1. The velvet cage--Some consider McDonaldization a 'velvet cage'-we like some of the things that it produces. Predictability is often comforting--go with the restaurant you know, the food may not be great but you don't think you'll leave with botulism, salmonella, heartburn, or an empty wallet. Efficiency 'saves time.' Yes, it often means less choices for us, but who needs 17 different brands of toilet paper, right? Less choice means less complexity, and who needs all of that? And by the way, who's making the choices for us? In a McDonaldized world, do we give up some of our freedom to make our own choices in the name of convenience?
   
   
2. The rubber cage--Okay, so McDonaldization isn't the greatest thing since indoor plumbing (which is a pretty great thing, when you think about it). But, like a rubber cage, if we really want to, we can escape it. It's there for those who like that sort of thing, but I can make my own choices and choose not to go to McDonald's, right? I can choose where to shop--there are malls all over the place. True, they often all have the same shops in them. I can choose where to eat--restaurants everywhere. True, many of them are chains, but I don't have to eat there. There are a few, such as the Mom N Pop Food Shop, or Sam's Discount Meat-on-a-Stick, where I'm always welcome and there are no cattle chutes full of people waiting to order the same food. In fact, I hardly ever have to wait in line AT ALL--there's almost nobody in there! It isn't like McDonald's where, as Yogi Berra once said, 'nobody goes there anymore cuz it's too crowded.' And if I want to buy anything else, I can go to, well, WalMart. Or BiMart. Or MartMart. But I can avoid shopping there, too, can't I? Almost everything they sell could be found somewhere else, for twice the price, if you've lived in La Grande all your life and know the streets like the back of your hand. How does WalMart do it? Everyday low pricing and sweatshop labor in Bangladesh at twenty cents an hour helps tremendously, as well as the most efficient distribution system in the cosmos. But I can leave this cage anytime I want to by merely pulling the bars apart. I can go hiking in the Wallowas, with my water pump, my North Face Burma double-wing-nut fast-release high-elevation backpack, my Kelty UltraLight N' Gigantic K2 nylon tafetta tent, my Hi-Tec kevlar/goretex hiking boots with silicon suspension system, etc., and use a guidebook that tells me the difficulty rating on all of the trails I might want to take, right down to the water temperature at Glacier Lake on a Sunday in July (well, practically). I need those things. And I can say no if I want to.
   
   
3. The iron cage (this is what Max Weber called the bureaucracy and rationalization)--let's face it, we're trapped. Trapped like rats. It may look like a velvet cage to you, or a rubber cage, but can you really escape it? To go where?? To live out in the wilderness, in a cave? Better have your Caves of the Northwest Guidebook and Hermit living for Dummies guides. Improved genetically altered seeds from Monsanto to grow your own food, or an Internet connection to shop online (better have a nine-digit zip code. pal!). What do we do in our lives that isn't more like a McDonald's restaurant? Many of us work or aspire to work at jobs that are increasingly specialized and automated. There's less room for advancement with our employers because we have so few skills. We can't avoid going to stores where the employees say, on demand, 'How should I know, I just work here.' How can we avoid dealing with large bureaucracies? As society becomes ever more complex, how do we handle it without trying to rationalize everything? According to the publishing industry, I need books on how to do web pages, how to teach intro social problems classes, how to really understand the spiritual nature of the universe, how to communicate with my spouse and kids, etc. There's just too much--help me, I need a special trainer to McDonaldize my life and help me cope! What did I just say?? I've become . . . Mc . . . McDonaldized!

Okay, I got carried away there. Obviously a bit of caricature in the above stereotypes. So please, let's just leave the attorneys out of this one. They're busy enough suing the fast food chains. But hopefully, you get the picture. Some enjoy McDonaldization. Ritzer says it's a velvet cage for them. However probably not single mothers who have to work there to get any public assistance, and have few other job options, no retirement, few health benefits, etc., and risk getting fired or (worse) lectured by some sniveling teenage assistant manager (who's got killer payments to make on the custom paint job he just got on his '67 Barracuda) for not saying 'would you like a Sausage McGriddleBiskit Basket with that order?' to every customer that walks up to the counter. In other words, as we say about social problems, some people are harmed, but likely others are benefiting. Keep in mind from the above: the cages may look different, feel different, but they're all cages. According to Ritzer.

Take the example of our politicians. More and more they're reading scripts, can't even think for themselves (or at least the consultants who manage them don't want them to), and have to appeal to the most people possible so end up saying next to nothing about their views, instead criticizing their opponents, so that they can attract wealthy campaign donors and get elected without ever really telling the electorate anything about their intentions.

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Social problem?

Whenever you're not sure if you're seeing a social problem, remember a few things:

• First, think about who is affected. Are they adversely affected? And keep in mind, if no one benefited from a social problem, it would likely go away.
• Don't expect to see a social problem in a store--your lens is too narrow--sociologists look more broadly at the world. What you're seeing in the store may be a symptom of a bigger social problem that affects a lot of people, though. Does the store have franchises? Lots of workers? Is it displacing other kinds of establishments that aren't so focused on efficiency, quantity over quality, and that might reinvest more of their profits locally in the community, rather than shipping them off to corporate headquarters? Do its products encourage a highly consumptive and unsustainable lifestyle? Health issues? Are local cattle ranchers forced to sell their beef to huge, corporate McDonaldized slaughterhouses where disease is the norm, animals treated inhumanely (well, maybe that's sort of the nature of the slaughterhouse ...), and safety inspections insufficient to identify problems and contamination? Clearly the rise in obesity-related illnesses is a public health issue, and the change in diet over the last 20 years has played some part. There are environmental issues associated with how McDonaldized goods get produced, how they consume resources, how they externalize costs and increase consumption (and waste disposal), and what that does to our water, air, atmosphere, bodies, etc.
• Changes in work. More broadly, remember what we've talked about in class. In a store you may be seeing a microcosm of a bigger problem--if workers are exploited locally (underpaid, with no set hours, offered no benefits, provided with very little training, required to work from a script enforced by 'secret shoppers'), not increasing their value the longer they work with a company, not teenagers but single mothers and others well beyond their first jobs who can't find a living wage job elsewhere, and you begin to multiply this by the number of stores, and think of other competing chains, or other firms in other industries doing similar kinds of things, until it seems like the most important hing isn't the quality of service or product at all but increase value of shares in the company, or expansion, or number of hamburgers sold, or the size of the drinks, then maybe we've reached a point where quality of life is affected. Does McDonaldization, like the 'Victory' mentality in 1984, lead to some subtle lowering of standards for an unsuspecting public? In addition, if workers aren't making enough money to get by, will they need help--public assistance? Are taxpayers essentially subsidizing low-wage employers who don't pay a living wage? Is that one of the externalities of McDonaldization?
• Social control. Okay. This one may seem trickier, but think about it. Does McDonaldization work at the societal level to control a population? Are people predictable in their eating habits (we can predict a certain level of consumption of fast food and other McDonaldized products)? Are they susceptible to mass advertising (and the food industry in particular has a huge advertising budget)? Do they come to set lower standards for quality, not expecting much from their food, music, art, politicians, media, government, schools, businesses, etc., other than efficiency and some predictable, uniform set of products or services? Is consumption in a sense a sort of drug that society is hooked on? And as long as McDonaldization thrives by externalizing costs, can we expect demand for cheap products and services to stay healthy, even if people's arteries aren't? And . . . . here's the best part . . . . can much of this be accomplished without much coercion, in fact with many people being quite happy and content about the whole enterprise?? Chew on that one for a while. Who needs 1984 when you've got Golden Arches and velvet cages?? And keep in mind what Weber says about rationalization--it's a cage of sorts. Isn't there some controlling aspect associated with that sort of metaphor? Can people really escape it, even if they want to (acknowledging that many don't)? And can we keep people from focusing on the possible reasons why McDonaldization has become such a high demand phenomenon--perhaps the economy has forced more working adults into the labor force, wages drop, especially with McJobs, lives get busier and more hectic, and instead of stepping back and taking in these changes, many people watch the commercials, visit the playlands, order the Happy Meals, and embrace McDonaldization not as a band aid on something much bigger happening historically, but as an affordable answer to many of modern life's stresses.
• Do you need to consider McDonaldization a social problem? No, but if you say it isn't, that no one is harmed in large numbers, you'll need to support that argument with some evidence and logic, and address some of the above issues. And you'll also have to understand the arguments that contend it is a social problem. You don't have to agree with them, but you do need to understand them.

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Can McDonaldization be countered?

• When you shop:
  • Farmers' markets,
  • Support local food co-ops (here's an example from Ashland. Food co-ops are locally owned and operated and buy to the extent possible from local producers)
  • re-use your bags
  • avoid malls, chain stores
  • Support local specialty stores (there are a couple of good bakeries in town, for instance)
  • Know your products (for instance, did you know that Kraft Foods is owned by Philip Morris, the cigarette people who changed their name to Altria? RJ Reynolds owns Nabisco Foods); also, check out the ingredients (one of my favorites is the 'juice blend,' which allows companies to use varying combinations of juices, which often make up only 2% of the frozen concentrate anyway);
• When you eat:
  • Avoid fast food-try new restaurants
  • Cook from scratch occasionally
  • Avoid foods made in McDonaldized ways (e.g., factory farmed beef, chicken or pork--Tyson Fresh Meats (formerly Iowa Beef Processors) is one of the primary buyers from factory farms. But it's okay! It sez 'fresh' right there in the name! Eat away! Invite the neighbors!)
  • Be wary: even organic foods can be mass-produced (this is likely to happen when manufacturers see market for a less expensive version of a product)
  • Is this easy for farmers or consumers to do? No. Resisting such a powerful trend takes effort, and sometimes expense. It means prioritizing, also. If factory farmed beef is cheaper because of efficiencies in production, but the quality is less, we may have to decide to eat less beef, but of better quality (beef I'm using as an analogy here--it could be anything, including Thomas Kinkade prints).
• When you travel or recreate
  • Look for bed and breakfasts, instead of large hotel chains;
  • If you're camping/hiking, check out wilderness areas instead of RV campgrounds
  • Avoid bus tours, ocean cruises, theme parks, virtual reality, etc.
    • But again, be wary of McDonaldization: look at the hiking gear-water pumps, high-tech backbacks, cookware, tents and sleeping bags, hiking shoes, etc. All designed to help you enhance your experience, but perhaps in the process taking some of the enchantment out of it.
• When you choose a school:
  • Universities-Cal Santa Cruz; Evergreen University, Reed College, Colorado College-don't use the conventional GPA system or semester/quarter system for evaluation (less calculable, efficient for faculty-but is the university structure different?);
• When you watch TV:
  • Avoid heavily commercialized stations or networks with short headline-based news stories;
  • Try to draw on multiple sources of information for your news
  • Pay attention to the commercials--they probably tell you more about American society than the shows.
  • Of course, you can turn off the TV, although some authors suggest that you can never really turn off the TV--it's part of our culture, its shows follow us to work, to the 'water cooler,' it shows up in our fashion trends
• Where you live:
  • Subdivisions (even Thomas Kinkade subdivisions)
• When you vote:
  • Register to vote, and then vote
  • Seek alternative sources of information on candidates
  • Don't vote for candidates who avoid debates, depend on TV commercials to campaign, and avoid in-depth discussions of their views (this suggests either they don't have their own views, and are reading someone else's scripts, or that their views might be unpopular if they were made public)
• Build and support local institutions. La Grande has a farmers' market, where local producers sell to locals. What happens to much of the food that's grown here in the Valley and surrounding areas? It ends up being processed in very McDonaldized ways. How to stop a WalMart Supercenter from dominating the Grocery market in La Grande? One way is to create and use alternatives. A farmers' market is one. A food cooperative would be another . This means also avoiding those 'one-stop' stores that attempt to carry everything. This can be trickier than one thinks, though. Even some organic food companies mass produce products for large markets.
• Slow down. Refer to the 'slow food movement' chapter in Ritzer's book (although also notice how organized and rationalized the resistance to McDonaldization is . .. ). Slow food also embodies the concept that old and traditional food isn't somehow flawed, and requiring some new twist (like double-stuffed chicken/garlic pizza crust with 7 types of cheeses). New products are often designed to do one thing: create new needs, new demand, rather than meeting existing demand (which may be shaped by this needs creation process anyway).
• Policy changes. For example, there's 'Smart growth.' This is an effor to try to avoid urban sprawl, sameness (actually more efficient transportation systems, etc.).

Ritzer has some other suggestions as well:

• Avoid daily routines-break patterns (in thought processes as well)
• Use local businesses where you can (glasses, taxes, doctors, haircuts, etc.)
• Send back junk mail
• Don't use automated customer service systems
• Use cash, checks, not credit cards
• Avoid establishments that use plastic, non-degradables;
• Treat workers like humans in fast food places
• Watch less commercial television (I tend to think it's okay to watch, but you might consider changing how you watch it)

One other thing: Those who are disenchanted with the prospect of a world increasingly McDonaldized, can work for social change, become involved in your community, pay attention to what politicians are saying (or not saying), etc. Be engaged citizens. Yes, it may take time and effort. Does anything worth doing not (take time and effort)?

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As non-rationalized institutions become more successful, what happens?

Let's take the example of Ben and Jerry's ice cream

• They had different salary structures;
• They made contributions to foundations working towards social change; They encouraged recycling, reducing environmental waste;
• They bought and used local products, supported local dairies, as much as possible;
• There were no scripts or uniforms for employees;
• They did franchise, but slowly;
• At one point, when they were young and starting out, they posted a sign on the store front that said 'we're closed today so we can figure out if we're making any money'
• But there were some McDonaldized elements: standardized scoop size, CEO compensation (but at no more than a 5:1 ratio with workers')
• Rain forest crunch--this was an effort to harvest Brazilian nuts for one of their flavors and support local economies, and give a portion of sales for tropical forest conservation. However, it also tied previously solated cultures into world commodity markets (the best intentions can go astray). Also, only 5% of the nuts used in rain forest crunch ever came from Brazil's forests.
• The company opposed unionization efforts, later went public (that is, offered stock on the stock exchange)
• What happened? Ben & Jerry's sold out to Unilever, a $45 billion multinational corporation, for $326 million
  

Finally, ask yourself--is Ritzer's book McDonaldized? There's a heading on every page or so, geared to the short attention span of college students, right (a little undergraduate humor, there)? The discussion is light and airy, nothing goes into great depth, and the references to pop culture make it easier to 'digest.' Is this a McDonaldized way to present what otherwise would be dry sociological theory (dry to the outsider, anyway)? Over the long run, do publishers make the determination that a McDonaldized approach sells more books, and that books have to be entertaining if we expect people to buy and read them? Any of this argument sound like familiar territory we've already covered? And is anybody really hurt by this? How simplified are politicians' arguments before a major election: 1) terrorists are bad people; 2) they want to hurt you; 3) I can protect you; 4) my opponent can't (in fact, he/she might just be a terrorist!). Anything lost in that translation from complexity to a media-ready sound bite?

What's good for the goose . . .