Rationalization (sociology) - Consumption

Consumption

Modern food consumption typifies the process of rationalization. Where food preparation in traditional societies is more laborious and technically inefficient, modern society has striven towards speed and precision in its delivery. Fast-food restaurants, designed to maximise profit, have striven toward total efficiency since their conception, and continue to do so. A strict level of efficiency has been accomplished in several ways, including stricter control of its worker's actions, the replacement of more complicated systems with simpler, less time-consuming ones, simple numbered systems of value meals, the addition of drive-through windows, and even the use of uncomfortable furniture to discourage loitering.

Rationalization is also observable in the replacement of more traditional stores, which may offer subjective advantages to consumers, such as what sociologists consider a less regulated, more natural environment, with modern stores offering the objective advantage of lower prices to consumers. The case of Wal-Mart is one strong example demonstrating this transition. While Wal-Marts have attracted considerable criticism for effectively displacing more traditional stores, these subjective social-value concerns have held minimal effectiveness in limiting expansion of the enterprise, particularly in more rationalized nations, due to the preferences of the public for lower prices over the advantages sociologists claim for more traditional stores.

The sociologist George Ritzer has used the term McDonaldization to refer, not just to the actions of the fast food restaurant, but to the general process of rationalization. Ritzer distinguishes four primary components of McDonaldization:

• Efficiency – the optimal method for accomplishing a task; the fastest method to get from point A to point B. Efficiency in McDonaldization means that every aspect of the organization is geared toward the minimization of time.

• Calculability – goals are quantifiable (i.e., sales, money) rather than subjective (i.e., taste, labour). McDonaldization developed the notion that quantity equals quality, and that a large amount of product delivered to the customer in a short amount of time is the same as a high quality product. "They run their organization in such a way that a person can walk into any McDonald's and receive the same sandwiches prepared in precisely the same way. This results in a highly rational system that species every action and leaves nothing to chance".
• Predictability – standardized and uniform services. "Predictability" means that no matter where a person goes, they will receive the same service and receive the same product at every interaction with the corporation. This also applies to the workers in those organizations; their tasks are highly repetitive and predictable routines.
• Control – standardized and uniform employees, replacement of human by non-human technologies.