Examines how the dominant marketing ideologies of the western world affect consumerism.
This paper examines how consumerism has shaped the social order and given rise to a dominant ideology under the blanket of McDonaldization. The paper discusses cathedrals of consumption and how uniformity and automation under McDonaldization is replacing traditional social organizations. The paper predicts that in the future, the value system in Western societies will be reorganized around the principles of McDonaldization.
“The North American society has caught into the Weberian fear of contradiction–a contradiction between increasing rationalization and growing dehumanization. Living under excessive control of formal organizations, few people realize that their freedom to think, freedom to choose, and freedom to act are now lost in the marketplace. An average North American now does not have to worry about where or what to buy, where to eat, and even where to go on a vacation. For everything, from daily errand to future plan, they are driven by rationally calculated organizations. Even their leisure time is now subject to rigorous and efficient calculations of the agents of the market. All individual expectations are subject to a common uniform scrutiny of the market organizations–a scrutiny that does not see any difference between rich and poor, capable and less capable.”