Why has the fast food industry grown so quickly around the world?
Here in the States, I think, fast food is popular because it’s convenient, it’s cheap, and it tastes good. But the real cost of eating fast food never appears on the menu. By that I mean the cost of the obesity epidemic fast food has helped to unleash, the social costs of having such a low-wage workforce, and the health costs of the new industrialized agriculture that supplies the big restaurant chains. Overseas, much of fast food’s appeal stems from its Americanness. Like Hollywood movies, MTV, and blue jeans, fast food has become one of our major cultural exports. Q: How do fast food restaurants benefit from “de-skilled” jobs and from high turnover among their employees? A: A reliance on cheap labor has been crucial to the fast food industry’s success. It’s no accident that the industry’s highest rate of growth occurred during a period when the real value of the U.S. minimum wage declined by about 40 percent. The chains have worked hard to “de-skill” the jobs in their kitchens by imp
