Domination Of Fast Food Restaurants - McDonaldization

Quick service restaurants are very common. When we want to eat something quickly, we think of McDonald's, KFC or Burger King. But their development and dissemination has its definition in the economy.

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Definition

McDonaldization is the process of disseminating the principles of operation of fast food bars in other sectors of life. According to the coiner of the term, George Ritzer, it is: "the process by which ever new sectors of American society, as well as the rest of the world, come to dominate the rules of the fast-food restaurant." This process, however, does not apply only to the mass catering industry, as it also affects: "the sphere of education, work, health care, travel, recreation, dietary nutrition, the family and virtually all aspects of society's life".

Wherever we live, McDonaldization is transforming our lives and social relationships. It results directly from the implementation of the main American values, which include: success, activity, freedom, progress, materialism and efficiency. These values play an important role in the functioning of today's societies. For employees, McDonaldization means "dehumanization". Some call this process slavery of the 21st century. Employees work like robots, following strict rules, smiling at customers and repeating the same sentences, mechanically performing the same tasks every day. The term McDonaldization also has associations with the holocaust This process is part of the globalization of society and cultures.

Genesis

The term McDonaldization comes from the name of the "fast service" restaurant created in 1955 by Ray Kroc, which in several decades has grown into an organization with over 30,000 outlets, whose services are used by over 50 million people every day in 119 countries around the world. Considering the fact that the basic menu of each of the chain restaurants around the world is identical, it can be said that every day 50 million people, regardless of the culture they come from, are subjected to a secondary process of socialization by McDonald's - in this case relating to the global food culture.

Max Weber would certainly consider the worldwide dissemination of rationality and the theory of bureaucratization as one of the main factors in the success of McDonald's development. Anthropologists dealing with the economy argue about the existence of a universal model of rationality, and many of their works indicate that one cannot talk about global rationality understood in terms of the Western world. However, this does not contradict the fact that this model is starting to play an increasingly important role in the increasingly faster life of every society. Almost everywhere, because consumer-minded people identify life satisfaction and prestige with their place on the hierarchical scale of consumption.

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The most important features

Calculability - conversion of all processes in the company, i.e. conversion into measurable numbers of employee performance, working time, production time, production costs in order to create the best algorithm that will allow you to create a process with the lowest costs

Efficiency - continuous improvement of the production process or service, obtaining maximum efficiency. An example here is McDrive, which was created not only for the convenience of customers, but above all to increase profits - at one time we can serve twice as many customers

Predictability - gives consumers a sense of stability and security

The main aspects of McDonaldization according to Ritzer are:

• Efficiency - satisfying needs as quickly as possible
• Measurability - paying the greatest attention to the quantitative characteristics of products
• Predictability - the same product/service at every point, at any time
• Control - manipulation of human behawior

Advantages

• quick access to goods and services
• predictability
• egalitarianism - equal treatment of customers regardless of gender, race, wealth, etc.
• easy comparison of products and their prices with competitors
• faster dissemination of technical innovations

Defects

• manipulation of people
• the disappearance of multiculturalism
• disappearance of interpersonal contacts – dehumanization
• degradation of power
• unifying the environment, products
• prioritizing skill over knowledge
• ecosystem degradation

Source: Ritzer G. Makdonaldyzacja społeczeństwa,