MacDonaldization was first described by sociologist George Ritzer at the University of Maryland. He used Max Weber's classic theory about bureaucracy as his jumping off point.
Weber, a nineteenth and early twentieth century German sociologist, said that bureaucracy would be the "wave of the future." Bureaucratic methods reduced every operation to its constituent parts and then had workers specifically trained to do just that one job. In a sense, this put an end to "old world craftsmanship," and was compatible with assembly-line methods of the new factory system.
He used the MacDonald fast food chain as a metaphor. Every MacDonalds in the world operates exactly the same way. French fries are cut uniformly. No one has to decide when they are "done" in the fryer. That has been computed and programmed into the frying machine. Therefore, the fries always come out exactly the same.
Each step in the preparation of the meal is done the same way. Consequently, the Big Mac that you buy in Tokyo tastes exactly the same as one you might buy in Rio de Janeiro or New York City.
MacDonaldization emphasizes uniformity, redundancy, reductionism, and familiarity. Weber, incidentally, liked some of the qualities of bureaucratization, but he warned that -- if it were not closely watched -- it could run amok. This is, essentially, what Ritzer means by MacDonaldization.
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