An Introduction to McDonaldization

Throughout life, people are influenced by many things, some of which they don’t realize are influencing them until it has already succeeded in infiltrating their subconscious. One of these is the McDonald’s company; children are exposed to the culture inside the restaurant and parents continue to come back because of the consistent taste of the food. George Ritzer, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, has published several books on sociology including, “An Introduction to McDonaldization,” which discusses the effects of businesses on society and the individual. McDonald’s has revolutionized the way the world runs its businesses through the process he calls “McDonaldization.” Ritzer clearly shows that McDonaldization affects almost every aspect of our lives even if we do not realize its implications. However, Ritzer could strengthen his argument with fair language to describe both sides and present a balanced argument, by discussing the workers feelings.

Ritzer explains that the way McDonald’s runs their entire corporation has been perfected to the form known as McDonaldization. According to Ritzer, this 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 of the rest of the world” (Ritzer 5). McDonaldization has the four main components: efficiency, predictability, calculability and control of non-human technology. The first, efficiency, is the “optimum method for getting from one point to another” (Ritzer 15). The second portion of McDonaldization is the calculability which according to Ritzer is the “emphasis on the quantitative aspects of products sold (portion size, cost) and services offered (the time it t...

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...here are others who will be open to trying new foods or eating different quantities. Additionally, there are those who will strive to experience new aspects of life and will not be confined by the regulations that McDonaldization places on society.

Ritzer explained McDonaldization and the positive and negative affects it has on society. Although this is only the introductory chapter of the book, the issues that Ritzer could have altered to strengthen his argument would be to provide more current statistics, a financial aspect and information on how this theory will affect our future. McDonaldization affects almost every aspect of our lives even if we do not realize its implications.

Works Cited

Ritzer, George. "An Introduction to McDonaldization." The McDonaldization of Society. New Century ed. California: Sage: Thousand Oaks, 2002. 4-24. Print.