In this provocative book, George Ritzer explores how Weber's classic thoughts on rationalization take on new vitality and meaning when applied to the process of McDonaldization.

Ritzer continues to explore this book ’ s central thesis: that our society has undergone fundamental change because of the way and the level at which we consume.

In the book, Ritzer took central elements of the work of Max Weber, expanded and updated them, and produced a critical analysis of the impact of social structural change on human interaction and identity.

After his father became ill, Ritzer recalled instances when his mother had to break open the family's piggy bank in order to provide for the family.

After graduation, Ritzer began working in personnel management for the Ford Motor Company.

Ritzer ’ s managers mistakenly hired more people than was necessary for his job, leaving Ritzer idle and unoccupied.

This experience led Ritzer to seek new opportunities for his life.

As Ritzer said in a later interview “ I basically trained myself as a social theorist, and so I had to learn it all as I went .” Furthermore, Ritzer found that not being trained in social theory was advantageous for him, simply because his reasoning was not limited to a particular theoretical perspective.

In addition to The McDonaldization of Society, the most important sources for Ritzer ’ s sociology of consumption are his edited Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption: Fast Food Restaurants, Credit Cards and Casinos ( 2001 ), Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption ( 2nd edition 2005, 3rd edition forthcoming ), and Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit-Card Society ( 1995 ).

10, No. 3, August 1975 ( pp. 156 – 167 ), this book provides a foundation for Ritzer ’ s other works on metatheory.

Ritzer also discusses what implications this has for the field of sociology

* Ritzer, G .; P. Gindoff ( 1992 ) " Methodological relationism: lessons for and from social psychology ", Social Psychology Quarterly, 55 ( 2 ), pp. 128 – 140.

Gloria Anzaldúa theorizes that the sociological term for this is " othering ", or specifically attempting to establish a person as unacceptable based on certain criterion that fails to be met ( Ritzer, 2007, pg.

Where Weber famously used the terminology of a “ iron cage ” to describe the stultifying, Kafkaesque effects of bureaucratized life, Ritzer argues that the McDonald ’ s restaurant has become the better exemplar of current forms of instrumental rationality and its ultimately irrational and harmful human consequences

Moreover, Ritzer also found problems within the management structure at Ford.

Furthermore, Ritzer found himself constrained and unable to do anything creative while working at Ford.

Soon, Ritzer found himself applying to PhD programs.

After being told by sociology department head Gordon Streib to read an introductory textbook, Ritzer found himself enthralled with the subject matter.

George Ritzer has held notable positions of leadership, including

Ritzer began his education at the City College of New York.

Ritzer attributed his talent of being able to compete with well read and experienced sociology students to his ability to work hard.

For convenient access to many of Ritzer ’ s substantive contributions to modern and postmodern social theorizing, see Explorations in Social Theory: From Metatheorizing to Rationalization ( 2001 ) as well as more recent work often co-authored with his many students, such as ( with J. Michael Ryan ) “ Postmodern Social Theory and Sociology: On Symbolic Exchange with a ‘ Dead ’ Theory ,” in Reconstructing Postmodernism: Critical Debates ( 2007 ).

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, George.

George Ritzer is a sociologist who studies American patterns of consumption, globalization, metatheory, and modern and postmodern social theory.

Currently, Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ritzer was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in New York City.

His father worked as a taxi cab driver and his mother was employed as a secretary in order to support Ritzer and his younger brother.

Ritzer graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1958.

While at CCNY, Ritzer initially thought that he was going to focus on business and major in accounting.

After graduating from CCNY in 1962, Ritzer decided that he was interested in pursuing business again.

Ritzer was accepted into the MBA program at the University of Michigan, where he received a partial scholarship.

Ritzer reported that at Michigan, he was able to grow and improve as a student.

However, during his time at Michigan, Ritzer can clearly remember being greatly connected to global events.

Ritzer graduated from The University of Michigan in 1964.

Nevertheless, Ritzer was always expected to appear busy.

This caused many of the workers and foremen to become hostile towards Ritzer.

Shortly thereafter, Ritzer enrolled in Cornell University ’ s organizational behavior PhD program in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Ritzer was advised by Harrison Trice, who urged him to minor in sociology.

The direction in which the arrow points shows how the maturity level of the growth center was changed at Completion from the level at Onset.

The photograph, Figure 1 of the completed frieze, shows how, having been separated from his fellows in useless isolation for eighty years, he has now been given a hand, and by juxtaposition ( and the permission of the Committee ), given a new job, to represent the witnesses of the first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

At any rate, it shows us how immaterial we are.

Mr. Bates shows us how this mutual education spreads its inevitable havoc.

Throughout `` The Making Of A President '' Mr. White shows wonderfully well how the pressures pile up on candidates, how decisions have constantly to be made, how fatigue and illness and nervous strain wear candidates down, how subordinates play key roles.

The abacus shows how numbers, letters, and signs can be stored in a binary system on a computer, or via ASCII.

* Competitive analysis ( online algorithm ) – shows how online algorithms perform and demonstrates the power of randomization in algorithms

1st century BCE ), shows how the distance to the Sun can be computed geometrically, using the different lengths of the noontime shadows observed at three places 1000 li apart and the assumption that the Earth is flat.

This work shows how Alan saw theological education as being a fundamental preliminary step in preaching and strove to give clergyman a manuscript to be “ used as a practical manual ” when it came to the formation of sermons and art of preaching.

He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration ( since " it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change ") nor experience ( since that would be a circular argument ).

He then shows ( quite briefly ) how determinism and free will are compatible notions, and have no bad consequences on ethics or moral life.

It is this reluctance which was felt by the Rijksmuseum to reattribute works to other painters ( Abraham van Calraet does not even appear in a Museum catalogue until 1926, and even then he is not given his own entry ) which shows how important it is to art historians that painters are accurately connected to their works — and this is continuously necessary for those of Aelbert Cuyp, as Dordrecht ’ s most famous painter may not in fact be Dordrecht ’ s most famous painter.

The BCS theory gives an expression that shows how the gap grows with the strength of the attractive interaction and the ( normal phase ) single particle density of states at the Fermi energy.

" The prophet Jonah shows us where God shows concern for the people of Nineveh, while Nahum ’ s writing testifies to his belief in the righteousness / justice of God and how God dealt with those Assyrians in punishment according to " their cruelty " ( Nahum 3: 19 ).

The codification of a law of general obligations shows how remnants of the civil law tradition in New York continued on from the Dutch days.

This is one way of representing human language that shows how different components are organized hierarchically.

This formula shows how to calculate the curl of F in any coordinate system, and how to extend the curl to any oriented three dimensional Riemannian manifold.

The figure shows how a spread spectrum signal is generated.

An account of a design studio conducted with Berkeley students, it shows how convincing urban networks can be generated by requiring individual actors to respect only local rules, in relation to neighbours.

The first of these shows the importance of women ’ s past contributions to society, and the second strives to teach women of all estates how to cultivate useful qualities in order to counteract the growth of misogyny.