Ritzer, George THE GLOBALIZATION OF NOTHING (2004)

Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 258 pages.

 

Mystic Pizza is a small Ma&Pa pizzeria in Mystic, Connecticut. There is only one in the country. Mystic has a wonderful pizza with secret ingredients. There are 3 waitresses of whom all the locals know and have an ongoing relationship. In fact, one of the three looks a lot like the movie star Julia Roberts. The establishment has been in its original site since forever. It has been passed down by generations. The restaurants exterior and interior have changed little over the years, but it is attractive and well maintained. The family restaurant attracts folks from many parts of New England because of the good food and the tradition and lore attached to the food retailer. It takes a while to get the pizza, but it tastes so good and the tipping is quite good for a place of this stature. The Mystic chamber of commerce includes Mystic pizza in its promotions. Pizza Hut is also in Mystic. There are hundreds of such restaurants owned by somebody or a group of some bodies that live faraway. The corporation somewhere standardizes the pizza and they may make some regional changes to suit customers in a particular local. All the “help” wear the same uniform and the turn over is considerable. If you have seen one Pizza Hut, you have seen them all. That is an overstatement but there is a lot of truth to that remark. It is serves pizzas in a hurry and they taste damn good. The menu is developed in one part of the country; the ingredients are transported from another part of the county from the Pizza Hut factory to the local retailer. Business procedures are standardized. If the site is not profitable, the building is leveled and sold to another retailer. The Chamber of Commerce has a picture of Main Street; Pizza Hut is one of the retailers in the picture. According to Ritzer, Mystic Pizza is something and Pizza Hut is nothing. Nothing is a phenomena that you can touch, see, and feel, but little else. Welcome to the Nullities. They include that 1) central headquarters creates the pizza retailer somewhere else and controls it. The local building is quickly constructed or removed according to profitability (and they look pretty much the same.) 2) the pizza is interchangeable with other Pizza Hut pastries all over the country and beyond. 3) The “help” are wonderful, efficient and forgettable because of restricted conversations and turn over. 4) It is not a service (or product) that one remembers and reflects upon. It just works. Ritzer does not say that nothing is necessarily bad, rather is a product of his first book, McDONALDIZATION. In that he describes the globalization of American services and products that extend all over the world. Although he makes a plug for the anti-McDonalds like the “slow food movement,” he recognizes that nothing will continue to gain popularity because it generally works. If you are driving along an interstate and there is a sign advertising a Ma&Pa versus a Nothing, you will probably choose the nothing because you have eaten at them before and food and service is probably safe and affordable. Ritzer’s excellent book is a wonderful follow-up to McDONALDIZATION. He places in an appendix a heavy-duty discussion of nothing and illustrates his theory in a grand narrative using post-postmodern theory. We will remember Mystic Pizza and it may continue to survive. However, Pizza Hut has deep pockets and can compare profitability with like locations all over the country and world. Thus on going life of Pizza Hut is likely unless it is taken over by somebody else from somewhere who for some reason wants to sell each building. Ritzer should finish with a trilogy. The first two (globalization and nothing) may give rise to BOWLING ALONE AT WALMART: NOBODIES FROM NOWHERE. This means that globalization and nothing finally give rise to the social fragmentation or blurring of a nobody in nowhere. It signifies that the individual has so many changes and so many disruptions by nobodies, from non-places, non-things, non-people, and non-services that life becomes overwhelming and individuals retreat from community. Joel C. Snell Prof. Emeritus Kirkwood College Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52402-3315