Problem?

Some quick answers

• Confined animal feed operations (what are the risks, what is the quality?).
• Low-wage work, McJobs?
• Corporations’ ability to outcompete locally owned businesses
• Consumption–environmental costs? Such as? Public health costs?
• Dehumanization, Homogenization …
• Displacement of workers, professionals (e.g., artists, musicians, writers)
• Does that harm the career prospects of artists, musicians, writers, etc.? What about eating habits and health effects on the public?

Affect large numbers of people?

• Think in terms of groups
• Think causes and consequences here
  • Labor force, income groups, race, age, gender, social class, investors, consumers corporations, politicians, etc.

Causes

Hmmm. Tough one.

• Is it capitalism and the profit motive?
• Clever advertising and persuasion? A society’s desire for more convenience?
• What creates the perceived need for that convenience (i.e., why does it take two incomes, why is there so little time, think about more structural causes)?
• Is it as Weber says about rationalization, some irreversible process?

Consequences

• Again, think in terms of groups–who is harmed?
• Harms to individuals (diet, consumption patterns, etc.)
• Harms to the environment (resource use, waste, food production)–whose backyards are fouled?
• Harms to various groups
  • workers, artists, musicians, writers, people working in the factory farming biz, people living near factory farms, people living in giant subdivisions, citizens, countries of the South (how?), small businesses, local economies (what happens to profits?)
• Harm to institutions
  • education, democracy, law enforcement, corrections, media, etc.
• Society
  • Social control of sorts? How?

Who benefits?

• Consumers? Investors? Owners? Producers of the raw materials that go into McDonaldized processes? Plants and animals?
• The more people and groups that benefit, the more resistance to public debate, negative framing, social action
• Food industry

How framed?

• Who has access to mass media? What kinds of mass media (e.g., radio, TV, Internet, print)?
• Are those media McDonaldized?
• What are some common messages? Individual choice? Personal responsibility? Cheap food? Who are the targets? How are they targeted?
• Who has advertising dollars and can hire PR firms?
• Who can buy influence legislators with campaign donations and lobbyists? What avenues do the critics have to compete in the public debate? What role do media, especially commercial media, play in all this (lots here–not just editorial decisions about news coverage, but decisions about what to cover, about what advertising to seek and accept)? What are the framings that are most often used?

What to do?

• Individual choices (consumerism, job market)
• The government (local, state, federal, etc.)?
  • regulating advertising? (Some promise to “do better”)
  • school, TV, physical activity?
  • Tax high-fat foods?
• Social movements (‘slow food,’ ‘smart’ growth,’ education?)
• The Food Industry fights back
  • Meet Ruth Kava (nutritionist for the food industry)
  • Fast food ban, anyone?? (Sourcewatch’s take)?
• How about beyond the fast food example? Does ‘the free market’ work?
  • Where do consumers get their information? Here, or here?
• Art, music, religion, literature, therapy/self-help, etc. What’s wrong with a trend toward McDonaldization? Who benefits and who pays a cost?
• Natural resources and energy, the environment and McDonaldization–any connections?
  • Do McDonaldized businesses and the increased consumption they encourage have environmental impacts? Such as?
  • What would happen to the trend of McDonaldization if the price of oil quintupled?
• Private industry–what can they do, what can be done?
• The marketplace–What if McDonaldized enterprises had to internalize some of the costs that other people end up paying?

Social control

• Eating habits
  
  • Health effects?
  • Quality of life, longevity
• Politics