NAME- SHREYA YADAV

ROLL NO.- 22/SOC/50

PAPER- INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT
Que- Review on the reading, “Ritzer, G. (1993). The McDonaldization of
Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social
life.”

Ans. The American sociologist George Ritzer has attracted wide attention with
his concept of "the McDonaldization of society" (expounded in his book of the
same names). In his book, Ritzer analyses the particular ways in which the
success 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.
Basing his analysis on Max Weber's theory of rationalization.
What in Ritzer's view is responsible for McDonalds' revolutionizing
effect, is the fact that its model offers four "alluring dimensions" to producer
and consumer alike, namely efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.
Naturally all of these have led to beneficial and irreversible changes which are
not to be denied. Equally undeniable, however, is the negative consequences:
the ecological impact, the dehumanizing effect of ever more automation, and
the inescapable mistaking of quantity for quality.
McDonald's revolutionising influence on the fast-food industry not only
in America, but increasingly across the globe, has led to the establishment of
dozens of clones in just about every branch of the retail industry and has led to
other social institutions adapting McDonald's principles to their operations. The
process by which these principles are coming to dominate more and more
sectors of society, is perceived by Ritzer to extend to education, work, health
care, travel, leisure, dieting and many more fields.
In essence, McDonaldization is the process of rationalization, albiet taken
to extreme levels. Rationalization is a sociological term that simply means the
substitution of logically consistent rules for traditional (or illogical) rules. One
of the fundamental aspects of McDonaldization is that almost any task can (and
should) be rationalized.
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 measurement of good performance.
The process of McDonaldization can be summarized as the way in 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.”
Since Mcdonalds standardization is a root cause of ritzer’s analogus comparison
to society focus would be put on such practices after understanding the
dimension of Mcdonaldization.

Dimensions of McDonaldization
Ritzer’s theory consists of four dimensions that are typical for fast food
restaurants:
1. Efficiency:
Always choosing the optimal and fastest way to accomplish something,
e.g., to make a burger. It is an advantage for the consumers who can get what
they need quickly and without effort.
2. Calculability:
The idea that quantity is more important than quality. McDonald’s
equals quantity with quality and wants to make the impression that a large
amount of food, prepared in a short amount of time, is the same as a high-
quality product. The costumer gets more food, but its quality and uniqueness are
low.
3. Predictability:
The consumer always knows what kind of service and product he will get,
because taste of the burger and behaviour of the workers towards customers are
standardized worldwide.
4. Control:
Employees of a McDonald’s restaurant has to follow strict rules for food
preparation, they have to dress uniformly and they need to smile when receiving
orders from customers. A lot of their work is replaced by machines that they can
operate in only one way. The McDonald’s corporation controls the franchisee of
the restaurant.