Cecilia Roman Quijas
Soc 140
Political Sociology
Prof. Jerome Bagget
June 5th, 2008
The Conflict Tradition
McDonaldization of Culture
George Ritzer presents in “The Weberian Theory of Rationalization and the
McDonaldization of Contemporary Society” this grim view of today’s world, as seen through the
eyes of Max Weber’s theory: “we seem closer to the iron cage of rationalization today than was
the case in Weber’s day” (Ritzer 1998: 59). Nowadays, this iron cage has taken the form of The
McDonaldization of Society, “the ultimate irrationality of formal rationality” (42). His basic
premise is that Weber’s diagnosis and predictions of the effects that bureaucracy, as an extreme
expression of rationality, would have on society have actually been taken one step further in our
times through the fast-food mentality. He suggests that the rational principles employed by the
kind of restaurants of which McDonald’s is the best-known chain have extended into areas of our
culture as diverse as racehorses, medicine and child-care. It is my intention to describe his theory
and share my view of McDonaldization as a fascinating, yet weakly supported perspective.
To illustrate his point, Ritzer analyses each of Weber’s five dimensions of rationalization,
providing examples to serve as proof of today’s formal rationality. Thus, he finds the extreme of
efficiency in the tendency of turning the customer into an unpaid laborer: spending a few
minutes everyday as sandwich-makers, salad chefs, soda jerks, gas station attendants, and bank
tellers, all of these without receiving any pay (45). Similarly, calculability is to be found in the
obsession with quantity above quality (whoppers, Big Macs, number of credentials, weight loss,
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number of publications, etc); predictability can be seen in the comfort that we take from movie
sequels, microwavable dishes, the shopping mall and even the daily newspaper. Increased
control and replacement of human by nonhuman technology are analyzed together in the
examples of home cooking, optical scanners in supermarkets and telemarketing.
Finally, the author explores the irrational rationality of today’s iron cage, opposing the benefits
of a McDonaldized world to the damages it might be doing to our society. He presents what I
believe to be a fair assessment of some advantages of this pursuit for efficiency, even contrasting
them to the situation in a country such as Cuba. However, he is quick to point out that those
positive effects might be overwhelmed by the negative ones, and even suggests that while we
might think we want these efficient solutions, “many people, however, persist in the belief,
fueled by endless propaganda” (56). What I find to be especially fascinating is the idea that this
seeming freedom (choosing your own salad, getting your money whenever you want, having so
many choices at the shopping mall) could in fact be a disguise that keeps us content in our
modern iron cage. In that sense, I believe that Ritzer’s theory is well constructed and even results
in excellent material for proper understanding of Weber’s ideas on rationality.
Nonetheless, it would appear that the author is constantly drawing absolute conclusions
out of very specific and even extraordinary cases. After one such instance, he confidently states:
“dentistry, medicine, child care, the training of racehorses, newspapers, and television news have
come to be modeled after food chains” (44). However, one McPaper and one McDentist do not
make up the whole world of journalism or healthcare. Specifically in the case of the former I
find fault with his argument; I do wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion that newsgathering
organizations are giving more into the tendency to deliver news at a fast, hard pace (47), causing
great loss in quality and contributing to political and social deterioration in some cases. Yet, I
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hardly see this propensity in journalism as arising from the fast-food system or even from the
quest for efficiency. For this area, as for others that he exemplifies, I believe the situation to be
more complicated: a faster-moving way of life, in which formal rationality is one of the central
elements but not the only, and perhaps not even the most important one.
Taking the above into account, I do believe that this theory deserves to be explored
further and considered in other areas. One of them could be the internet, and they way it is
changing many aspects, from small to fundamental, in our everyday lives. With its virtual stores,
virtual chats, emphasis on speed, and huge reach, the World Wide Web is an ideal place in which
to find modern examples of predictability, calculability, efficiency, increased control and
replacement of human by nonhuman technology. Therefore to me, the most value to be taken
away from Ritzer’s McDonaldization is the incentive to question the very idea of efficiency; to
have in mind this other perspective to be contrasted to common discourses of the blessings of
modernity, and specially when trying to understand the implications of new technological
developments. Throughout the reading of Ritzer’s argument I found myself wondering, what else
that we think to be the most efficient alternative is actually irrationally inefficient? Without
surrendering to the author’s dramatic conclusions, one can still sharpen an awareness of the
direction that our culture is taking in many different spheres.
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