McDonaldization

McDonaldization is a by the American sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society ( The McDonaldization of Society) A term coined.

The term describes a process in which a society increasingly takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. From the perspective of Ritzer's McDonaldization is a new development within the concept of rationalization, this features so far as a change from traditional towards rational modes of thought in the direction of an increasingly scientifically structured and sound management.

While Max Weber still the model of bureaucracy as the direction in which society evolves used, Ritzer sees the fast-food restaurant as the development of today's most appropriate paradigm ( Ritzer, 2004:553 ).

Main aspects

Ritzer McDonaldization characterizes the basis of four main aspects:

• Efficiency - the optimal method to solve a problem
• Predictability - the aim should rather be quantified (eg sales figures ) can be determined as merely subjective ( eg taste)
• Predictability - standardized and uniform services
• Control - unified and uniform employees

With the involvement of these four categories, a strategy that appears to be rational and promising within a narrow field of view, lead to overall harmful and irrational results. The process is summarized by Ritzer as a development in which the principles of running a fast-food restaurants more and more different areas of American society and the rest of the world dominate ( Ritzer, 1993:1 ).

The term coined in 1993 has since been used in many other humanities disciplines. The term McDonaldization can continue to refer to the increasing replacement of traditional gastronomic establishments by McDonald's.

The similar term Aldisierung was elected to the Swiss word of the year 2005.

Criticism

Criticized Ritzer et al by Andrew Potter and Joseph Heath in their book consumption rebels. The myth of the counterculture. Take Ritzer ago, to focus on the oldest and easiest to criticizing fast-food restaurant and access to the bow, which he ( the American version of his book ) of Auschwitz -tensioned to Hamburg. As a counter-example to call especially Subway.