Caleb Reid

Professor Miller

Sociology 1101

3 February 2020

McDonaldization of Society from the Perspective of Amazon

McDonaldization of Society can be defined as taking dimensions of the fast food

business model and implementing them into common areas of our society; these dimensions can

be defined as efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control (GoView; Ritzer). To better

explain these dimensions, I am going to be using Amazon as an example, since it is one of the

most prevalent commerce powers in our society. In terms of efficiency, one could highlight that

Amazon’s use conveyor belts and even slides in their warehouse is a means of decreasing the

effort of workers to load trucks and fulfill orders. Amazon also uses robots to carry boxes and

products to up their efficiency, which oddly enough goes hand in hand with the control

dimension. Control can also be seen in Amazon with their use of drone delivery in some major

cities. This completely cuts out the need for real humans to deliver packages and instead replaces

them with nonhuman technology. Amazon also uses one central shopping website in order to

give a predictable shopping experience. Even when there have been updates to the website, the

layout rarely changes. Lastly, Amazon achieves the dimension of calculability with their option

to bulk buy or subscribe to products; furthermore, these options give you an option to get huge

amounts of these products at usually discounted prices. Their items with hugely discounted

prices are also usually unethically sourced and use improper working environments to produce.

While at first glance these dimensions may seem like huge advantages due to their cost-

saving, profit-raising, and time reducing products, they do have their disadvantages. These
dimensions cause fewer jobs for workers and also leave huge margins of error in the technology.

I think that while McDonaldization may make Amazon a better company, I can also see that it

raises ethical dilemmas, such as worker’s rights and ethical sourcing of products. I believe that

Amazon may be jeopardizing their integrity for the sake of “McDonaldizing” their corporation.

These dimensions of McDonaldization also lead to the irrationality of rationality.

The irrationality of rationality can be seen as a “dysfunction of the rational system…

[when] rational systems turn on themselves” (GoView). This can be applied to Amazon because

while we could drive to the store and immediately receive a product, most would rather go online

and wait a couple of days to receive it, all for the sake of ease. This isn’t rational because it

would, in fact, be easier to just go to a store and buy the product yourself. People don’t even

leave their houses anymore to buy things.

This is one of the main reasons McDonaldization leads to Marx’s concept of alienation.

This rise of ways to get things without having to even leave your home is going to lead to more

people being “isolated and divorced from [their] society” (Keirns). Now with Amazon Alexa,

people don’t even have to leave their beds to order things online. As more and more factors of

our society adopt McDonaldization, we will be forced to live in a constant work state revolving

around the four dimensions, very close to Weber’s “Iron Cage.” I think that McDonaldization

will be the death of our society, but the ultimate rise for capitalism.
 Works Cited

Keirns, Nathan J., et al. Introduction to Sociology. OpenStax, Rice University, 2016.

“McDonaldization of Society.” GoView, ECore,

go.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/1944617/viewContent/33567535/View.

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society: an Investigation into the Changing Character of

Contemporary Social Life. Pine Forge Press, 1993.