Chapter 2

George Ritzers The McDonaldization Phenomenon

2.1 McDonaldization . McDonaldization is a term invented by George Ritzer to describe a sociological phenomenon that is happening in our society. It is derived from McDonalds, the most recognized fast-food chain in the world, which most sociologists like Ritzer, coined it as the golden arches because of its sign and yellow color that stands for the big letter M. Further, the end ion entails that it is a process. The term is actually a collective term. By this, it means that it comes from shared thoughts or concepts. For it is in this term that Ritzers speculation on rationalization is situated. At the time he found fascination, albeit negatively, on fast food chains, particularly that of McDonalds, he consequently joined the terms rationalization with that of the name McDonalds because he believed that McDonalds is the most appropriate icon as regard to the process of rationality. The main concept of McDonaldization involves some form of rationalization of certain ideas and methods to coincide with how the society evolved in general. The progressive McDonaldization is perhaps most seminal of the many present-day trends since it augurs, or brings in its wake, a thorough revolution in business practice as well as in the most essential aspects of daily-life culture. While McDonalds has brought many positive elements to our culture, it is also eroding much of our life and vitality. At McDonalds, the workers are dehumanized by being forced to

mechanically recite scripts in their interaction with people, wear ridiculous uniforms and make hundreds of the same hamburgers day after day while earning pitiful wages in the process. For their part, the customers are dehumanized by lining up to choose which oversized portions of greasy grub they will devour while sitting in hard plastic booths. Both of these roles seem less than ideal, especially in comparison to the diners of the old times where actual servers had real conversations with their customers before guiding them to make a carefully chosen decision among wide variety of reasonablysized options. Ritzer explicated in his book entitled The McDonaldization of Society the value of rationalization and most notably, its harmful effects. Further he wrote in this book what he really meant of the term McDonaldization, 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.1 and how the principles of McDonaldization such as efficiency, quantifiability or calculability, predictability, and control through replacement of human with non-human technology affects the lives of men. Each of these principles will be tackled as well in this chapter. Moreover, the said definition will be explicitly elaborated as we make out through the contents of this research. Ritzer wrote in his book that, McDonaldization not only affects the restaurant business, but also education, work, travel, leisure-time activities, dieting, politics, the

George Ritzer, The McDonalization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. 1.

family, and virtually every other sectors of society.2 If we try to examine these sectors that Ritzer enumerated we might as well recognize that from these changes, the process is not only rapidly changing the world but along with it is pushing man away from his true worth in the world. Ritzer even added that such a wide range of phenomena will be discussed under the heading of McDonaldization that one is led to wonder: What isnt McDonaldized?3 By the time man comprehend of what is going on with the world he lives, he shall probably try to escape from the iron cage of rationality, as Weber would calls it, and begin searching for things which are not products of rationalization. From then one can realize that almost nothing is left that is not affected. In his book, Ritzer scrutinizes the meticulous ways by which the triumph of the American hamburger chain has impacted upon not only economic patterns, but in particular on a multitude of facets of social life in general. In addition, to make clear how the process of McDonaldization occurs; the process of McDonaldization takes a task and breaks it down into smaller tasks. This is repeated until all tasks have been broken down to the smallest possible level. The resulting tasks are then rationalized to find the single most efficient method for completing each task. All other methods are then deemed inefficient and discarded. The result is an efficient, logical sequence of methods that can be completed the same way every time to produce the desired outcome. The outcome is predictable. All aspects of the process are easily controlled. Additionally, quantity (or calculability) becomes the measure of good performance.

2 3

Ibid., 1. Ibid., 15.

Nevertheless, it turns out that over-rationalizing a process has an unexpected side effect. It is called irrationality. In a sociological context that simply means that a rationalized system may result in events or outcomes that are neither anticipated nor desired, and in fact, may not be so good. On the other hand, the researcher, would like to make it clear that this thesis is not to condemn progress and innovation nor does it yearn to return to past old days where everything was slow and inefficient compared today, but that, it only wishes to shun human beings from the irrationalities brought by the phenomenon. As to quote from the work of Ritzer: the time when it was slower, less efficient, had more surprises, when people where freer and when one were more likely to deal with a human being than a robot or a computer. Although they have a point, these critics have undoubtedly exaggerated the positive aspects of a world before McDonalds, and they have certainly tended to forget the liabilities associated with such a world. More importantly, they do not seem to realize that we are not returning to such a world.4

In this evaluation of George Ritzer, he holds that if we continue living in a McDonaldized society, people will lose the potential to be resourceful because they are unfettered by constraints of rational systems. Furthermore, there are predecessors of

McDonaldization which are worthy of naming because from them gave the rise of McDonalds and for that matter, McDonaldization. 2.11 Bureaucracies and Max Webers theory

Ibid., 13.

As said earlier, McDonalds comes from a series of developments which shaped the structure of what McDonaldization is at present. Long before McDonalds and McDonaldization, there have been sequences of companies, organizations and important personnel whom due to their unique way of operational approach have influenced and changed the paradigm of the work-world. Business in general and McDonalds in particular are just products of these predecessors. To name some, and among the most influential and the most associated with McDonaldization is the bureaucracy; the height of formal rationality.5 It is in Webers theory that George Ritzer is able to conceptualize his ideas of rationalization and McDonaldization. As the researcher observes it, Ritzer merely reconceptualized the ideas of Weber. For Weber, the role models for rationalization are bureaucracies while for Ritzer fast-food chains (particularly that of McDonalds). However, it is Ritzer that emphasized its domains as being efficient, predictable, calculable, and imposes control. Going back to bureaucracies, Weber realizes that bureaucracies are formally rationalized structures because it not only develops rules and regulations that lead its employees to make the best choices of means to reach at certain ends, but that instead of just guiding people to follow the given method they are coercing the people to follow, therefore, no innovations or any other way of doing a task it should be procedure that

Formal rationality is a term coined by Max Weber that is-a distinctive rationality of the modern west which means that the search by people for the optimum means to a given en is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures; that individuals are not left to their own devices in searching for the best means of attaining a given objective. Rather, there exist rules, regulations, and structures that either predetermine or help them discover the optimum methods.

they have provided. the bureaucracies themselves are structured in such a way as to guide or even to force people to choose certain optimal means to ends.6 Thus, in this case we can already make out the manifestations of rationalization such as speed and efficiency. Nevertheless, along with these manifestations also brought mans first glimpse of its irrational consequences. The most noteworthy is dehumanization either by the service crew or those being served. These rationalized settings are places in which the self is placed in confinement. Its emotions controlled, and its spirit subdued. In short, these are settings by which people cannot behave as human beings; they are dehumanized.7 Moreover, Weber was very much alarmed about the irrationalities brought by formally rationalized systems, like the case of bureaucracies, yet he was even more concerned of the future events. Weber anticipated a society in which people would be locked into a series of rational structures, and their only mobility would be to move from one rational system to another. Thus people would move from rationalized educational institutions to rationalized workplaces and from rationalized recreational settings to rationalized homes. There would, in effect, be no escape from rationality; society would become nothing more than seamless web of rationalized structures It was then that Weber coined the term the iron cage of rationality8. The society that Weber feared most is that when these systems would grow more and even more rational that it so rapidly governs numerous sectors of society by rationalized principles. 2.12 F.W. Taylors Scientific Management
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 20. Ibid. 8 Iron cage of rationality is an over power of rationalization by which these are cages in the sense that people are trapped in them and their basic humanity is denied by them.
7 6

Scientific management creator was Frederick W. Taylor. His ideas were so influential that it shaped the paradigm of working throughout the twentieth century. The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work . . . This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it. And whenever the workman succeeds in doing his task right, and within the time limit specified, he receives an addition of from 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. to his ordinary wages.9 Taylor developed principles designed to rationalize work and other organizations were amazed by the success of his working style many large organizations then hired Taylor so that he may implement his ideas in their workforce. Taylor was able to observe that many business style of work were lacking in efficiency, hence, his principles were distinctively designed to make work more efficient. His studies are called time-andmotion studies. He did studies of workers he regarded as already reasonably efficient in order to discover the best way to do a job. He broke tasks down into a minute component and attempted to discover the one best way of doing each of them. When he felt he had discovered the best way to do a job, he selected workers and taught them to perform the work in exactly the way he prescribed.10 However, like all rationalized systems, Taylors scientific management also had its irrationalities; it is after all a dehumanizing system. People were treated like animals or mechanical robots. Workers were compelled to do only specific things as a result; most of their skills and abilities they were unable to show and/or use.

10

Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Row, 1947), 2. Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 24.

Taylorism undeniably, have shaped the way people work especially manual work. Not new to this scenario is the McDonalds. The company unreservedly, developed Taylorism in the way they organize their employees. Labor in the fast-food restaurant is highly rationalized, and the goal is the discovery of the best, the most efficient way of grilling a hamburger, frying chicken, or serving a meal. McDonalds did not invent these ideas, but rather brought them together with the principles of the bureaucracy and of the assembly line to contribute to the creation of McDonaldization11 2.13 Henry Fords Assembly Line Henry Ford is the genius behind the invention of the Assembly-Line. He together with the Ford engineers were able to come with the idea from other industries such as meat packing which Henry ford diverted and enhanced it, as a result, created the automobile assembly line, and it was in the automobile industry that the assembly line found its best-known manifestation. Along about April 1, 1913, we first tried the experiment of an assembly lineIn the early part of 1914 we elevated the assembly line. We had adopted the policy of man-high work; we had one line twenty-six and three quarter inches and another twenty-four and one half inches from the floorto suit squads of different heights. The waist-high arrangement and a further subdivision of work so that each man had fewer movements cut down the labour time per chassis to one hour thirty-three minutes. Only the chassis was then assembled in the line...Now the line assembles the whole car.12

The Assembly line signified an outstanding breakthrough in the rationalization of production and various manufacturing companies adopted it. In relation, akin to bureaucracies and the fast-food restaurants, the automobile assembly line marvelously
11 12

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 25. Ford, Henry. My Life and Work (New York: Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1922), 34-35.

demonstrates the basic elements of formal rationality; it promotes efficiency, predictability, quantification, and control over workers. Going further, If at our present rate of production we employed the same number of men per car that we did when we began in 1903and those men were only for assemblywe should to-day require a force of more than two hundred thousand. We have less than fifty thousand men on automobile production at our highest point of around four thousand cars a day!13 as if Ford is expecting that putting a large number of unskilled men, yet highly focused on a particular task, in a moving conveyor belt is far better and efficient than hiring few talented craftsmen asking them to build a car. As Ritzer explains it,

There is little or no room for innovative ways of doing a specific task. Assembly lines are nonhuman technologies that allow fewer, less-skilled people to produce cars. Furthermore, the specialization of each task permits the replacement of human workers with robots. The routine repetitive tasks required on the line are just the kind of work that robots were created to handle. Once tasks have been simplified so they can be handled by human robots, stage is set for the replacement of human by non-human robots. We are beginning to see more and more assemblyline-tasks being handled by mechanical robots.14 Despite its results of bigger profits, the assembly line is clearly dehumanizing by which to do a job. For, man as he is, is endowed with a wide array of talents and skills; hence, asking him to do a job in a highly simplified way again and again, enables him to show these innate capabilities, for in this setting man cannot express himself. Moreover, in an assembly line people are imposed to act in a robot-like manner, denying themselves. Yet, this is only one of the most notable way by which the seemingly rational assembly line operates in an irrational manner.

13 14

Ford, Henry. My Life and Work (New York: Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1922), 38. Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 26.

Relating this settings to fast-food restaurants, if people are cautious enough it is clear how fast-food chain operates in an assembly line manner. Taking for example their workers, their tasks are broken down into limited tasks. In the same way customers are also placed on a kind of assembly line; taking for example are the drive-thru windows. The McDonalds company is like one big feeding machine. Going back to the automobile assembly line, it is noteworthy that through the success of it, lead to the mass production of affordable cars which in turn led to the expansion of highways, increasing of gasoline stations, and as well as the increasing construction of fast-food chains, hotels and more. Sequentially, these things serve as the foundation of a McDonaldized society. 2.14 William Levitt and Sons in their production of the Levittown Levittown is a company building houses, founded by William Levitt and his Sons. It was the success of the automobile assembly line that gives the rise of the Levittown. This Levittown is a planned community from inception to completion. Unlike the previously discussed custom of the automobile industry with their adoption of the assembly line, Levitt and Sons thought the idea of using assembly lines in producing sub-urban houses. But this time, unlike the automobile companies that have factories, because they are producing houses instead of the products being moved out it is their workers that move their building sites. In addition, the Levittown took much use of the assembly line through their workers and the quality of houses are via McDonaldized standards; quantity over quality (see page__). The workers performed specific tasks, just like in the previous tackled automobile assembly line. One

of the sons of Levitt said the same man does the same thing every day, despite the psychologists. It is boring; it is bad; but the reward of the green stuff seems to alleviate the boredom of the work.15 Hence, just like how the automobile assembly line is treating their employees goes the same with how the workers feel in the Levittown, though the thought of increased income due to mass-production of motivated them somehow. Furthermore, to add more of the rationalization settings are the constructed warehouses, woodworking shops, plumbing shops, and a sand, gravel, and cement plant by the Levitt so that, all they need for construction will also be coming from their own businesses, in this way it is very efficient. The houses they built were lookalikes with the same measurements, the same color, the same materials used, and most especially, the same way workers are told to do the job. Everything to make it look the same they did. More importantly, like the mass-production of automobile, the massproduced houses are also affordable so that people quickly filled the Levittown. Furthermore, as McDonaldization refers to quantity over quality. The Levittowns advertisements are all referring to size and value that they sell a large quantity of area at low cost, which is a very quantifiable factor. 2.15 The Shopping Mall The shopping malls are also one of the products of the mass-production of automobiles. Perhaps because of the increasing rate of tourist, and these malls passed all the basic requirements of being in a McDonaldized society. Actually, it is over

15

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: 1993), 28.

qualified! It s a highly rationalized place to be in; a highly rationalized and gigantic selling machine and it is gluttonous, always hungry for consumption. Furthermore, it is the shopping malls wide area of reaches that the McDonalds also increased in number, for every mall is a target of fast-food chains, particularly McDonalds. Moreover, it can be said that people really love this thing; they even bartered their agricultural territory because they want a shopping mall. Thus, shopping malls helped so much in the McDonaldization of society. When a new mall is built, the chains line up to gain entryThus the malls and the chains need on another.16 That is because these chains occupy countless spaces in the malls. Thus, in sequence, from mass-production of automobiles to the mass-production of sub-urban houses, shopping malls and chains all together weigh up the process that is McDonaldization. All of which help extend the reaches of what is McDonaldization; for so long as these settings continue to exist McDonaldization continues to exist. 2.16 McDonald brothers and Ray Kroc in creating the McDonald Empire The McDonalds is originally created by two brothers Mac and Dick McDonald. They based the restaurant on the quantifiable principles of speed, volume, and low price. In order to avoid chaos, customers were offered a highly circumscribed menuutilized assembly-line procedures for cooking and serving foodlimited menu allowed them to break down food preparation into simple, repetitive tasks that could be learned quickly even by those stepping into a commercial kitchen for the first timedeveloped rules and regulations dictating what the lead in the development of the rationalized fast-food factory.17

16 17

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 30. Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 30.

The McDonald brothers were contented on keeping the business that way until Ray Kroc arrived in the scene on 1954. Kroc saw the future of what is McDonalds than to the McDonald brothers. So at first, Kroc worked in partnership with the brothers but later on he was able to buy them out and he was then free to build the business to however he wants it to. Krocs real ambition was to make the business national and international through franchising. McDonalds and McDonaldization, then, do not represent something new but rather the culmination of a series of rationalization process that had been occurring throughout the twentieth century.18 Needless to say, a lot of how McDonalds operates today is still the concept created by the McDonald brothers; the few choices of food, the approaches, all wearing the same uniform and many other are still preserved from the original creator. Ray Kroc, however, was not that creative but he has big dreams for the business and because he wanted to make it become an international business so desperately, he was able to adopt the business with the franchising industry. So franchising is counted as a great precursor also of the growth of the business. Franchising is a system by which, one large firmgrants or sells the right to distribute its products or use its trade name and process to a number of smaller firmsfranchise holders, although legally independent, must conform to detailed standards of operation designed and enforced by the parent company.19 Moreover, franchising was pioneered by the Singer Sewing Machine company after the civil war, from them the automobile manufacturers and soft-drink companies adopted it by the turn of the twentieth century. Before franchising finds its way to the fast food, it was adopted first by various organizations and companies. Thus Krocs first
18

19

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 32. Dicke, Thomas S. Franchising in America: The Development of Business Method (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 2-3.

franchised McDonalds, which opened on April 15, 1955, was a relative late comer to the franchising business in general, and the fast-food franchise business in particular.20 Through franchising, McDonalds increased in number drastically that today perhaps nobody can tell I do not know McDonalds. McDonalds was successful hamburger stand in san Bernardino, California, owned by Mac and Dick McDonald before it was discovered by Ray Kroc; the first of the McDonalds chain opened in 1955. By the end of 2003, McDonalds had excess of 31,000 restaurants.21 So basically, Kroc only invented little that was new. Basically, he took the specific products and techniques of the McDonald brothers and combined them with the principles of other franchises, bureaucracies, scientific management, and the assembly line. Krocs genius was in bringing all of these well-known ideas and techniques to bear on the fast-food business.22 As a result, Kroc was able to create the McDonalds Empire. Krocs main endeavor after was to maintain the stability of the business. McDonalds was able to achieve a balance between centralized control and the independence of franchisees. Kroc was able to impose and enforce a uniform system, but the franchisees were encouraged to come up with innovations that could enhance not only their operations but also those of the system as a wholeNew creations, such as the fish sandwich, the egg McMuffin, and, more generally, McDonalds breakfast meals, came from franchisees.23 Although Kroc was not that of an innovator, he made the business developed a lot by imposing more rationality to it. He allowed no room for unpredictability, he was very perceptive in uniformity, standardized menu, same price, and same quality in every

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 31. http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/invest/pub/fact/_sheet_2003.TopPar.0006.File.tmp/2003_factshet.pdf. 22 Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 31. 23 Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 32.
21

20

store and by this uniformity the business is able to distinguish itself from competitors that have inconsistent food services. Furthermore, McDonalds was in the forefront of the imposition of limited menu (at first ten items), tough standards on the fat content of hamburgers, the conversion to the use of frozen hamburger and french fries, the use of inspectors to check on uniformity and conformity, the formation in 1961 of the first full-time training center in the business call Hamburger University (which offered a degree in Hamburgerology), and the publication in 1958 of an operations manual signed to spell out in detail how a franchise is to be run.24 Ray Kroc guaranteed that McDonalds Empire be predictable or the same in all aspects of the business throughout the whole franchised business. They must conform to one main standard that Kroc created. He even founded the school, called Hamburger University, which not only teaches how an employee of McDonalds should do a job, but in more particular how to cook hamburgers, and as stated above, they give a degree in a course called Hamburgerology. As a conclusion, Kroc only developed something which developed decades ago. From bureaucracies, scientific management, the assembly line to the mass production of houses until the development of shopping malls all add up to the success of the McDonalds Empire. More importantly, the business adoption the schemes of rationality; the use of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control are the fundamental factors of the expansion and strength of the business.

24

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1993), 32-33.

Now to answer these things and to make clear its consequences we must fully understand how this process takes place. It is then fair to discuss the basic components that compose this process; 2.2 Efficiency Talking about efficiency which is one of the pillars of McDonaldization, we should start pointing out some of its example on the place where it is very obvious; the fast food restaurant, particularly that of McDonalds. First, McDonalds offers efficiency. That is, the McDonalds system offers us the optimum method for getting from one point to another. Each and every process of the business is so well-organized to ensure that everything happens at the right time and the right place (never too early and never elsewhere) to ensure that the maximum gratification for the customer and the maximum profit for the company are ensured. This further the idea that McDonalds offers the best available means of getting us from a state of being hungry to a state of being full.25 Like when entering McDonalds they offer us limited menu and by doing so, services would be faster, and thus, efficient. Unlike in the traditional restaurants where there are a lot of choice foods, that when customers order them it is only then that they will prepare the food, while in the fast food chain there are only limited menus, which makes them already anticipate; they could already prepare it beforehand so that when customers come and order, services would be faster; easier to get from being hungry to being full.

25

Ibid., 9.

Efficiency means choosing the optimum means to a given end. McDonalds is about channeling the ends of both production and consumption to meet the ends of the consumer and producer. With fast food- McDonalds seeks profits, while you seek to have a meal. Out of this comes an emphasis on quantity over quality or variability. At the beginning of Ritzers discussion on efficiency he defined it as the choice of the truly optimum means to an end.26 But of course we all know that we cannot really know the optimum of all means, because technically in the world there is change, thus what is considered optimum right now might already be deemed as inefficient tomorrow. Hence, Ritzer made it clear that efficiency is the best choice of the optimum means in a given task for a certain period of time. Ritzer added that, the emphasis of McDonaldization on efficiency implies that contrasting, nonrational systems are less efficient, or even inefficient.27 As this process of obtaining the optimum efficiency advances, feasibly due to business desperation, it conceivably lead them to aiming them at people, both customers and employees. Ritzer pointed out that, The fast food restaurant has grown more efficient at the expense of imposing inefficiency on the consumer.28 And by doing so, dreadful effects, most certainly, would occur. Through over daunting of the provisions of efficiency toward people, one worst scenario which possibly will transpire is dehumanization. This is viewed to customers falling in long lines to take their order; aware or not, they are becoming unpaid employees rather than treated as decent customers. Moreover, efficiency is not only
26 27

Ibid., 35. Ibid., 36. 28 Ibid., 41.

imposed to consumers but also to employees. In order to do fast services employees are also hindered to do things in accordance to the specificality of tasks. The limited menus and the way one should accomplish the services must be observed firmly by the business to ensure that everything is efficient. All of which are intended solely for the benefit of the business regardless on its consequence(s) on people. Albeit, Ritzer did take into consideration that, The fast-food restaurant did not create the idea of imposing work on the consumer, causing the consumer to be what is, in effect, an unpaid employee, but it institutionalized and expedited this development.29 The fastfood restaurant conceivably did not have in their intention as to degrade peoples worth. All they wanted was to be fast and efficient in their business so that there will be greater profit. Needful to say, though for the business it is a great tool for success, its outcome to people is awfully unpleasant. As a man who is also part of the society, it is likely to assert that people surely are grateful if everything is efficient in their part. Efficiency is the best possible way to complete a task. By this we can imagine how progressive the world would be; if everything we need is just one click of the button. Efficiency is something that is sought after by many people, even without the shackle of McDonaldization. The difference is that in a McDonaldized society, efficiency is thrust upon a person, so instead of choosing your own methods of efficiency, you are forced to accept the efficiency of the surrounding institutions. In fact this can lead to, as to use the words from one of the researchers professor, a lamb-like acceptance of what the surrounding institutions

29

Ibid., 42.

consider efficient. This may be vastly different from what would actually be efficient for either the employees or the consumer. 2.3 Calculability or Quantifiability Another domain of the process of McDonaldization which is also equally important to discuss is quantifiability or calculability. It is in the dimension of calculability that the character of McDonalds model is best revealed. Exactly so many patties have to come from a pound of meat, the buns must be of a certain exact size and the patties again have to have a certain limited fat content, so that after being cooked, it will still have a larger diameter than the buns, the fries must of a certain thickness and the bags must never be too empty. It is easy to see how seemingly neutral measures, meant to ensure standardization, eventually lead to the reduction of the production of processes of production to a game of numbers. Even though this may not be too harmful in the case of hamburgers and fries, the spread of an attitude like this will in the case of the majority of industries of necessity lead to depersonalization of both customers and workers. Ritzer holds that, McDonaldization involves an emphasis on things that can be calculated, counted, qualified. It means a tendency to use quantity as a measure of quality. This leads to a sense that quality is equal to certain, usually (but not always) large, quantities of things.30

The prominence of calculability in a McDonaldized system is that it serves as a measure for quality. This implies that the consequences of such settings, including to humans, no longer matters so long as it makes for prosperous earnings. McDonalds extends its

30

Ibid., 62.

utilization of calculability that they even try to offer large servings of fries and burgers or any other foodstuff which make customers always wanting to come back because they think they are getting larger serving thinking they eat more. As a result, many customers eat at McDonalds and potential customers, who are assuming that the number of hamburgers sold indicated that they are selling high quantity burgers or foods, gradually go there. This scenario may have led Ritzer to conclude that, the link was made, albeit implicitly, between large numbers of sales and quality; quantity equaled quality.31 Accordingly, in a McDonaldized world quantity equates, and sometimes even overlaps, quality. In addition, to the application of calculability is seen in the way they name some of their foods, like the Big Mac. They indicate the importance of calculability even through the names of their food; that they are serving something which is big, large or super sized. And we must admit that this method of naming foods make us believe that we are eating something which is of high-quality. Albeit, many of us are ignorant of what are really happening. The use of quantifiability is really a great thrust for the success of the business. The researcher admits that, it is indeed, to some extent, enchanting to be able to recognize that consumers are enticed to buy or eat at these systems merely through the naming of their foods or products; it is ingeniously magical. Many people, including the researcher himself, are fooled that we are eating nutritious food in those systems just because it is of large quantity and we are paying less. Conceivably, many do not even ask themselves what are we eating? We do not even know what are in those foods that we eat; but we enjoy the pleasure of large quantities of foods.

31

Ibid., 62.

Come to think of it, if they can do magic to allure us to buy and eat their foods, they could likely, do magic to make, or at least seemingly, appear their foods big and large so that it be pleasing in the eye. As a result, customers believe it is desirable merely because it is large and considering that when they do the scales they would only pay a smaller amount for a large-sized meal or even other products aside from the fastfood restaurants. And so going back to quantity versus quality; quantity evidently outwits quality. They are serving Big Mac not Good Mac. This may have led Ritzer again to think that, It is far more efficient to think of eating as refueling rather than as a dining experience.32 By this claim, the researcher concur that we are like cars which when runs out of gas, must go to gasoline station to fill up again; so people does the same, when feeling hungry goes to a fast-food and fill up their stomachs. But unlike cars, we need nutritious food for energy and in that setting we are not getting strong just full. To further the discussion, the researcher will quote again from Ritzer when he writes, What is particularly interesting about all this emphasis on quantity is the seeming absence of interest in communicating anything about quality.33 We may observe that a lot of this McDonaldized affected systems do not notify something about the quality of their products but merely of its manifest quantity. What is more is that, the emphasis on the number of sales made and the size of the products offered are not the only ways in which fast-food restaurants focus on quantity.34 According to Ritzer there is another means by which the business applies calculability and it is speed. He writes that, another example is the great emphasis on
32 33

Ibid., 64. Ibid., 63. 34 Ibid., 65.

the speed with which a meal; can be served.35 Ritzer relates his claim on the history of McDonalds when it was just booming: In fact, ray Krocs first outlet was named McDonalds Speedee Service Drive-In. At one time, McDonalds sought to be able to serve a hamburger, shake, and French fries in 50 seconds. The restaurant made a breakthrough in 1959 when it served a record 36 hamburgers in 110 seconds.36

The emphasis on quantity over quality by and large emerges because efficiency and rationalization demand calculability. A rationalized efficient operation specializes in making lots of a few things. In this context, everything becomes calculated, particularly with reference to time. Speed of customer of customer service, how many French fries per bag, how many motions per hamburger, what precise greetings are needed to make customer feel good. What is lost is the quality of the meal and the meanings of work for the worker. Work is boring, offers new chances for creativity, and as a consequence is short-term. Speed is indeed, a quantifiable factor of monumental importance in a fast-food restaurant.37 Speed is actually one ground why the fast-food businesses thought of the drive-through windows. They probably thought that it can minimize the time of serving to customers. And indeed, through the fast-food windows the time required to process a customer drastically reduced. Moreover, people would think that it would be much faster to just pass through a drive-through to have something to eat than going out of the car and line up with customers and order food and go back to the car again. But more

35 36

Ibid., 65. Ibid., 65. 37 Ibid., 65.

implicitly, looking on the other side of the coin, this way of serving the customers is a great efficiency for the business. Through the drive-through there would be a minimization of customers inside the fast-food, so that a lot more customers can come in because of the vacancy, and thus, the business earns more.

2.4 Predictability To explain this domain of a McDonaldized society, which is predictability, the researcher would like to quote from the words of Ritzer, Rationalization involves the increasing effort to ensure predictability from one time or place to another. In a rational society people prefer to know what to expect in all settings and at all times. They neither want nor expect surprises. They want to know that when they order their Big Mac today it is going to be identical to the one they ate yesterday and the one they will eat tomorrow.38

The researcher in his introduction has already mentioned about predictability and would like to reiterate that customers want to ensure that what they order and eat today taste the same as yesterday and tomorrow. Consumers also want to ensure that what they eat in McDonalds- Manila taste the same with the one they ordered in McDonalds- Davao. So what do we get from this kind of system? Nothing, but the exclusion of surprises. One then just imagine the world of no surprises, where everything is expected, where there is one way to do things and there is no other. In a McDonaldized society, that is how it is.

38

Ibid., 83.

Ritzer have made mention that, In order to ensure predictability over time and place a rational society emphasizes such things as discipline, order, systematization, formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation.39 This means that, people are hindered to do actions or accomplish any task in any other way than that which the business articulate. Employees of such systems are routinized and should be highly disciplined to follow the customs of the system. From the way to prepare the food to the way people should look and the way they should talk they should be the same always in everyday. Unlike the traditional restaurant where cooks really do the cooking, it is in their own skills and expertise to be creative in cooking, though it takes more time, than in a fast-food chain where even an inexperienced man, not even a cook, can do the cooking so long as he follows the specified task. Efficiency comes out of discipline, order, systematization, formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation. This is predictability. You get the same product wherever you are. Emerged out of motel chains which emerged with highways systems. Everyone sought predictability and conformity after a hard days travel. Again the chain takes advantage of this because it is more efficient, and teaches the culture to like it. Going farther, not only does the McDonalds promote predictability through its employees, but also to its exceedingly obvious signs: McDonalds logo can be linked to predictability: replicated color and symbol, mile after mile, city after city, and act as a tacit promise of

39

Ibid., 83.

predictability, and stability between McDonalds and its millions of customers, year after year, meal after meal.40 When someone is on a trip, in the Philippine setting, one will immediately notice the particular sign in the road of the face of Jollibee, or the golden arches, and many others of this kind, that leads to some direction with the indication of what place it is located and of how many miles or kilometers away. Moreover, when entering into this systems, Jollibee for example, one can easily notice that they are in Jollibee because of the theme; the researcher who in his younger years was also like any other children of today, that going to Jollibee is one of the greatest wishes to come true when coming along with their parents, and oftentimes this wish is granted. And now that he is doing this research, reminiscing his memories, he becomes aware that visiting those places there is only slight difference between them. Any other Jollibees that the researcher visited, there is always a human sized Jollibee statue in front of the entrance, and inside there is the same combination of the colors yellow and red. Plus employees always wear the same uniform, although the structure of the fast food chain differs, the taste of the food and the menus are all the same. And even until today, and if readers find this dubious, visit a Jollibee! To further the discussion, and as to add more examples, the researcher would like add extra points from Ritzer about predictability through packaging: . . . whatever the unpredictabilities in the food, the packaging . . . can always be the same.41

40 41

Ibid., 84. Ibid., 85-86.

The researcher agrees the claim of Ritzer which states, The fact that the fastfood restaurants could render the dining experience predictable helped make them the center of the process of McDonaldization.42 Hence, like any of the pillars of McDonaldization, predictability plays also a great role for the success of the business. 2.5 Control So now we go on the discussion of the last, but definitely not the least of the pillars of McDonaldization; the increased control. Due to the fact that the four pillars of McDonaldization are interrelated, the researcher may already have made mention of some of the instances of this domain. Like the lines, limited menus and fewer options. All of which are also consequences of increased control. The McDonaldized system seeks to control its environment. And since the most unpredictable thing is the human element, human decision-making is limited, and whenever possible their presence is eliminated. This is why we have French Fry machines rather than French Fry cookers. Gradually, the workers are replaced by machines, but what of the customers? Robots dont eat! The modern rationalized customer though can be controlled. This happens in the conveyor system through which you are passed. It is like an assembly line from when you enter the door until you do your exit. One good example is this scenario inside the food chain: They get you bus your own table, which on the process saves on human (paid) labor. The point here is to make the customers get in and out quickly as possible, but still willing to come back, a subtle yet blatant manipulation of both spending habits and

42

Ibid., 84.

emotions. It can be noted that tasks are simplified. One person is in charge on fries, another at the cash register, another one at the hamburgers. No one person is the cook. Each person has one task which they do over and over again. No long period of apprenticeship needed. The crucial task is left at the hands of the cash register person who has a well-defined task: receive the money, smile and say Enjoy your meal. Even the smile is part of the rationalized process. The placement of security guards to deliver and mumble the memorized greetings for customers who are getting in and customers going out is one form of getting attachments of the customers to the product. Good morning, ma am/ good morning, sir, welcome to Jollibee and Thank you, maam, thank you, sir. Please come again, are emotional attachments which McDonaldized society has successfully established in the culture of the man. The human beings who eat in fast-food restaurants are also controlled, albeit (usually) more subtly and indirectly. Lines, limited menus, few options, and uncomfortable seats all lead diners to do what the managers wishes them to do -eat quickly and leave.43

The dimension of control, in so far as it has been implied by the foregoing, is attained especially through the substitution of non human for human technology44 this tendency, by far not unique to McDonalds, enable the company to far better control the uniformity of production and to at least partly eliminate the hassles of having to deal with human beings. Even the implied threat of replacing human with other technology enables further control over employees. But it is not only the employees that need to be controlled, but also the customers. This is accomplished by a range of subtle measures, among which not the least is the restriction of menus to a limited number of items, the
43 44

Ibid., 11. Ibid., 100.

utilization of customers to do work themselves, such as carrying food to the tables and litter away from it, and of course the availability of hard chairs which certainly does not encourage customers to linger. 2.6 Advantages and Disadvantages of McDonaldization It is noteworthy that the revolutionalizing effect of McDonalds is the fact that its model offers four alluring dimensions both to the producer and the consumer. Each of these four efficiency, calculability, predictability and control has led to beneficial and irreversible changes in a wide variety of concerns which are not to be denied. These advantages are the ability to customize our meals when we are part of the production process, and the many conveniences that technology has provided. Probably most prominent among the advantages is the fact that more products and services are available and that this availability is less dependent on time and geographical factors. Thus, such services are available to more people as well as quicker and more conveniently. The facts that products of a more uniform quality and with more economic alternatives are available, leads to the comfort and created by stability. On a social level the biggest advantages are probably that a lot of people are enabled to do things at night that were previously impossible, and that all people are treated similarly. However, it is also an undeniable fact that McDonalds have negative consequences: the ecological impact, the dehumanizing effect of ever more automation, and the inescapable mistaking of quantity for quality. McDonaldization is practically ruining our country. According to Ritzer, rational systems created by McDonaldization

are not cheaper, they force the consumers to give unpaid labor, and they are actually not efficient. The fast food industry has created numerous problems in society, including obesity and nutritional issues, excessive trash, and the pull on family life. These effects are not only limited to fast food chains but also in almost all aspects of the human industry. In higher education, the movement towards

rationalization has a major effect not only on the content of courses but also on the way these are presented towards the development of a quantity-oriented society has naturally had its biggest impact on the information sectors. Higher education is subject to the demands for predictability, efficiency, calculability and control as well. As a

means of educational consumption, McUniversity seeks to eliminate as much negativity as possible through grade inflation and other efforts to retain students and make it possible for them to obtain degrees. It makes easier for students to obtain educational services by establishing satellite campuses and offering distance education courses. McDonaldization is also considered as the new means of consumption. The individuals are constrained to buy more than they need and to spend more than they should. One example of this is the easy availability of credit cards which permits individuals to spend money they do not necessarily have. In the process, they lose the sense of, or interest in, the quality of commodities that accompanies the more judicious spending of limited funds.