Why we hate McDonald's by Iain MacSaorsa ********************************************************* Talk given as part of a Scottish Federation of Anarchists speaking tour April 1995 ********************************************************* I'm not hear to spill the beans on the Big Mac Empire, others can do that far better. I'm here to place McDonalds in context, as a product of the system we live under. McDOnalds did not develop in isolation. McDOnalds, with its empire, its advertising, its product, its production methods, its workforce, is the classic example of modern capitalism. Its methods, its "values" reflect those of the system and are becoming the "norm", if you like. This process is typical of a market economy developing into a market society, of the process where the society increasingly reflects the economic basis on which it is built. This process could be called "capitalisation" but we will call it McDonaldisation as this is more fitting with the times and feel of the modern spectacle within which we live. McDonaldisation is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are becoming the dominate more and more parts of our society. Image, if you like, is replacing content. The key to understanding McDonaldisation is to understand that it, like capitalism, requires that the "human factor" be removed from process. It does this in 4 main ways :- Efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. Some examples will illustrate these four dimensions of McDonaldisation. There are plenty more. In fact someone has written a book on the subject "The McDonaldisation of Society". This speech is plagiarising said book. But since plagiarism is by its very nature creative, I hope you will think no less of it. Honesty is, I hope you agree, often the best bet! So, lets take efficiency first. Efficiency within a McDonaldised system means that the vast potential of human life is controlled and narrowed in order to ensure "efficiency" (which, in practice, means less cost). Ray Kroc, the brain behind big Mac empire, emphasised this "there was inefficiency, waste and temperamental cooks, sloppy service and food whose quality was never consistent. What was needed was a simple product that moved from start to completion in a streamlined path" To increase "efficiency" work was deskilled and turned into an assembly line. The eating of food was turned into "finger food", no need for knifes and forks, time was minimised. Consumption was also made "efficient" with tables, chairs and environment designed to ensure customers feel uncomfortable and want to more on as quickly as possible. And as time means money under capitalism, as "efficiently" as possible. The Egg McMuffin is a classic example of efficiency as it combines an entire breakfast in one handy sandwich, making breakfast far more efficient as all you have to do is stick it in your mouth and chew! Instead of a wide range of options, the menus are narrowly defined and we get to chose between the options others have created. Media "sound bits" are another classic example of efficiency, where complex issues are condensed into 30 minute slots on the tv. The content is so summarised and distorted that issues cannot be addressed nor people informed of the reality of the situation. This ensures even more the elite domination of the news medium as 30 seconds is an impossible time to challenge accepted ideas. Whether this efficiency destroys all traces of human interaction and quality of service or just most of them, I will leave to the listener to decide. Efficiency is driven by calculability. In order to work out if its efficient, we need to be about to measure it. Hence the need to emphasis "quantity", not quality. The big Mac, the large fries and so on. Great care is taken to ensure that the pre-grilled hamburger is exactly 3.875 inches across and the roll it goes into is exactly 3.5 inches. Why? For the same reason that the French fries box has been designed with strips, to give the illusion of size, the image of "value for money". The "Big Mac" can appear to be bursting out of the roll, a useful illusion. In addition, calculability ensures that what really matters is maximised. Profits. A McDonaldised system is based on a system called "scientific management" invented by Frederick Taylor at the turn of the century. This was based on calculating the one best way of doing something and getting workers to follow these mind-less tasks, day in, day out. In the first workplace this was introduced, it lead to 360% increase in production. The workers got a 60% increase in their wages for the privilege of being turned into "human robots". More nearer home, Burger King fries are sold at 400% of cost, their drinks, 600%. Calculability does pay off, for some at least. Of course, we can calculate the amount of rubbish they produce! Being able to calculate something means you can make it predictable, the third aspect of a McDonaldised system. We know that if we went into a McDonalds in Glasgow, in Moscow, in Sidney, we'll get the same shit, in the same packaging with the same inane smile. Everywhere you go, we see identical shops, selling identical products - a standardised world filled with clones. And McDonalds have the gall to claim on one of their leaflets they place design their restaurant to fit into the local culture! Aye, right! The local culture of McDonalds! In work, we go through standardised work routines, with mad, pointless rules. On the bru, we fill in the same standard forms, in the same standard bureaucracies. Objective rules, crushing the subjective individual, turning them sad charactatures of their work! In a system of competition, this is not unusual, competition means putting like against like. Predictability is good for business! Lastly, there is control. The replacement of human by non-human technology. The great source of trouble in any form of McDonaldised system is human uncertainty and unpredictability. In other words, human individuality! This great evil to rationality, to calculability, to predictability and to efficiency must be controlled and removed. Hence people are replaced, controlled and processed by machines. And working in such an environment soon results in massive alienation, the feeling that who become the servants of machines, of others. Not that such facts were unknown to the real founders of control, the assembly line. Both Taylor and Henry Ford recognised the horrible nature of repetitive, controlled work, but since they considered the majority to be stupid and not "mentally alert and intelligent" enough (to use Taylor's phrase) they considered the system they were imposing to be for the "greater good". Needless to say, reality proved them wrong. We have already mentioned a very useful by-product of such control by technology, the increased profits of such a system. In addition, technology deskills the worker, allowing wages to be lowered, increasing the pool of labour, allowing each worker to be replaceable and so not treated as individuals, but as replaceable human machines. The mass worker replaces the unique individual. That this process of McDonaldisation is widespread in industry is seen from the name this type of employment is called - the McJob! Here we have the crux of why we hate McDonalds, its not totally because of what they do (although that's a big part of it) but because of what they represent, the cutting edge of capitalism. A veggie McDonalds would still be a hell hole, an affront to individuality and humanity. Such a system soon produces the "irrationality of rationality", where the living, feeling, thinking individual is crushed under the dead weight of the past, of capital, of authority and hierarchy. The effects of McDonaldisation as felt everywhere, in all our social relationships. The market economy becomes the market society, commodity replaces community. In a McDonaldised system, people are not encouraged to feel emotions. "Emotional" people are to be considered strange, freaks. Only the efficient, calculable "emotions" of "have a nice day" count, to be doled as and when the boss required. Which is, of course, the golden rule. Those with the gold make the rules. William Blake once said, "A Tyrant is the worst disease and the Cause of all others". Social hierarchy, economic and political power in the hands of the few, is the real source of social problems and so ecological ones. McDonaldisation would never develop in a self-managed system based on co-operation within humanity and with nature. McDonaldisation may be the "natural" result of capitalism, but its not the natural result of human life. Only when human life is placed under the control of "official" authority, with "natural" authorities of self- management ignored (to use Bakunin's terms for a moment) does profit replace humanity. Capitalism needs to enforce "official" authority on us in order to keep the "quantifiable" system it needs to extract profit from us, to keep going. The present destruction of the planet in the name of progress is no accident. Its not a product of some sort of abstract "humanity", but of a system which places accumulation and growth above all else, which thinks that 5 is better than 2, that money now is better than rainforest latter. A green capitalism is impossible simply because it has to grow, it has to accumulate. Eco-systems cannot expand, but the economy must! Capitalism can never be green, it needs to grow, to expand. That is why short-termism rules, why wilderness is being destroyed, why the environment is being scarified. Its the system, it has to do it in order to survive. A Japanese anarchist writing in the 1920's said that every social system has its belief system. Under feudalism, its the church. Under capitalism, its science. It has to be able to measure and quantify everything inorder to sell it. And its faith is reflected in its politics and economics, were quantity is more important than quality, where exchange value is better than use value, where 5 votes are better than 2 votes, where $5 is better than $2. Like all religions, capitalism needs sacrifice. It sacrifices individuality, humanity and ecology for the power and profits for the elite few, the ones who make the golden rules, the ones that enforce McDonaldisation in the name of "freedom". The ones that have the power while we have the pollution! We need to resist the system, create new values, values based on quality, not quantity. We must put the human factor back into society, otherwise our alienated society will alienate itself off the planet. We must change our values, our "belief" system, if you like while changing the system. The "belief" system of anarchy is quality over quantity. The Japanese anarchist said this would be equivalent to geography, or in more up to date language, ecology. People living in harmony with nature because they live in harmony with themselves both as individuals and with each other, placing human values above all else. We can only do that by reclaiming our individuality, organising together and change things by our own efforts and based on our own ideas of right and wrong. That always goes on, that's why the human factor is so hated by the system. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. And resistance is the sign of humanity and it needs to be encouraged and developed to such a point that the current system can be replaced and the world renewed in the bright light of freedom, equality and solidarity. That's what the Scottish Federation of Anarchists aims to do, but we cannot do it alone. As one Zapatista said "how are you going to construct something new, if you keep doing the same old things?" We have to learn the mistakes of the past and build the new world in the shell of the old. In the Chiapas, in Mexico, the Zapatistas are learning these lessons, as are all people in struggle like the anti-roads protesters in Pollok, the people organising the centre in Edinburgh. All across the world, the anarchist message is being heard and being applied. Its a message whose time has come. Its a message that strikes at the heart of the system which McDonalds represents and its so-called values. We need to act. Just saying "I object" is not enough. It implies acceptance of the status quo. You have to *do* something. McDonalds is being resisted across the globe. From Mexico to Denmark, McDonalds stores get trashed. Such actions show that the message is getting through. But while attacking the symbols of capitalism is a fun experience, it is not enough. We have to challenge and change the content of the system while trashing and subverting its images. The future is in your hands.