Sociology Essay: Contrasting McDonaldization and Consumerism

This essay delves into two prominent themes of contemporary society: McDonaldization and consumerism. It provides a comparative analysis of these concepts, exploring their dimensions, scope of study, and methodologies. McDonaldization, as defined by George Ritzer, emphasizes calculability, efficiency, control, and predictability, impacting various sectors, including education, which is examined through the concept of McUniversities. Consumerism, characterized by the promotion of consumer interests and the ideology of extreme consumption, is contrasted with McDonaldization. The essay discusses the concept of prosumption, where consumers also produce, and its impact on modern capitalism. It further explores how McDonaldization influences education, specifically highlighting its effects on teaching methods, standardized testing, and efficiency, as well as the role of technology in student retention and self-regulation. The essay concludes by considering the influence of globalization and the rise of consumerism in higher education.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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The essay deals with the chosen two broad themes of the contemporary society,
Mcdonaldization and Consumerism. It makes a comparison and contrast between the two chosen
themes, in the context of different perspectives like the scope of study, its analysis and
methodology. The term McDonaldization, has been invented by George Ritzer for the purpose of
describing a Sociological phenomenon, which is happening in the contemporary society (Ritzer
& Stepnisky, 2017). The major dimensions given by George Ritzer, with regard to
McDonaldization:
Calculability implies the assessment of the outcome based on the quantifiable standards
instead of the subjective areas. In short, it can be said that quantity would be focused rather than
the quality. For example, ‘Big Mac’ would preferably be sold, instead of ‘Good Mac’.
Efficiency implies the most favorable technique of completion of a task. It has been the process
of determining the most favorable method of production. Individuality has not been permissible.
Control implies the process of substituting more conventional labor that does not involve human
effort, in the place of human labor, through the replacement of work force or by automation.
Predictability implies that the process of production is organized for the purpose of guaranteeing
the consistency or homogeny of the product as well as their standardized results. Consequently,
every shopping mall begins to appear similar and the existing highways have similar business
assortment.
On the other hand, Consumerism can be explained as the promotion of interest of the
consumer. It is the ideology or culture of extreme consumption of services or material goods. It
is presumed that a nation which consumes services and goods in huge quantities will be in a

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better position economically. An example can be taken with reference to consumerism that, in an
advanced industrial society, a huge quantity of goods are sold and bought.
It has often been called as a policy, which promotes greediness (Baudrillard, 2016).
Consumerism has also been formulated as a movement contributing to consumer
protection that helps in promoting improvement in the advertisement, truthful packaging as well
as in development of safety standards (de, Copeland & Bimber, 2014). Consumerism seeks the
enforcement of laws that do not favor unfair practices as well as promote the implementation of
product guarantees.
The two themes of contemporary society chosen were Mcdonaldization and
Consumerism. George Ritzer was asked about his ideas regarding the global consumption of the
universities, specifically relating to the modern universities. In reply, he stated that, he often
called the modern universities as ‘Mc Universities’. Which meant that, it had McDonaldized the
process of education by stressing on predictability, efficiency, control and calculability. As a
result, it has helped in the creation of a system of mass education, but the irrationalities of the
rationalities of the said systems are that they have an effect on the educational quality as well as
the quality of the systems of education, in a negative way (Carroll, 2013).
A resemblance has been evidenced due to the effects of the restaurants dealing with fast
food, on the food quality (a ‘Big Mac’ would be sold instead of a ‘Delicious Mac’). The policy
tends to make universities to support the existing state of affairs rather than going against it
(Ritzer, 2015).
According to Ritzer, McUniversities are rapidly monopolizing the knowledge and its
distribution. His latest work dealt with ‘prosumption’, which means the combination of

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‘consumption’ and ‘production’. The students were ‘prosumers’ of the knowledge. Knowledge is
consumed by the students and produced in such a way that are distinctive to each one of them.
Students, not only being passive consumers of the offerings of the system, they also actively
produce and reveal the knowledge they have (Dustin, 2016).
Incidentally, the backdrop in recent times, for prosumer has been the Internet, where the
people evidently prosume, in social networks, like Facebook, in blogs, and others. In the
cathedral of consumption, the people are on the verge of being more and more prosumers, where
the people being the ‘consumers’ are doing additional work that were done by the paid workers
once. An example can be taken of the work, which is done by the people, in recent times, at the
shopping mall, fast food joints, home accessory shops, et cetera.
It has recently been argued that the people have been living in a world that is based on
‘prosumer capitalism’ where the capitalist have a preference of inadequately paid or unpaid
prosumers instead of paid workers. A suitable example in this context would be ‘Uber’. The
numbers of conventional cab drivers are falling as a consequence of the increase in prosumers
who work for cab services like Uber.
At the times when books or other products are being ordered in shopping websites like
Amazon, EBay, and others, the people are not only engaged in the consumption of books, but
also they have been engaged in the process of production of, personal orders, without payment.
In consequence, it has been evidenced that, there has been a steep fall or reduction in the number
of bookstores and in the number of people who had been working there.
Hence, new capitalists like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have increased, who became
or are on the verge of becoming multi billionaires by the replacement of paid workers with

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prosumers who are not being paid. The prosumers are not only unpaid, in addition to that, no
benefits are required by the prosumers, such as insurance related to health, and others, as would
have been claimed by the employees. Modern technologies like robots and machines would help
in enabling the business to rely more on the prosumer, or the people like ‘prosuming machines’
(Ritzer & Yagatich, 2012) would do the prosumption automatically.
An economic and social order and the ideology, which has been encouraging the
attainment of services and goods in an amount that is ever increasing, can be termed as
consumerism. Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the
acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts (Ritzer & Dean, 2015).
Consumerism has been explained in many ways, and has several histories. Consumerism
has been combined or conflated many a times with the term ‘consumption’. However, it is
important as well as constructive to make an abstract distinction between the two terms.
‘Consumption’ intends to denote the general usage of a service, objects, or goods, irrespective of
the kinds of ideological or economic perspectives the consumption is taking place.
‘Consumerism’ has often been used to signify the reason of consumption within a certain type of
political and social system; which is consumer capitalism.
In this scheme, consumerism holds the opinion that an increase in consumption is
considered to be essential for the benefit of the economy by the creation of economic growth and
private profit. This has been the general using of consumerism in modern times, which has been
the usual currency from the middle of twentieth century.
Nevertheless, as being concerned with the inferences of a system triggering the persistent
development of consumptions grow, both on environmental as well as economic basis. Either

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due to global warming or for anxiety, for example, over declination of the economy or recession
of ‘boom and bust’. ‘Consumerism’ has even been described as an expression, which carries a
derogatory implication for those judgmental of this social and political system as well as its
philosophy of insatiable or voracious material acquisition (Phlips, 2014).
Like the other aspects of life, the system of education as well as higher education have
been influenced by McDonaldization. Primarily, the effect of McDonaldization has been evident
in the areas of teachings in schools as well as in the universities at a broader sense. An example
can be taken with regard to one of the modern method of teaching which involves
communicative approaches.
In this case, the teacher just helps in facilitating, whereas, the student is the focus of
learning. In this system, the students are to form groups plus engage in discussions; the students
would be accountable for their individual learning. The method was regarded to be student
centered. The mentioned method has a resemblance to the picking up of individual orders and
bussing of the tables in McDonald’s (Nederveen, 2013).
Another facet of McDonaldization that has been taught and the students were expected to
obey, was to write essays or paragraphs. The students were instructed by their teachers to write
paragraphs which should contain one topic sentence, followed by supporting ideas and finally a
conclusion, as that was simply the suitable way. The basis of this was that every reader predicts
to locate the sentence of topic at the starting and then the concluding part at the end or bottom of
the paragraph. This had been considered as the influence of predictability, comparable with
McDonaldization in case of writing (Carroll, 2013).

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The third expression of McDonalidization in the educational field was noticeable in the
standardized tests as well as their association with funding in school. The students were
instructed to study basing on a set curriculum, and consequently, the students are required to be
responsible for the matters they had studied through the external test which is similar for all the
schools and not by the internals. Depending on the student’s performance, funding is received by
the schools. This is a further demonstration of control and accountability in case of
McDonaldized schools (Altbach, 2013).
After the retaining of the students, the universities are required to possess efficiency. One
of the familiar ways of attaining efficiency was to have assistants in teaching, who are the
customers as well. They teach various under graduate curriculums. It was obvious that it had
been more efficient and better to pay the current customer instead of paying a professor, who has
a Ph.D. degree, for teaching the students. The universities aim at increasing the efficiency by
appointing a single professor for a number of students, instead of appointing too many
professors. However, there are assistant professors as well.
The universities also engage in increasing the efficiency by providing satellite campuses
as well as classes of distant learning, to the students.
The similar kind of way which has been more profitable and efficient for the restaurants
serving fast food who offer their services through the drive through window; it has been
profitable to the universities in the case where the student takes his lessons in his own space.
For the same reason, the student can ‘bus’ the individual studies, for instance, doing the
works or exercises on a device such as the computer, and having the system verify the answer for
the students. In a similar manner, the consumers of McDonald’s act as the unpaid workers of the

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company who buss their individual tables. The scheme of self-serving has been spreading in the
recent times.
Finally yet importantly, technologies play a vital role in the retention of the student,
which relates to the retention of the customer; efficiency as well as control. With the help of
technological means, the students are able to go through the procedure of self-regulation.
An example can be cited for a better understanding, that in case of the classes of foreign
languages that were supposed to be held few times a week, met once or at the maximum twice in
classrooms with the teachers or instructors. Rest of the days, the students engaged in learning
through self-regulation by technological support.
The assignments and homework are done by the students on the computer thereby
evaluating their individual progress instantly. The referred process can be the demonstration of
another component of McDonaldization in the field of education, that is, control. It can be said
that, the influence of globalization or spreading of Mcdonaldization on other cultures have not
been clear.
There has been a progressively more dominant driver of the change in higher education
system with regard to the notion of consumerism (Lemire, 2012).
Whilst consumption can be explained as an act in which the people engaged in, the
Sociologists understand consumerism to be an attribute of society and a strong ideology, which
frames our identities, behavior, views of the world, values, and relationships. Consumerism
drives the people to consume thereby seeking fulfillment and happiness by consumption, that
serves as an essential counterpart to a society that is capitalist, which prioritizes unending growth
and mass production in sales (Stolle & Micheletti, 2013).

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The occurrence of McDonaldization, has been portrayed as a set of processes aimed at
increasing calculability, efficiency, control and predictability, is ambiguous and more
complicated.
Rationalization or McDonaldization of labor may result in the deskilling of labor and
oppression of the work force, but the same process may free some workers from the
dehumanization and alienation of labor, which is done in a better manner by automation or
machines.
Consumption prejudice in capitalist market, consumption norms and advertising,
consumer credit, increase in the inequality, market failures in leisure, and declination in public
goods, collectively underwrites hyperconsumerist lifestyles in the American society (Friedman,
2016). Certainly, some people go against or reject consumerism as the way of living life.
Consumerism can be considered as an innate inclination within capitalism. Nevertheless,
it is probable to deviate from hyper-consumerism by a reinvigorated democratic affirmative state
which helps to create the circumstance for a more balanced pattern of private and public
consumption, leisure and work (Brisman & South, 2014).
The four chief dimension of McDonaldization were efficiency, predictability, control and
calculability. Besides the four chief dimensions, there have been other dimensions of
McDonaldization as well, that was not included by Ritzer with the chief four, but are valuable
enough for attention. They are irrationality, deskilling and consumer workers.
Irrationality, which is considered to be a side effect of excessive rationalized system.

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Deskilling is a work force with the least amount of abilities likely to complete uncomplicated
focused tasks.
Consumer Workers is a way in which consumers or customers get tricked or deceived to become
unpaid employees.
On the other hand, Methodology of Consumerism includes, Routine Purchases that are
made by the people, who require slight decision-making; Purchases that require a limited
quantity of Decision-Making; Purchases that require a high quantity of Decision-Making and
Purchases that are considered impulsive.
McDonaldization thesis given by Ritzer, opines that McDonalds, with its calculability,
efficiency, control and predictability is a fine model for forces of the modern capitalism, which
structure both consumption and production. It has been argued that while McDonaldization
showcase a particular set of forces, there has been a rising counter trend in the post industrial
society that is known as eBayization. McDonaldization produces homogeneity and predictability
(Denegri-Knott & Zwick, 2012).
The critics of Ritzer's often complain that he has been extremely pessimistic, and does
not articulate resistance to McDonaldization adequately. For the major part, Ritzer has been
using Weber's conception of the ‘irrationality of rationalization’, of the way that it comes to
disagree with the personal goals, for the purpose of warning McDonaldization, thereby
developing a prevailing critique of the irrationalities that have been created by McDonaldization.
Anti-consumerism can be termed as a sociopolitical ideology, which is opposed
to consumerism. It has been argued that many unnecessary and luxury products can act as social
mechanism which allows people to recognize like-minded persons by exhibiting similar

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products, utilizing the aspects of status-symbolism, more than once, to evaluate social
stratification and socioeconomic status (Jost & Amodio, 2012). Consumerism can take intense
forms, that the consumers spend considerable income and time not only for purchasing but also
for supporting a particular brand or firm (Binkley, 2014).
New Zealand has been a dwelling of a linguistic environment and diversified society, and
the diversity has a probability of increasing in future. The function of languages has been
noteworthy in New Zealand and will be rising. Perceiving the insightful impacts from adapting
to a country that is multi lingual, will be significant in order to be successful economically,
culturally and socially (Nicholson, 2015).
Cultural, Substantial as well as social issues will be related to the maintenance and
development of te reo Māori and the identification of the persistent use of languages other than
English in New Zealand. A national language policy development will have to occur in the
context of identifying New Zealand’s biculturalism and a ethnically and linguistically complex
society, particularly in large cities like Auckland (Ward & Liu, 2012).
Nevertheless, the international and national evidence outlined here suggests a good base,
and there is a stirring opportunity of focusing on the places of language in a nationwide
framework (East, 2012).
Language plays an important role in learning. In a broader view, the effects of
bilingualism has been evidenced in an educational background, which suggests that the
bilinguals with good ability in both the languages have a better language skills, creative thinking,
as well as multi-tasking skills as compared to the monolinguals (Doutrich et al., 2012). A

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framework for the consideration of language issues implicates evaluation of direct as well as
non-direct impact.
A contemporary or modern society can be explained as a setting, which can be
characterized by globalization, innovations in technology and rising interconnections between
individuals. McDonaldization has been a regularity in the society. It has been advantageous for
the society as it makes things easier. As a result of McDonaldization, individuals have the option
of not spending much time to make their food, or in the calculation of tax, or travelling. It has
been simpler for the individuals to find a trade that are considered to be trustworthy as all of the
chains being the same. A negative point regarding McDonaldization is that individuals may visit
restaurants that are independent as well as stores for getting the authentic feeling, who are awed
by fruits in towns, when that style used to be the practice.
On the other hand, the augmentation of consumerism has been a feature of the 20th
century. Individuals buy merchandise and consume the resources, often in excess to their needs.
In modern times, this occurrence has been well known among the contemporary people who
have been fascinated by the belief that contentment is based on consumption. As a result, these
days, individuals are no longer consuming just for the satisfaction of hunger and similarly, the
individuals no longer wear clothes for the protection against conditions of weather. The people
generally purchase due to feelings of greed. Taking into account all the factors, it must be
accepted that in the last ten years, a rapid development of consumerism has been witnessed in the
contemporary society.