McDonaldization

According to George Ritzer, with whom the academic use of the term originates, McDonaldization is “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world” (Ritzer 1993:1). As such, McDonaldization does not refer to the spread of McDonald's restaurants throughout the world, and nor does it refer to the fact that more and more areas of life are copying McDonald's. It is undoubtedly the case that the latter happens, but it is only part of what Ritzer means by McDonaldization. Instead, McDonaldization refers to the diffusion of the principles that the restaurants exemplify.

Ritzer sees McDonaldization as an aspect of the continuing rationalization of more and more areas of social life. This process has been identified by many of the early classical sociologists like Max Weber. The term was devised in large part as a medium for helping students and others to understand the process of rationalization. The process of McDonaldization draws on a number of developments that precede the emergence of fast-food restaurants. Ritzer singles out scientific management, Fordism, and bureaucracy for special mention as precursors of McDonaldization. The first of these, which was expounded by Frederick Winslow Taylor at the turn of the twentieth century, called for the breaking down of work tasks into minute components, which were then reassembled in the most efficient combination. Fordism was influential in the spread of McDonaldization in building upon scientific management by recognizing the need for fragmented jobs to be linked together so that a standardized product could be manufactured through a continuous production flow. Regarding the notion of bureaucracy, McDonaldization takes inspiration from the regulation of organizational behaviour through rules and regulations as well as through tight managerial control. Thus, these three influences, all of which are features of creeping rationalization, are seminal influences on the process of McDonaldization, though they predate the first McDonald's restaurant by many decades.

McDonaldization has to do with the spread of the principles of the fast-food restaurant. As such, McDonald's merely acts as a symbol for these developments. It is, of course, a very high-profile symbol, but the point is that McDonald's itself only exemplifies the principles. Ritzer outlines four dimensions of McDonaldization, all of which can readily be seen in a McDonald's restaurant: [Page 486]Efficiency. This refers to the implementation of the optimum means for a given end. A McDonald's restaurant is efficient in a number of ways but particularly in the sense that it is geared to allowing a large number of people to be supplied with food. It is efficient from the point of view of both the restaurant and the consumer.

Calculability. This means an emphasis on things that can be counted. In the specific case of McDonald's restaurants, this is revealed in a number of ways. The restaurants used to proclaim the number of millions and later billions of burgers that McDonald's had sold. But more significantly for Ritzer, they convey the impression that the consumer is getting a large amount of food for a small expenditure of money (e.g., Big Mac).

...