perhaps, be considered ‘beneath the dignity’ for some men, unless they were in management positions??). Many of these women may have to take what’s available, like it or not
• Drive to efficiency–does this dilute the quality of product, work? There were lots of examples of machines being used to make the workplace more efficient (the pizza dough roller, the carrot cutter, measuring out the pizza dough in 5 oz increments, etc.). In some cases, people in these jobs are replaced by machines (e.g., the automated customer service system) or people working in other countries for a fraction of the ‘cost,’ and I put ‘cost’ in ‘quotes’ because businesses often perceive, or at least treat, labor as a cost, rather than a source of wealth.

Many of the low-wage jobs being created are increasingly McDonaldized, meaning …

• They’re not building human capital (‘unskilled’ jobs, although as Ehrenreich makes clear and the movie as well, all jobs require various kinds of skills, some having to do with the job and how to perform it, others having to do with how to survive in a low-wage labor market)
• Low security, no benefits (again, not building much of any capital, human or otherwise)
• Welfare burden—taxpayer-subsidized jobs (financed with whose income?? Are the people working in these jobs paying income taxes? Consider this:
  • More and more jobs are McDonaldized
  • We know that these low wage jobs make it nearly impossible for families to survive without public assistance
  • If the wage strucure declines or stagnates (because more and more jobs are McDonaldized), where will the income tax revenue come from to subsidize low wages?
• The same burdens exist—people will still need child care, health care, housing, transportation—We already have welfare programs to provide these for the most disadvantaged among us. The lack of adequate services is not getting any better for people in low wage work, as costs of living outpace increases in wage, and they’re already surviving on the the economic margines. So what does this suggest about the next generation?? How will children in households where parents are working low-wage, low-security jobs build the human capital necessary to not only survive, but realize social mobility?

In addition, this isn’t an indictment of employers everywhere. McDonaldization is a social and historical trend. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily inevitable (although Max Weber might argue it is). It doesn’t mean all employers, especially corporate ones, are evil and greedy (CostCo provides a decent counter example). There are pressures on publicly-traded corporations, from investors, from managers, from executives, to maximize profit. That’s what corporations are supposed to do in a capitalist economy, and it’s supposed to provide the incentive to produce, create wealth and new jobs. Aren’t they just filling a demand? Don’t consumers want McDonaldized products? Many seem to, and it says right there on the golden arches–billions and billiions sold.

Right? Yes, but it’s obviously more complex than that. The workforce has changed, there are less full-time jobs, wages have stagnated as many manufacturing sector jobs have been ‘outsourced’ to other countries with cheap labor and few environmental restrictions, and to make ends meet in most households in the U.S., it’s been necessary for all the adults to work to survive economically (bringing especially more women into the workforce over the last 40 years). With two income earners, yes, the convenience of McDonaldized services, getting your oil changed in 15 minutes over the lunch hour while still grabbing a bite to eat for instance, is alluring. The advertising industry makes sure that these are seen not so much as luxuries, but as needs for the modern, stressed out family. To make their lives easier. So don’t see this as an indictment of McDonaldization–we may like or dislike what it does to workers caught in it. But it is a trend, and we have a pretty good idea of what people will end up being most affected by it, at least with respect to job opportunities among those with low human capital …