Abstract

McDonaldisation is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society. The aims of this article are to explore the possible impacts of McDonaldisation on the labour process and expose the hidden agenda behind McDonaldisation. My main argument is that McDonaldisation is the realization of an extremely instrumental rationality which deliberately develops a variety of strategies to achieve the interests of capital. The article indicates that, despite the prevailing of McDonaldisation, there might be two forces that seems likely to drive the labour process away from the McDonaldised working rules: subjectivity and flexibility. The article is concluded that McDonaldisation is gradually blurring and even eroding the boundary between the customers and the workers. The customers used to be the source of profit-making but are now asked to a part of the labour force, that is an exploitation of the customers to supplement McDonaldisation in the exploitation of labours.

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