Student Question
Explain Karl Marx's theory of capitalism and its application to the McDonaldization of society.
Quick answer:
The McDonaldization of society can be explained in Marxist terms in that in it, every aspect of production and consumption is standardized to maximize the accumulation of capital by the bourgeois class.
Karl Marx's theory of capitalism is lengthy and complex, but some of the basic points are as follows. Capitalism is a system in which a small number of people, the bourgeoisie, own the means of production, together with all its inputs and outputs. These are traded in the market, allowing the bourgeoisie to accumulate wealth. The goods which make the bourgeoisie rich are produced by the proletariat, who have no capital and must therefore live by selling their labor power. The bourgeoisie treat the proletariat as one of the commodities by which they increase their wealth and power.
This theory is clearly applicable to the McDonaldization of society. McDonaldization involves standardizing and rationalizing every part of a process to make it as efficient as possible for the purpose of maximizing profit. The bourgeoisie, therefore, creates the maximum amount of wealth by treating both workers and consumers as commodities. University education...
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is one example of this. Students are increasingly treated as consumers and given simple modular courses designed to appeal to their tastes rather than to provide a well-rounded education, just as junk food is intended to satisfy taste rather than to provide nutrition. The money made by universities in this way is not spent primarily on education or research, but invested and allowed to accumulate.
Explain Karl Marx's theory of capitalism and its relation to the McDonaldization of society.
One of Marx's most important ideas is that the proletariat, or working class, only truly becomes self-aware as a class—as opposed to thinking of themselves as atomized individuals—when the capitalist system has reached an advanced stage of development. For it is at this stage that the numerous contradictions inherent in the capitalist system reach a crisis point beyond which there is no return.
Once this stage has been reached, the proletariat begins to see itself as a class whose exploitation constitutes the foundation of the capitalist system. Under the guidance of active revolutionaries, the working classes come to realize that it is in their interests to rise up and overthrow the system that has been exploiting them for so long.
It has been argued that the socioeconomic phenomenon known as McDonaldization could well facilitate the development of class consciousness among the international proletariat. This is because McDonaldization involves the homogenization of the international labor force, with working culture becoming more uniform across the globe, both in the developed and the developing world.
On this reading, McDonaldization can be said to create the conditions for a truly global proletariat, one that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries. This would make it easier for working people in different parts of the world to do as Marx and Engels enjoined them to do in The Communist Manifesto: to unite and throw off their chains.