The United States is a country where things work a little differently than they do in our

country, Colombia. In the American country everything works through rational systems in
which everything is previously organized. The development of this type of system has
reflected a success such that the rest of the world feels interested and, in fact, has begun to
implement such systems in the development of its economy, society, culture, etc.
Interestingly those rational systems currently flooding our world are part of a process called
McDonaldization George Ritzer.

The aim of the New York sociologist in his text "McDonaldization of Society" is to make
an exhaustive analysis of the birth and development of the famous McDonald's fast food
restaurant and demonstrate the great influence it has exerted on the social and economic life
not only of the United States , But, around the world. Throughout their study, Ritzer
proposes to McDonaldization as "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" 1 .

To begin arguing his curious idea, Ritzer sets out a series of points describing McDonald's
and its success. With a set of figures that show McDonald's sales, its profits, its franchises
operating in the United States and abroad, its employees, its cash registers, its seats, even
its customers, is for the author easy to propose first the attempt of Many businessmen
imitate and enjoy the same success of the famous restaurant. It is equally important for the
author to state at this point in the document that the McDonald's model has not only been
adopted by other hamburger franchises, but that it has infiltrated all fast food businesses.
But even more surprising is the change that has generated this innovation in the lives of
people, then, after McDonald's, "Americans eat an increasingly large portionn of Their
meals at McDonald's and Its clones" 2 . In these first points the author, also, exalts the
expansion of the restaurants in Europe and China. Although, also he talks about that we can
not forget and are its clones in France and Lebanon, where its franchises are not expanded
precisely, but restaurant using the same principles in "croissanteries" and "Juicy Burger"
respectively. It is also surprising that some countries have not only adopted the model of
McDonald's but also export their products to the United States itself, the example used by
New Yorker to clarify this point are the Body Shop industries of Great Britain, "the Body
Shop Is an ecologically sensitive British cosmetics chain with 620 shops in 39 countries; 66
Of Those shops are in the United States " 3 .
With the great spread of McDonald's around the world, McDonald's began to abandon its
image of simple fast-food restaurant and began to be a sacred symbol, or also, can be
denominated like an icon of the purely American culture. Wherever a new McDonald's
franchise opened, people recognized it immediately as a piece of American culture. It was
their recognition that businesses showed similarity to the McDonald's model, people started
putting their names the suffix, Mc. The text is quite rich in examples to this statement, the
author speaks, to name one of them, McCare and says that the name refers to child care
centers and kindergartens are guided the efficient model of McDonald's. But all this
recognition is not only a product of the success of the restaurant, it is also a product of the
endless amount of commercials that bombard boys, adults and elderly, when they are ready
to relax at home. McDonald's commercials, "change as the chain introduced new foods
(breakfast burritos Such as) Creates new contests, and ties ITS products to new things Such
a motion pictures" 4

In addition to the commercials that flood our television, McDonald's has been quite
ingenious in the image he has shown the public, that is, "The restaurants themselves are
depicted as spick-and-span, the food is said to be fresh and nutritious, the Employees are
shown to be Young and eager, the managers Appear people and caring, and the dining
experiece itself to be fun filled Seems " 5 . With this image, who would refuse to eat at
McDonald's?

The author continues to exalt the success of McDonald's and makes him responsible for
innumerable acts now typical and common in the United States, for example, the
McDonald's restaurant was the pioneer in installing its franchises in universities and
colleges, in addition, to set up businesses along Of the famous interstate avenues with the
aim of offering greater comfort to consumers in all possible places.

At this point, it is worth noting that all aspects have been influenced by the principles of
McDonald's, for the author, have been McDonaldized. But the author is now seeking ways
out of food, ie now points to sectors totally unrelated to the gastronomic association that
also have been touched by the fever of McDonaldization. One aspect that formerly would
generate a lot of controversy, but it is now well accepted, although not publicly, is the
virtual sex, which the author also finds McDonaldized, but later explain why.

Well, at this point it is quite clear McDonald's triumph in society, but now the author gives
the true explanation of its success, ie the 4 principles that have led McDonald's to become
the big business that it is today. The first principle of McDonald's is efficiency, which in a
nutshell is that McDonalds contributes in the process of "getting us from a state of being
hungry to a state of being full". 6 Based on this principle of efficiency, the author now
explains the McDonaldization of sex, that is, virtual sex offers consumers carry through a
sexual simulation complete satisfaction and most importantly , saving the traditional need
to Being with another person. The second principle is that McDonald's offers a service that
can be qualified and quantified. To ensure its efficiency, McDonald's allows the public to
rate their services by way of calculations. The author speaks of two calculations in specific,
first economically, that is, in McDonald's people think that they get a lot of food for little
money and the second is the time, therefore, people consider it less time consuming to eat
McDonald's in their car than Cook at home. The third principle that led to McDonald's to
the top of the world, is predictability. Consumers feel quite comfortable simply knowing
that the food they get at any McDonald's, regardless, city or country will always be the
same. Last but not least key to the success of McDonald's is control. As mentioned in the
introduction to this document, control consists of having everything previously planned.
Human control exercised by McDonald's goes from employees to customers. In the case of
McDonald's workers; They are able to strictly follow a line of jobs and functions that
managers are responsible for ensuring. In the case of McDonald's customers; They are
controlled subtly and indirectly, that is, McDonald's is responsible for eating fast and
leaving to make room for new consumers, although of course they do not notice it that way,
the strategy used here is to first give a Quick and second service to seat people in not very
comfortable seats that prevent them from wanting to stay there chatting after they have
eaten. One very important aspect of McDonald's control over people is the replacement of
them by non-human technology. To take care of the first three keys in detail, McDonald's
entrusts to machines certain specific tasks that any human, however trained and qualified,
could spoil and with that spoil the image that the restaurant wants to project to its public.

Having clarified the key to success and success as such the famous American restaurant, the
author now wants to play additional points are some criticisms that have been made to the
principles of McDonaldization and some advantages thereof.

McDonald's principles, efficiency, predictability, control and ability to be qualified and

quantified, are now the principal of what the author calls rational system components. The
author now argues that the development of rational systems engenders in their participants
certain irrationalities, that is, in a rational system where everything is previously organized
by someone, people who move in the system now become only tokens of a perfect system
In which each individual is responsible for a crucial aspect to the system and irrationality
comes in the fact that these aspects delegated to system officials have no need to reason
about what to do, how to do it, and so on. One text I find useful in this argument is "What
Social Accountability Under A Dictatorship" by author Hannah Arendt. In it, Arendt speaks
of "Wheel Theory in Gear" as an excuse people use to evade their responsibility in many
morally wrong acts:

During the discussions on the Eichmann process, these comparatively simple

matters have become more complex because of the wheel theory in gear, as I would
like to call it. If one describes a political system, how it works, what relations
prevail among the different organs of the State, how huge bureaucratic apparatus
works and what channels of command exist, then one must necessarily speak of all
the people that the system uses as officials, That is to say, of rollers and screws of all
type, without which the administration does not work nor can be kept in movement.
Each of these wheels, that is, each person, must be able to be replaced, without the
system being altered: this is an assumption that is the basis of all bureaucratic
systems, of the entire public service and, properly, of each Administrative activity. 7

The irrationalities of which Ritzer speaks, too, are a product of the dehumanization
contained in the McDonald's system. This dehumanization consists of the simple fact of
setting up a system in which many are alienated, some in order to eat and others in order to
work. But, as the author says, "dehumanization is only one of many ways in wich the
highly rationalized fast.food restaurant is extremely irrational" 8

But the McDonaldization is not totally negative, why then name some very important
advantages thereof. They are between them; Fast food restaurants have expanded the
alternatives to consumers, microwave ovens and frozen food now allow us to dine quickly,
supermarkets have notoriously improved the efficiency of shopping, high technology today,
helps many hospitals to offer a greater Quality of health to its patients, among many others.

Through the advantages, disadvantages and principles that George Ritzer mentioned, it is
plausible now think if we really want for our society is that more and more things are
McDonaldize, Irrationality most, personally, I think one aspect Quite important and sad. If
McDonaldized systems are organized and planned by a few, is it perhaps that favor and
benefit only a few consuming both skills and physical abilities and intellectuals from the
rest? To support this issue I want to bring up a phrase from a song called Worker @ s
played by a Spanish group called Children of the Corn, which apparently also witnessed the
phenomenon of McDonaldization of Society. "There is a weapon of mass destruction in
every city, called McDonald's."