In this book, George Ritzer, demonstrates the irrational consequences of the rational desire to consume and commodify.

In this book, one of the leading social theorists and cultural commentators of modern times, turns his gaze on consumption. George Ritzer, author of the famous McDonaldization Thesis, demonstrates the irrational consequences of the rational desire to consume and commodify. He examines how McDonaldization might be resisted, and situates the reader in the new cultural spaces that are emerging in society: shopping malls, casino hotels, Disneyfied theme parks and Las Vegas, the new `cathedrals of consumption′ as he calls them. The book shows how new processes of consumption relate to globalization theory. In illuminating discussions of the work of Thorstein Veblen and the French situationists, Ritzer unearths the roots of problems of consumption in older sociological traditions. He indicates how transgression is bound up with consumption, through an investigation of the obscene in popular and postmodern culture.

Writing to Be Read
The Irrationality of Rationality
Some Thoughts on the Future of McDonaldization
The Process of McDonaldization Is Not Uniform
Nor Are Its Settings, Consumers or the Consumption of Its Goods and Services
Expressing America
A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society
Enchanting a Disenchanted World
Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption
Ensnared in the E-Net
The Future Belongs to the Immaterial Means of Consumption
The New Means of Consumption and the Situationist Perspective
Thorstein Veblen in the Age of Hyperconsumerism
Obscene from Any Angle
Fast Food, Credit Cards, Casinos and Consumers