Ritzer , 2004 excerpted from The McDonaldization of Society

1. Ritzer, 2004 excerpted from The McDonaldization of Society

2. Ritzer is a current sociologist (he teaches at the University of Maryland) who is influenced by the great sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920.) Weber, along with Marx/Engels and Durkheim, are often listed as the three founders of sociology. I asked you to read Ritzer partly so we can discuss Weber.

3. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism • This was Weber’s first important book, published in 1904. • Like Marx, Weber was interested in capitalism. Weber thought that capitalism had begun, in a small scale way, in different cultures and different times throughout human history. But capitalism never took off anywhere else until it took off in modern Europe a few hundred years ago. • So here’s Weber’s question: Why did capitalism take off in Europe, and not China or India or anywhere else?

4. Marx and Weber • Marx doesn’t really have an answer to this question. He thinks one type of society (in this case, feudalism) inevitably evolves into another type of society when the conflict between social classes becomes great enough, and when new technologies are invented, and so on. • So, if you asked Marx, “Why did it happen here and not other places?” He would answer in terms of the material conditions, and the conflict between the social classes. • For Marx, it really isn’t an interesting question…For Marx, capitalism had to happen somewhere first. It’s kind of arbitrary that it first happened in Europe. • For Weber, though, there is something unique about Europe…

5. Protestant Reformation • Before understanding Weber’s answer, I need to tell you something about Christianity. • Central to Christianity is this guy Jesus, who lived 2000 years ago in the Roman Empire. • Jesus influenced a lot of people, and after he died his influence grew and grew, until in the year 380 Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire. (By the way, “Christ” is a title that was given to Jesus.) • Jesus never wrote anything. Lots of people who were influenced by Jesus wrote books about him. These books said lots of different things. • At some point, early Christians wanted to separate the “real” stories about Jesus, who he was and what he taught, from the fake ones. They wanted a single official interpretation of what Christianity is about. That became the Catholic Church. The head of the Catholic Church was the Pope, who lived in Rome.

6. Protestant reformation • For over 1000 years, the Catholic Church was the official voice of Christianity. But, by the 1400’s and 1500’s in Europe, there were many people who thought the Catholic Church was corrupt. These critics were Christians themselves, but they were opposed to the hierarchy of the Catholics. So they protested against the Catholic Church; that’s why they were called “Protestants.” • Two of the most influential protestants were Martin Luther, in Germany, and John Calvin in France. They both lived in the 1500’s.

7. Protestant Reformation • The criticisms made against Catholicism by Calvin and Luther led to massive upheaval in Europe; some people sided with the traditional Catholic Church and some sided with the Protestants. This period of European history was known as the “Protestant Reformation.” • There were wars between the Catholics and the Protestants that went on for hundreds of years. • Anyway, for our purposes (for Max Weber’s purposes) the important thing is this:

8. Predestination • One of the weird doctrines of Calvin, who is one of the leading figures of the Protestant Reformation, is this: • all human beings are terrible sinners. No one deserves to get into heaven. • But god, since he is a nice guy, randomly chooses some of us after we die, and sends us to heaven. • I mentioned earlier how important “free will” is in the history of Christianity. Calvin denies that free will is significant; what is significant is this random act of god. So, through no responsibility of your own, you are either going to end up in heaven or in hell. • This is known as predestination.

9. Protestant anxiety • Well, this led to a lot of anxiety among the followers of Calvin: even if I’m a good person, I might end up in hell? That would suck.

10. Protestant work ethic • Is it possible to know ahead of time if I am going to end up in hell? • Calvin’s answer was “yes.” Those people who are going to heaven, god will give them a sign ahead of time: he will make them successful in their work. Being successful in your work is a sign that, after you die, you will go to heaven. Being unsuccessful is a sign that you are going to hell. • So you can imagine that, if you were worried about whether you were going to heaven or to hell, you would want evidence that you were going to heaven, so you would want to be successful in your work. This motivated people to work hard.

11. Protestant Work Ethic and capitalism • Catholics never had such a work ethic. For Catholics, this material world that we live in is not real, it only lasts a short time, but the afterlife is forever. And the way that I get into heaven is through following the rules of God. So, for the Catholics, the ideal sort of life is to live in a monastery on a hillside, where I can pray all day, outside the cares of the world. Catholics are not going to care about success in the material world.

12. Material success • Meanwhile for the Protestants the ideal life is one of success in my work, a life where I work very hard to achieve material success. • According to Weber, this “Protestant work ethic” is what led to the success of capitalism in Europe, after the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s.

13. Weber and Marx • So Weber, like Marx, thinks that economy is very important. Like Marx, he is concerned with capitalism. • But, for Marx, religion is part of the ideological superstructure of a society. It is not a cause of human history, it just reflects something going on more deeply, which is economy. • For Weber, economy is important, but economy is not the only driver of human history. Economy itself is partly driven by stuff in what Marx called the ideological superstructure.

14. Weber vs Marx • In general, Weber thought human history and human societies were more complicated than what Marx thought. Marx thought: just look at the economy, and we can predict everything else. Weber thought: no, there are lots and lots of competing factors that make up a society and that make up historical change. • So this is the first thing to take away from Weber: it’s not that he totally disagrees with Marx, but he thinks history is more complicated than Marx thought. And he thinks that stuff in what Marx called the ideological superstructure, like religions, can have real influence on human history. They don’t just reflect deeper economic causes.

15. Weber and Engels • Well, I already pointed out that Engels allows for the possibility that stuff in the ideological superstructure can influence the economic base. If that’s the case, there is no radical break between the Marxists and Weber. From this point of view, Weber is just a continuation of ideas already found in Marx and Engels.

16. Rationalizing • Ok, so here’s the next big idea of Weber. • In European history, capitalism doesn’t stand alone. As we’ve already seen, Weber connected the rise of capitalism to the rise of a new interpretation of the Christian religion: Protestantism. But there were also other major changes going on in Europe at the same time, like the Scientific Revolution. And, soon, the Industrial Revolution. • Weber thought these were all connected. • Weber thought that the revolutionary changes that swept modern Europe, starting around 400 years ago, including the rise of capitalism, and the Scientific Revolution, and eventually the Industrial Revolution, and the decline of religion, government by bureaucracies (rather than just the whim of a king), all were manifestations of a certain new type of thinking, of rationally organizing the world; let’s call it “rationalization of society.”

17. STOPPED HERE MONDAYmodernity • According to Weber, Europe might have been the first place that this new sort of order came to dominate, but this isn’t a particularly European thing, it’s a human thing, and it’s definitive of modernity. • So what “modernity” is is a new way of organizing the world. The next step of human evolution is to rationally organize everything. • (Notice the difference with Marx here: for Marx, all thinking is found in the ideological superstructure, it is an effect not a cause of history. Weber is telling us that a new sort of thinking is behind what we call the modern world. Capitalist economies themselves are only reflecting this type of thinking.)

18. Ritzer and McDonaldization • Ok, this brings us to George Ritzer. • Mcdonaldsis a specific company, but Ritzer is using it as a metaphor, or a symbol, of something much larger than the company: it’s a way of organizing our lives and our societies that is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the world. • He’s using McDonalds as a symbol to defend Weber’s point of view.

19. Ritzersays this way of thinking, or of organizing the world, that we find represented in McDonalds, has four features:

20. 1) Efficiency • Historically and culturally food played many roles, besides satisfying our hunger: i) It has a role in bonding people and families, and ii) creating cultural identities. There is iii) aesthetic value in cooking food, and iv) in eating it. v) Maybe there is value in growing it. • McDonalds strips away all these, except for satisfying our hunger. (Of course, some people find aesthetic value in eating it (packaged instant noodles versus street vendors.))

21. 2) Calculability • Everything is reduced to number. It’s not just about $, reducing things to time (“fast food”) might be relevant too. • Common American (capitalist?) attitude: more quantity for same price=better. We care about quantity and don’t ask questions about quality. The success of Walmart, or Costco, seems to reflect this. • “In McDonaldized systems, quantity has become equivalent to quality.”

22. 3) Predictability • Every McDonalds is identical to every other one, every big mac identical to every other big mac. • “Customers take great comfort in knowing that McDonalds offers no surprises.” • “The success of the McDonalds model suggests that many people have come to prefer a world in which there are no surprises.” • (Irony of McDonalds coming out of America, with its stress on individualism.) • The workers also behave in predictable ways, everything is scripted. • For that matter, whenever a worker can be replaced by a machine, that’s what happens. Which leads to:

23. 4) Control through technology. • Replacement of humans with machines, whenever possible. • The architecture itself exerts control: drive through windows, limited menus, uncomfortable seating.

24. The rise of McDonaldization: • “McDonaldization affects not just the restaurant business, but also education, work, the criminal justice system, health care, travel, leisure, dieting, politics, the family, religion, and virtually every other aspect of society.” (p. 5) • And though McDonalds began in America, McDonaldization is not an American phenomenon. It’s sweeping the world.

25. McDonalds began in 1955. • Today (2003), 31,172 restaurants worldwide. Found in 118 nations. (Japan, 4000 restaurants.) • Copied by other restaurant chains: KFC, etc. • Outside restaurant business: Starbucks, eg. • Other chain stores: Jiffy-lube, haircutting, other car repair places, bookstores, businesses of all sorts. Walmart, Costco. • Other “McDonaldized” businesses achieving international success, like Walmart. • Ritzer is writing before the rise of Amazon, but we might discuss Amazon as an example of the process of McDonaldization. • Other countries developing their own McDonaldized businesses, exporting them to the US. • Newspapers? Sex? Architecture? (p. 14) • Art? (Andy Worhol.) Travel? (Lonely Planet.) Megachurches. • Education?

26. Tract homes

27. More of the same

28. Andy Warhol

29. Assembly line

30. Assembly line #2

31. Assembly line #3

32. Automated assembly line

33. Industrial Agriculture

34. Hutongs

35. Advantages/disadvantages? • p. 18 for Ritzer’s list of advantages: • Convenience, affordability, availability of lots of goods/services. • Uniform quality: At least some people can get better stuff at better prices than previously • Convenience is important when people are working longer hours. • Rapidly changing, unfamiliar, hostile world: the stable, familiar environment is comforting (using McDonalds restrooms when in Italy, eg.)

36. Disadvantages? • Ritzerbasically deals with Marx’s two criticisms of capitalism: it’s alienating, and the reduction of all values to $ leads to exploitation and negative externalities. (Ritzer doesn’t use Marx’s language.) • Ritzer says: “rational systems inevitably spawn irrationalities.”

37. alienation • In addition, there’s a reduction of the creative process to: predictability, efficiency, technology, etc. Where does this leave creativity, art, and so on? • Kafka’s writing was a response to Weber’s “rationalization of society” as applied to bureaucracy, planned societies.

38. Ritzer conclusion: • p. 20: There is no return to the past, best to critique McDonaldization from the point of view of the future. • Wants to take into account both advantages and disadvantages • p. 21: reactions against McDonaldization? • Microbrew revolution? • Bed and breakfasts, international couch surfing, Air BnB? • Slow Foods? • Return of Hutongs in Beijing? (Houhai)

39. To Summarize • Weber, along with Marx, is considered one of the early major figures in sociology. • The big difference between Weber and Marx is that Marx thought stuff in the ideological superstructure of a society, like religion, is merely an effect of some deeper cause, which was economic. Weber thought that stuff in the ideological superstructure was not just an effect of history; it was a cause of history too. • Specifically, Weber argued that the thinking of the Protestant Reformation in Europe led to the success of capitalism in Europe. • Weber also believed a new type of thinking showed up in Europe around the time of the Scientific Revolution, which he called “rationalizing.” Humans were beginning to rationally organize everything. • Ritzer, a follower of Weber, uses McDonalds to illustrate what Weber calls “rationalizing.” McDonalds emphasizes four things: efficiency, calculability, predictability, technology. Ritzer argues that all aspects of the modern world are moving in a direction that emphasizes these four values.