[lbo-talk] McDonalidization

Michael Dawson -PSU mdawson at pdx.edu
Tue Feb 24 08:59:34 PST 2004


As somebody who's trying to improve the way the left talks about the poltical economy of product-usage, I have two major problems with "McDonaldization."

1. George Ritzer is wrong. The engine of the system is not bureaucracy. It's profit. Weber does not apply, except in some truly minor way. It's Marx, Veblen, Galbraith, Baran/Sweezy, etc. Ritzer and those who teach him do the left (and reality) a huge disservice by miseducating people.

2. Part of the reason Ritzer's thoroughly flippant concept is popular is that he plays to middle-class snobbery and conservatism. Yes, McDonald's restaurants avoid unions, pay crappy wages, serve unhealthy food, and cause environmental waste, but, given our car transportation system and long work weeks, McDonald's is inevitable. Kill it, and something equivalent will rise to replace it. Meanwhile, sneering about "McDonaldization" is fun for trendy middle-classers who denigrate the workers who rely on eating there. More damagingly, pretending our problem is merely one of some silly bureaucracy running amok also allows poseurs to think they're being radically "theoretical," when, in fact, they are not even scratching the surface of the issue Ritzer claims to explain. It's a problem of class-struggle-from-above, friends, and it goes way, way beyond McDonald's and Walmart.



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