Society's Obsession with McDonald's

It’s a busy day, and you’re late for work. After flying out the door and waiting an eternal two minutes at a traffic light, you finally arrive at the office. The stations for each employee are precisely arranged to maximize efficiency, and your computer is monitored to accurately record the hours of work completed throughout the day. When thirty minutes of freedom finally arrives with a lunch break, you head outside to be greeted by a plethora of restaurant options. Two choices catch your eye: an old small business serving delicious sandwiches and a familiar Mcdonald’s with the “2 For $5” sign boldly posted on the window. Of course, the small restaurant serves the best sandwiches in town, but the $5 price tag for two whole burgers and another dollar for coffee never disappoints. You head into a building colored with the familiar red and yellow, and you're out door with a meal and plenty of time to spare. It has the recognizable taste of any McDonald’s meal, and that’s exactly why you come

back the next day.

This scenario happens frequently in modern society with people choosing to eat at fast food chains despite having healthier, tastier, or cheaper options. Whether or not you go to the restaurant, Mcdonald’s has slowly found a way into everyone’s lives. It’s not about the food that Mcdonald’s serves, it’s the business model they popularized for fast food chains and society as a whole.

The impact of the Mcdonald’s business model was termed “McDonaldization” by sociologist George Ritzer in his 1993 book The McDonaldization of Society. Ritzer expands upon the theses of previous philosophers such as Max Weber as he studies the rationalization of society with McDonald’s being the epitome of his argument. The author explains that McDonaldization can be divided into four categories: efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control.

Sticking to the scenario, there’s a reason we generalize McDonald’s and other restaurant franchises such as Subway, Starbucks, and Burger King under the name fast food. Most of the success of these restaurants can be attributed to their irreplaceable efficiency in service. The process of ordering then receiving food at McDonalds is fast because the business has implemented concise procedures and special machines to ensure that everything an employee does is quick. Ritzer defines this as efficiency because every action within the restaurant is done with the purpose of minimizing time. Most of the food at McDonalds is processed at a factory before being shipped to individual locations which drastically cuts the amount of on-site preparation. Additionally, the standard equipment compartmentalizes every task and allows well-trained employees to adjust to high customer activity. The “McDonald's Universal Holding Cabinet” has a colorful assortment of plastic bin food warmers that keep burger patties and fries available so the restaurant never runs out of ready-food. Specialized equipment like this maintains decisive procedures for employees and efficient food service for customers.

Universal Holding Cabinet

Complimenting the efficiency of their service, the predictability of every McDonald's restaurant is another core feature of the multi-billion dollar fast-food industry. Whether it’s in Berlin, Tokyo, or a suburban town in Northern Virginia, the food customers order at each location will taste roughly the same. Ritzer described this predictability as the second pillar of McDonaldization. How restaurant franchises achieve this predictability is tied to the meticulous practices in maintaining efficiency. As a result of aiming to deliver food quickly, it is ideal to mass produce the same product consistently.

Another important factor in deciding to eat at McDonalds was the enticing “2 for $5” deal. According to Ritzer, McDonaldization creates a stigma of valuing quantity over quality, so it is preferable to receive more food in less time. Ritzer defined this as calculability because the business model relies on convincing customers that they are receiving more for less money. Menu items also indicate quantity with familiar names such as “Big Mac” and “Double Quarter Pounder” emphasizing the size of the product. We see this in other franchises such as the famous 7-Eleven “Big Gulp” drink delivering up to 50 ounces of beverages. Within the business, everything operates with numerical values for speed, worker productivity, and the optimal weight for each shipment of frozen patties.

Tying together the McDonald's machine is the last component, control. For employees, there is little room for adjusting procedures as everyone has been assigned a specific task to maximize efficiency. Ritzer also argues that customers are implicitly controlled to ensure that everything runs according to the company’s standard. The lack of waiters or waitresses along with limited seating all ensure that customers never stay for too long.

Some argue that rationalization is a natural consequence of capitalism, and that it is not inherently wrong for society to desire fast services and low prices. However, Ritzer disagrees as “rationality brings with it great dehumanization as people are reduced to acting like robots.” The characteristics of rationalization will not be disappearing from modern society anytime soon, but observing instances of efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control in our everyday lives can be beneficial to avoiding a dull dystopian scenario that, as Ritzer wrote, “would be a very bleak and uninteresting place.”

References

Bethune, B. (n.d.). The McDonaldization of America.

https://www.indianhills.edu/_myhills/courses/SOC110/documents/lu02_mcdonaldization.pdf

Elwell, Frank W. (2013) "Ritzer on the Rationalization of Consumption," Retrieved August 31, 2013,

http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Essays/Ritzer1.htm

Hannigan, J. (2003). McDonaldization: The reader / the McDonaldization of society. American

Planning Association.Journal of the American Planning Association, 69(4), 453-455. Retrieved

from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/mcdonaldization-reader

society/docview/229626162/se-2?accountid=34939

The "McDonaldization" of Society. (2021, February 20).

https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/8111

Ritzer, G., & Miles, S. (2019). The changing nature of consumption and the intensification of

McDonaldization in the digital age. Journal of Consumer Culture, 19(1), 3–20.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540518818628