The Social Geography of McDonaldization

Ifocus in . . . this article on the social geography . . . of the McDonaldization of society. This, of course, is based on Max Weber’s famous work on rationalization and his vision of the social world as being increasingly encased in an “iron cage” of rationalization. This metaphor can be interpreted in various ways, but one that has not been explored systematically is from the perspective of social geography. On the surface, when examined from this geographic point of view, the image of an iron cage seems to convey the sense of an entire society, or even world, enclosed by an overarching system of rationalization. Although this is one geographic image, the fact is that Weber famously lacked a sense of society (let alone the world) as a whole but instead focused on specific structures, institutions, and domains. Thus, it could be argued that it would be more accurate to say that Weber envisioned a series of iron cages rather than a single, overarching cage. He did see such cages growing more numerous