Efficiency and Calculability
3 Efficiency and Calculability Consumers 1 distribute or hapter 2 dealt largely with the organizations and systems that have been C the precursors of the process of McDonaldization. As we saw, they include bureaucracies, concentration camps, industrial organizations, suburban communities, shopping centers, and, of course, fast-food restaurants. Needless to say, people exist in these settings.post, It is the norm to distinguish between two types of people in these settings: consumers (or customers, clients) and produc- ers (or workers). We will adhere to that norm in the next four chapters. This chapter and the next will deal with consumers, while Chapters 5 and 6 will be devoted to producers. However, more and more scholars are rejecting the binary distinction betweencopy, producers and consumers and thinking more in terms of “prosumers,” or those who both produce and consume.1 We will have more to say about prosumers at several points in this book, but for the time being we will set that concept aside and deal separately with consumers and producers.not This chapter deals with consumers in terms of two of the four basic dimen- sions of McDonaldization: efficiency and calculability. Chapter 4 does the same withDo the other two dimensions of McDonaldization: predictability and control. While the focus is on the consumer, workers—the producers—will inevitably be touched on in these chapters and discussions. We will deal with a wide array of consumers in the next two chapters includ- ing tourists, students, campers, diners, patients, parents, mothers-to-be, shop- pers (including cybershoppers), dieters, exercisers, and those looking for dates (or for only sex).
[Show full text]