The Big Question: Is society resembling more and more a fast food restaurant?

Seem ridiculous? Ask yourself again in 3 weeks. The value of these ‘outline’ pages is to go through some of the links, which provide examples.

Sociologist Max Weber and rationalization – a big historical process

• Societies are becoming more formal, more ordered, more institutional — why?
• Think of exceptions (wilderness hiking? With your dog?? Religion?? “Slow food” movement? Organic? Burning man? Confused? Read the FAQ! Or check out the glossary!)
• Self-help books—do they really help anyone but the author and the self-help industry??
• Modern education, socialization—why does it take industrial societies so long to socialize their young?
• Size, complexity, and social order . . . Rationalization is one effort to explain the relationship.
  • Weber asks, as institutions get bigger, more complex, how to manage them?
  • Specialization, formal rules, hierarchical (usually pyramidal, ‘top-down’) structure, separation of office and office holder, accountability/documentation/calculability, efficiency …
• The bureaucracy is the organizational expression of this—not the ‘red tape’ definition that is synonymous with bad administration, though;
• Bureaucracies have evolved because they are seen as more efficient, predictable ways to control people and organizations; (think of the organizational chart);
• Specialization—why?
• Rationalization’s genocidal extremes: Hitler and the holocaust

McDonaldization–applying rationalization, the principles of fast food

• Franchising—chains (think of malls—they’re all the same all over, right? Even in other countries)
• Uniformity of product
• Control over production (from spud farmers to trainees), specialization—should sound like Weber
• Spawned a shift in eating habits
• Don’t forget profit—McDonaldization if often embraced or adopted for commercial gain (but not all—efficiency is a powerful motivator–e.g., public agencies use it)
• Language—McMansions, McJobs, other McWords
• Retail and consumption—mainly deals with private sector, capitalism, customers, etc.
• It’s global

So . . . . how to accommodate a huge lunch crowd without turning people away???

Four principles of McDonaldization (come up with examples outside of fast food)

Efficiency

• Streamlining processes
  • e.g., breaking down jobs into simplified tasks requiring little training to perform)
  • Waiting in lines ….
• Simplification (e.g., menu, choices, terror alerts)
• Unpaid work (by customers: busing tables, getting drinks, ATMs, opening doors, parking cars, self-service, etc.)
• Efficiency isn’t NEW (F.W. Taylor’s time and motion studies) . . . but its use in the food sector was novel (and profitable).
• Efficiency for whom? (who benefits from McD’s efficiency–corporate executives, shareholders, customers ….. wage workers?)

Calculability

• Money, profit
• Price (how to weather a pandemic)
• Quantity over quality (why is Starbuck’s ‘tall’ coffee their smallest size??)
• Engineering operations (even ‘dressing’ a Big Mac is a multi-step process, created by the geniuses at Hamburger University)
• Role of globalization, sweatshops in maximizing profit
• Using research to increase sales . . . (and professional photography)
• Externalities, most of them negative …
• Change in the wind: But fresh beef changes the calculability equation

Control

• Replacing humans with machines (automation)
• Controlling humans (consumers, workers, scripts, ‘mystery shoppers’–but be careful–this particular piece is classic source filtering–surveillance, presidents, etc.). Would you like your lecture notes supersized today??
• The Brand. Control over image important?
• Why control? How do humans fit into the scheme of rationalization? What kind of workers are McDonaldized firms looking for?

Predictability

• Uniformity of product–every quarter pounder with cheddary cheese, every french fry, should taste the same, whether it’s made in Sheboygen, Wisconsin, Tokyo, or Guadalajara.
• The role of branding (what about McDonald’s? Here’s more).
• Ultimate goal–predictability of profit, income (by creating uniform products consumers develop some loyalty to)
• A certain portion of consumers want predictable products, and McDonaldized businesses want . . . predictable consumers.

I present the four principles in a slightly different order than Ritzer, because I think they’re easier to understand when grouped. Efficiency and calculability are so interrelated sometimes they’re hard to separate. And as for control and predictability, it’s the control that leads to that uniformity of product, the predictability that lies at the essence of the consumer experience of McDonaldization.

Try it at home!

• Automotive industry (brakes & mufflers; oil change (Oil can Henry’s); tires; transmission
• Beauty/cosmetics (nails, hair cutting)
• Health care (surgicenters; Lens Crafters)
• Education (any examples? What can it look like?)
• Money: taxes, (and ‘refund anticipation‘ checks!), banking? Investing?
• Travel industry? Are there McDonaldized cruises (is this real??), for instance? Airlines?
• Death: discount caskets
• Entertainment: Streaming services
• School: many K-12 schools now feature branded fast food, outsourced online curricula
• Child care (kinder care)
• Books/publishing (the books ‘for dummies‘; even Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Society is, well, sort of McDonaldized–can you tell how?)
• Hotels (motel 6, Holiday Inn, etc.)
• Weddings (Las Vegas style)
• Political campaigns?? Even foreign policy??