Views on McDonalds

Ah, where to begin with McDonalds? The anorexic fries perhaps? The succulent hamburger between soft buns, smeared with sweet sauce and two discarded discs of gherkin? The reassuring and secure familiarity that engulfs you like warm jets as you pull open the doors to another outpost of globalised corporatism?

Frankly no. Never a particularly frequent visitor to the hallowed halls of McDonalds, the red-and-yellow scales have long since dissolved from my eyes to reveal the raw and naked horror of an insidious behemoth that, in my view, perpetuates and exemplifies a great many of the worst tenets of modern civilisation.

Richard and Maurice McDonald established their first restaurant in 1948 with a revolutionary new schema of how food production could be streamlined and automated, setting in motion the 'fast food phenonemon'. This was predicated on slimming down the menu and accoutrements (plates, cutlery, etc.), increasing the speed, slashing prices and maximising sales volume. As Eric Schlosser wrote in 'Fast Food Nation', by increasing the division of labour between workers and thereby dissolving the requisite skill-set, 'for the first time the guiding principles of a factory assembly line were applied to a commercial kitchen'.

The meteorite rise of McDonald's, as well as other fast food chains, occured in lock-step with the nationwide development of state-funded highways that, as car ownership accelerated, overtook the pre-eminence of private-invested railways. It was the 1950s, America was booming, people were freed as never before from the logistics of their geography to explore their country by automobile, cruising along the ultra-modern highways that quickly became punctuated with the drive-in fast food diners.

Geopolitical developments, however, meant that this interstate car-centric business model had to expand into new market terrains. The Arab oil shortages in the early 1970s had a ripple effect on fast food shares and, for the first time, they began to rush for the cover of the cities; a manic stapling of Golden Arches across the urban upholstery.

The unharnessed monopolisation by McDonalds could almost be seen as the 20th century manifestation of the American pioneer; Ronald McDonald as the modern heir to the Rockefellers and Samuel Andrews of yesteryear, who planted their flags across the map during the 'Gold Rush'. That same conquering spirit has come to fuel the American individualist culture, and the popular myths of the 'land of opportunity' and the 'pursuit of happiness'; intoxicating drugs with which the populace are constitutionally medicated.

Of course today, with McDonald's imperial outposts planted in around 120 countries, they have come to represent a place without geography, a place with zero identifiable markers tethering it to a particular physical location. Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Buenos Aires - all and any indigenous characteristics bleached clean to leave a sterilised spectacle, an oddly alluring territory of homogeneity and dislocation. Much more than it aims to sell Big Macs, McDonalds is exporting the 'American Dream' across the globe as a commodity in its own right.

This is crystallised by Reinhold Wagnheitner's theory of 'coca-colonization', and more specifically by the sociologist George Ritzer's theory of the 'McDonaldization of society'.

Ritzer sought to demonstrate the paradigm shift in Max Weber's concept of rationalisation whereby societal traditions, values and emotions as behavioural motivators are replaced with rational, calculated ones. Despite, or because of, the attainment of maximal efficiency being the central driver, the negative implications are a tendency towards ambivalence or dehumanisation. For Ritzer, the late-20th century adoption of fast food characteristics throughout society were manifested through the components of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.

I became acutely aware of this phenomenon in terms of my own behavioural impulses, earlier this year when visiting Moscow for work. After several days I was wandering the tumultuous streets one evening, frustrated and demoralised by my lack of opportunity or ability to really get a grip on the city's geography. It was proving too rigid, too imposing and too vast; I felt like every effort I made to break out of the touristic ghetto of my hotel, Red Square and the Kremlin area, was scuppered by the waves of disorientation and geo-cultural malaise pushing me back against my will.

Searching for somewhere half-decent to try some Russian food, I became increasingly dispirited and eventually the pangs of hunger vetoed my erstwhile sensibilities to propel me, almost unconsciously, into the glowing familiarity of a McDonalds restaurant. As I sat there slurping my Coke, noshing my limp fries and chomping through my soggy burger, I realised the terrible symbolism of what I had been reduced to.

For here was the clearest evidence of America's cultural victory over Russia. Forget the moon landings, this was proof, to me at least, of the Cold War being won by Western supremacy. The fact that I, engendered with perhaps more than my fair share of healthy cynacism, felt subconsciously that I had to resort to the comfortable numbness of a McDonalds was testament to my own Americanised conditioning; lured in whilst on Russian soil because Russia itself had proved too overwhelming for me. Against my better judgement, I needed the reassuring palliative of American corporate-cultural hegemony, even when in the bosom of the 'enemy'.

A few months later I watched the documentary 'McLibel' and read 'Fast Food Nation', and two more damning indictments on McDonalds' social impact would be near impossible to find. 'McLibel' relays the story of the two British activists David Morris and Helen Steel.

The two were accused of distributing libelous smears in an agitprop leaflet 'What's Wrong with McDonalds?', which made a series of claims against the chain - exploitation of workers, manipulative marketing aimed at children, destruction of the environment, encouraging unhealthy lifestyles, and so on. Whereas other parties had previously buckled under the intense pressure of McDonalds' litigation might, Morris and Steel heroically battled against them, without entitlement to legal aid, for 10 years in what became the longest civil trial in British legal history.

One of the main points on which the pair were found to have not been libellous were McDonalds' exploiting of its workforce, and in examining the development of their practices it reveals the truly insidious influence big business continues to impose upon governments.

In 1972, Ray Kroc - the 'master salesman' behind McDonalds - donated $250,000 to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. At the time, the fast food industry was lobbying Congress to pass new legislation that, in an unprecedented move for the industry, would allow employers to pay 16 and 17 year olds' wages 20% lower than the minimum wage. As the biggest employer of under-18 staff, they were nothing but self-serving in their lobbying for a young persons' pay cut. Deglutinously passed through Congress, this legislation became known, appropriately enough, as 'the McDonalds bill'.

As well as this, the fast food industry - with McDonalds' hand firmly on the tiller - have successfully resisted measures for the improvement of hygiene and safety standards, and have systematically fostered the 'deskillation' of their workforce, by designing kitchen technology and dividing labour to the point whereby high-turnover jobs can be filled quickly, cheaply and with zero training required. By prohibiting their workforce from joining or establishing union bodies, collective representation is impeded and conditions are perpetuated. As the sociologist Ester Reiter has pointed out, 'the trait most valued in fast food workers is obedience'.

Faced with a projective vomitting of bad publicity around the turn of the millenium, with the McLibel trial and films such as 'Supersize Me', McDonalds underwent a major rebranding overhaul. Ronald was all-but-retired and there was more of an emphasis on 'McSalads' and other 'healthier' options. Where once the decor was typically gaudy Americana, nowadays the outlets are the epitome of bland; all browns, beiges and faux-wood panelling, as though there has been the conscious decision to manoeuvre themselves from exhibitionism to inconspicuousness.

In any case, being a 'McDonalds country' might not actually be a bad thing according to Thomas Friedman's 'Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention'. In 1999, he observed that '...no two countries that both had McDonalds had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonalds'. This is supported by the notion that when a country has developed economically to the point at which it has a middle class prosperous enough to support a McDonalds network, then it has too much to lose to engage in unnecessary foriegn wars.

(However, this theory has required some elasticated interpretation since 1999, what with conflicts involved 'McDonalds countries' including Pakistan and India, Russia and Georgia, and most recently, Russia and Ukraine.)

All being said though, McDonalds has faced some tough truths in recent years. Fast food workers in America have successfully campaigned for an increase in their minimum wage and for their right to participate collectively in unions, which could set in motion a new and transformative epoch for the exploited services industry workforce.

Perhaps other countries could follow the lead of Bolivia, from where McDonalds were forced to pull out in 2013 citing a struggle to maintain profitability. As President Morales said, "they are not interested in the health of human beings, only in their earnings and corporate profits."

As for me, I have decided to maintain a personal boycott against McDonalds for the foreseeable future, whilst still relying on their toilet facilities whilst out on walking trips. Indeed, I will struggle to separate McDonalds from the Chapman Brothers' epic 'Hell' tableaus, in which children's figurines of Ronald McDonald and the Ham-Burglar are frozen in a danse macabre with Hitler and Nazi skeletons around teeming snowdrifts of rotting corpses piled up beneath the golden arches proclaiming 'over 99 billion served'.