The term McDonaldization denotes the process by which the codes of fast-food restaurants are increasingly dominating other sectors of American society and the world as a whole. The concept is based on four basic principles namely: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Efficiency refers to the use of optimum methods for executing tasks (Ritzer, 2019) . Calculability underscores the quantitative features of the products and services sold and offered. These aspects include price, portion size and the time it takes to deliver services. McDonald's also prioritizes predictability which is the guarantee that products and services will be uniform over time and across outlets. Finally, McDonald's exerts control over its customers and ensures that the demeanor of customers is per the desire of the management.
The success of McDonald's and other McDonaldized systems has been attributed to their ability to offer their managers, workers, and consumers the benefits associated with these four principles. McDonald’s also has many commendable programs to benefit members of the community including vulnerable individuals such as the old, the disabled, the sick, and teenagers. The process of McDonaldization has also progressed rapidly because of the many positive changes with which it has been associated. Critiques have also identified the downsides of McDonaldization. These include paradoxical inefficiency, high costs, deceptiveness especially in dealing with customers, dehumanization, homogenization, environmental and health dangers, and disenchantment.
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The foundational McDonald’s approach was created in 1937 by Richard and Maurice McDonald (Ritzer, 2019) . Their restaurant was based on the principles of affordability, large volumes, and high speeds. Over the years, the franchise has expanded exponentially and has managed to maintain a suitable balance between the autonomy of franchisees and centralized control. Today, the business model has been extended to more upmarket, higher-priced brick-and-motor chain restaurants. McDonald's continues to extend its grasp in society. Its outlets are available in naval bases, around campuses, in convenient rest stops, and high schools. The effects of McDonaldization are also manifest in other non-food industries including the pharmaceutical industry. Accordingly, the chapter concludes that no aspect of life is immune to McDonaldization. Importantly, the chain has grown to become an Americana and a global idol.
Chapter 2: McDonaldization Past and Present
This chapter discusses the theoretical outlooks that are critical to the analysis of brick-and-mortar sites as well as the increasingly significant, mainly digital consumption sites such as Amazon. Further, it provides a retrospective analysis of MacDonald's main brick-and-mortar predecessors. This is because the ideas that underlie McDonaldization were partly derived from these principles. The fast-food restaurant is identified as an example of a solid structure. One of the predecessors of McDonaldization, as described in the chapter, is the concept of bureaucracy as elucidated by Max Weber (Ritzer, 2019) . Another predecessor, albeit extreme, is the Holocaust and its concentration camps as described by Bauman. Weber perceived bureaucracy as a solid rationalized framework. Today, fast-food restaurants have been described in terms similar to those used by Weber but have instead been denoted as McDonaldized. Accordingly, it is argued that McDonaldization is a more fashionable term for rationalized. Similarly, concentration camps during the Holocaust were considered by Bauman to be highly rationalized structures (Ritzer, 2019) . The chapter considers solid structure as those that regulate or restrict the movement of both people and products. Accordingly, concentration camps, bureaucracies, and fast-food chains can be considered solid structures. The state of McDonaldization in contemporary society is also examined. This analysis culminates in comparison and discussion of three major consumption sites in the world today – Amazon, Wal-Mart, and McDonald's. This discussion leads to the conclusion that while most consumption will continue to occur in McDonaldized brick-and-mortar contexts, digital platforms are progressively taking over as a more powerful alternative (Ritzer, 2019) . This trend is particularly perceptible from the analysis of Amazon. Various digital sites are focused on becoming more McDonaldized while others like Amazon are already more McDonaldized than the classic brick-and-mortar sites. Nevertheless, the vivid distinctions between the digital world and brick-and-mortar sites are wearing down as these two worlds have come to exist in a nexus. The resulting consumption setting is one in which digital and brick-and-mortar sites augment one another promising even further McDonaldization in the future.
Chapter 3: Efficiency and Calculability: Consumers 1
Efficiency is arguably the principle of McDonaldization that is most often related to the ostensibly increasing pace of contemporary lifestyle. It has clear advantages to consumers who can now acquire whatever they require faster and more easily. Correspondingly, efficient workers can execute their tasks easily and more rapidly. However, irrationalities such as paradoxical ineptitudes and the dehumanization of workers and consumers have been linked with the desire for better efficiency (Ritzer, 2019) . The push for efficiency in both digital and brick-and-mortar settings has led to the reduction and elimination of human labor. Efficiency calls for choosing the optimal method to achieve certain results. However, in reality, optimum means to desired ends barely exist. Accordingly, people rarely maximize due to hindrances presented by various factors. In a McDonaldized setting, people hardly seek the novel means to an end. Instead, there is a tendency to depend on already proven and institutionalized approaches. Accordingly, efficiency and productivity are enhanced.
Consumers are keen on finding the most efficient ways of maneuvering through shops to find what they want. McDonaldized settings have thus established systems with efficient direction for customers to follow. This chapter considers efficiency in terms of streamlining processes, simplifying the product, and engaging consumers with work. In terms of streamlining processes, the efficiency associated with McDonaldization has resulted in shorter ordering and paying times, and faster service (Ritzer, 2019) . It has also lead to the incorporation of technology to enhance business operations. The efficiency of McDonaldization has also been incorporated in spheres such as education, healthcare, entertainment, and E-commerce. Efficiency is also manifest in contemporary applications such as Uber and online dating sites. Concerning the simplification of products, fast-food restaurants typically sell foods based on simple recipes. They also have a limited menu to ensure customer efficiency. McDonaldization also puts customers to work through its self-service system.
Calculability entails the quantification and enumeration of things. It has been associated with many advantages including the ability to rapidly produce and consume a huge number of products of a wide variety. Customers in McDonaldized settings are served quickly as employees and prosumers operate speedily. Unfortunately, the over-emphasis in quantity has been linked to poor quality products and processes. To the customer, calculability means eating while on the move rather than having a good dining experience and taking foods that are essentially prepared hastily and at the lowest possible price (Ritzer, 2019) . To the employee, calculability means obtaining minimal satisfaction from work and as such, the process and its outputs could be compromised. Calculability is entangled with other principles of McDonaldization. It enhances the determination of efficiency and predictability as it facilitates quantification. Quantification is also critical to control. Presently, calculability has been revolutionized by the use of complex mathematical algorithms in the analysis of big data on digital sites.
Chapter 4: Predictability and Control: Consumers 2
In a rationalized and solid society, customers prefer to be aware of what to expect. Such a society, therefore, emphasizes order, discipline, formalization, systematization, routine, methodical operation, and consistency. Predictability has also been associated with the disadvantage of turning consumption into a monotonous routine (Ritzer, 2019) . The fast-food industry is described to have adopted and improved the practices initiated by early-day motel chains. It is postulated that the success of McDonald's stems from its predictability and uniformity and its meticulous standardization. The drive for predictability goes beyond food and extends to other goods sold in McDonaldized settings. An analysis of the various leading chain stores that dominate malls such as Apple, Old Navy, and Banana Republic, just to mention a few, reveals the uniformity that typifies their operations (Ritzer, 2019) . While some of the products may be unique and different, the general approaches to interacting with customers, displaying products, and ringing up purchases are usually very similar across the various outlets. Predictability has also been found critical to the minimization of danger and unpleasantness.
McDonaldization emphasizes the control of humans through the application of nonhuman technology. In this context, technology not only means tools and machines but also techniques, rules, procedures, regulations, skills, and knowledge. Technology, therefore, encompasses aspects such as assembly lines, standard operating procedures, bureaucratic rules, and techniques. It is recognized that customers have unlimited freedom to defy rules and shift to a different eatery if they are not satisfied by the circumstances in which they may find themselves. Despite this recognition, McDonaldized settings have established and enhanced various methods for controlling customers. Clients have been conditioned to understand that they are supposed to queue, order and pay of their food on the counter, move with their food to available booths or tables to eat, after which they collect their remaining morsels and deposit them in the debris receptacle. Again, the chapter highlights the fact that the control associated with McDonaldization has extended to other spheres of society and life including birth and death (Ritzer, 2019) . It concludes by postulating that in the future, more nonhuman technologies with a greater capacity to control consumers and the consumption process will be developed. As such, people will progressively lose their freedom to choose and think independently.
Chapter 5: Efficiency and Calculability: McJobs and other McDonaldized Occupations 1
The chapter begins by arguing that most occupations have been McDonaldized. This has led to the coining of the term “McJobs” to denote jobs that have been affected most by McDonaldization (Ritzer, 2019) . Nevertheless, since McDonaldization is widely associated with technological advances like automation many McJobs are disappearing and will soon be non-existent. The increase in prosumption further poses an existential threat to McJobs. However, some of these jobs could change and embrace technology as technology is increasingly reducing the skills required in various occupations thus relegating them to the McJobs zone. Appropriately, McJobs are not only limited to the fast-food industry. The term covers various poorly paying jobs that require minimal training and skill. McJobs can be defended for the sole reason that they employ people who would have otherwise been jobless. According to this chapter, McDonaldized workers include scholars, educators, athletes, casual workers, politicians, pilots, thespians, and salespeople just to mention a few (Ritzer, 2019) . As such, it is clear that the effects of McDonaldization are being felt across occupations regardless of their perceived status and prestige.
In terms of calculability, the speed with which food is served in fast-food outlets is greatly emphasized. Quantity is also stressed in the precision with which elements in the production of fast-foods are measured. Typically, quality control is quantified in the food industry. For instance, in Burger King, hamburgers must be served within ten minutes of being prepared. The chapter highlights how the aspect of calculability spans various spheres. In academia, quantitative factors are critical to research, publication, teaching, assessment of students and ranking (Ritzer, 2019) . Profit-making organizations in the healthcare industries compel their employees to push the profitability agenda of their employers. Accordingly, the time spent with each patient is limited to maximize the total number of patients served in a day. Calculability is also manifest in politics. Today, polls have become increasingly important during campaigns. Quantity is also emphasized in sports hence the constant urge by sportsmen to break records as an indicator of success (Ritzer, 2019) . The chapter concludes by positing that calculability has reached an extreme in the digital world. New advances in technology have resulted in the automation of big data collection and analysis by sophisticated algorithms that transform nearly everything into malleable data.
Chapter 6: Predictability and Control: McJobs and Other McDonaldized Occupations 2
The chapter begins by suggesting that the interactions between customers and attendants in fast-food outlets are limited in scope and length and can thus be routinized. Accordingly, McDonald’s has certain regulations that attendants must adhere to when dealing with clients (Ritzer, 2019) . Fast-food outlets strive to make their employees think, act and look more predictably. For instance, employees are compelled to adhere to a prescribed dress code and are trained to acquire a certain corporate culture. Comprehensive manuals spell out standard operating protocols. Incentives are also used to motivate employees to behave appropriately. Similarly, disincentives are in place to deal with defiant personnel. Predictability is further enhanced in fast-food outlets by having attendants follow certain scripts while interacting with clients. Such routinization has been associated with the provision of speedier, less costly, and more reliable services to customers who are also protected from the incompetence of attendants (Ritzer, 2019) . However, some customers do not appreciate the mindless following of scripts as attendants in most cases seem robot-like, unresponsive, and less humanly. Scripted interactions are also employed widely in telemarketing and other spheres such as insurance and entertainment.
The use of nonhuman technology has enhanced control over employees in McDonaldized settings, as well as the production process. Workplaces are essentially bureaucracies typified by chains of command, guidelines, rules, and regulations that dictate the operation of people within a system. Over time, there has been a shift in control from people to technology. McDonald's reportedly keeps its employees in check by threatening to use and eventually employing technology to substitute human labor (Ritzer, 2019) . Technology that enhances worker control is critical to ensuring that McDonaldized systems produce consistent products and services. The application of nonhuman technology to improve control has been extended to childcare and medicine (Ritzer, 2019) . Bureaucratic controls and rules are increasingly becoming important in medicine. Moreover, several technological advances have been employed in the design of modern medical equipment. As outlined in the chapter, humans pose the greatest threat to consistency and thus predictability. Accordingly, it is argued that control over human resources may be achieved but controlling products and processes, but control over products and processes is in itself valuable.
Chapter 7: The Irrationality of Rationality: Traffic Jams on Those “Happy Trails”
McDonaldization has extended across virtually all social spheres due to the benefits that stem from its four fundamental principles of efficiency, control, calculability, and predictability. Despite these benefits, McDonaldization has also precipitated significant problems. This chapter argues that rational systems inexorably breed irrationalities that ultimately limit, undermine, and compromise their rationality. Accordingly, McDonaldization can also be associated with
inefficiency, lack of control, incalculability, and unpredictability. More specifically, this chapter highlights irrationalities including dehumanization, homogenization, environmental and health hazards, disenchantment, false friendliness, excessively high costs, and inefficiency. The chapter also elucidates the various challenges that stem from McJobs which is a progeny of the McDonaldization process. In as much as McJobs are problematic, probably an issue of greater concern is the fact that the use of nonhuman technologies such as robotization and automation are progressively leading to their loss (Ritzer, 2019) . Irrationality also denotes the disenchantment of rational systems. These systems seem to have lost their mystery and magic. Importantly, rational systems may be considered to be perverse systems that repudiate the human reason and humanity of the individuals that work within them or receive services from them. Overall, rational systems and McDonaldization are dehumanizing. They create an environment where customers and employees are unlikely to cultivate healthy and positive relationships. Such dehumanization may reach its peak in digital sites (Ritzer, 2019) . Accordingly, the irrationalities stemming from McDonaldization should be resisted as they could potentially become stronger and grow in scope in the future.
References
Ritzer, G. (2019). The McDonaldization of Society: Into the Digital Age (9th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
