Does McDonaldization Promote or Impede Happiness?


Katie Bronson

    According to George Ritzer, McDonaldization consists of four main cornerstones or dimensions:  efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control (Ritzer, 2000: 11-12).  In most ways these factors allow our everyday lives to be much more simple and easy, but do they bring happiness to our everyday lives?  To answer this question, happiness must first be defined.  This definition is somewhat difficult to come by because of the inherent subjectivity of happiness.  What makes someone happy can differ greatly from one person to the next.  However, happiness is also something that can be shared with others through common beliefs or experiences and greatly affected by others, therefore bringing it to the societal level.  I would then generally define happiness as a sense of pleasure and fulfillment one gets from everyday acts of life.  Though it seems to be satisfying many with the notion that efficiency and simplicity equal happiness, I would argue that for the most part McDonaldization promotes unhappiness.
    McDonaldization has allowed for many and most aspects of our society to be run in an assembly line-like fashion.  Things are produced, fixed, cooked, eaten, exchanged, and simply just done as fast and easy as possible while still having acceptable outcomes.  Acceptable, however, does not often equal a very high quality (Ritzer, 2000: 15-16).  People multitask, and indulge in McDonaldization to save time, so they can put that time toward things they value more highly.  But in my opinion, efficiency often does not really save time at all.  When small shops with quality craftsmanship take on technology to produce things faster, the work day does not decrease.  In fact, the only things that do decrease are the quality of and the workers’ relationship to the product.  The faster things are produced, the less workers have to be paid because they are spending less time on more products.  Because pride in a quality product is then undermined, people then shift their priorities to obtain more and more money to buy things that do make them happy (Ritzer, 2000: 33,106 ).  As Ritzer discusses, these products bought are so predictable that the process turns into a vicious cycle as older objects quickly become boring and are discarded as new ones are desired (Ritzer, 2000).  More people are then working in factories to produce all of these products, so as a whole happiness is decreasing and collectively more time is being spent working.  
    Aside from the workplace, family relationships and traditions are also becoming McDonaldized.  After a hard day’s work, dinner is often picked up at a fast food take out, where it is then eaten in front of the TV (Ritzer, 2000: 141-142).  All of the time saved during the day then comes to what?  A quote by Susan Ertz states “Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon” (source not available).  What is the point of saving up time if it is just going to be wasted away on pointless activities such as watching TV? And do those activities really bring true happiness, a sense of fulfillment at the end of the day?
    Granted there are many people who do know how to spend quality time when they have it.  Also, watching TV can be a very enjoyable experience.  I admit that even I relish days where I can lay in my bed and watch a few movies that let me unwind from a hard week or a stressful paper.  But I would argue that if it were not for McDonaldization I would not need so many of these days so often.  If people really enjoyed what they did everyday, if they really felt fulfilled, like they accomplished something valuable, they would not need to come home and plop down on the couch with microwave popcorn and bottled water and get lost in the world of television.  
    McDonaldization promotes unhappiness in the workplace because it is dehumanizing.  Instead of making quality products, most people are pressing button after button like a robot, without any real ability to put their own skill and creativity into the product (Ritzer, 2000: 31-33).  Where personal interactions take place, both consumers and employees are dehumanized when they fall into the repetitive script which allows them to get what they need quickly by not having to actually show any sincerity toward each other (Ritzer, 2000: 88-91).  In education, students are pressed to make the grade.  Their education is not based on the quality of their knowledge, but by the quantitative grade point average because our society calls for calculability (Ritzer, 2000: 66).    Instead of working to learn, students are then working to make the grade, because “knowledge for its own sake is not seen as a valid and valuable goal” (Bell and McGrane, 1999: 2, 19).  Even in health care, patients are often rushed in and out as quickly as possible in order to maximize the number of patients that can be seen, many times causing the patients to feel more like objects rather than people (Ritzer, 2000: 70).  All of these factors cause many people day after day to seek happiness elsewhere, because they are not fully satisfied by their everyday lives.
    Even with all of these drawbacks I still understand the necessity of some aspects of McDonaldization in our society.  For example in emergency hospitals time is often a very important deciding factor of whether or not someone will live.  Cheap and efficient productions of food, clothes, and health care products often make these necessities available to those who could otherwise not afford them.  But just because people are going to work or school, making money or grades and therefore succeeding in society’s eye, they are not necessarily succeeding in being happy.  It is a well known saying that money can not buy happiness.  Fulfillment and pleasure have to come from things that are worth real value, such as quality craftsmanship and personal interactions and relationships.  Our society, being based on capitalism, is motivated by money and McDonaldization reinforces that.  If McDonaldization really promoted happiness, then there would not be such a need for the entertainment technologies it supplies.  Though some aspects of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control are necessary for our society to function properly, a society strictly based on these can not truly promote happiness for the majority of people.

References

Bell, Inge, and Bernard McGrane. 1999. This Book Is Not Required. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.
Ritzer, George. 2000, The McDonaldization of Society.  New Century Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.

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