Minding Our Time

So often we hear those words, “I wish I had more time.” We need more time for minding our children, more time for doing our work with the quality that we somehow know can be achieved, and more time for our own creative pursuits. Why do we feel that we need more time? Sociologist George Ritzer has a great, although unsettling, answer to this question. Ritzer developed a theory that he calls “The McDonaldization of Society” (Ritzer). The McDonaldization of Society is “the search for maximum efficiency in increasingly numerous and diverse social settings” (Ritzer). This theory portrays the fast-food industry and its principles of business as an organizational pattern for emerging postmodern society. The fast-food chain, McDonald’s, has enjoyed enormous success, now operating 28,000 restaurants in the United States and around the world. McDonald’s may be found almost everywhere, but in the United States, it is more than just a restaurant: It is a symbol of our way o...