Fast Food Nation: Chapter 10: Global Realization Summary & Analysis

Schlosser begins this chapter by describing Plauen, a smaller German city in a region called Vogtland, about halfway between Munich and Berlin. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Plauen was a textile town. But when these industries collapsed following the German defeat in World War One, the town became a hotbed of radical National Socialist sympathy—for example, on Kristallnacht, in 1938, “a crowd eagerly destroyed Plauen’s only synagogue.” During the World War two, Plauen was mostly spared until the end of the fighting, in 1945, when the British bombed the city heavily, destroying most of its buildings.

The Soviets eventually took over control of Plauen—it was “just” inside the East German state, only nine miles from the border with the West. Although Plauen suffered under the economic strictures of East Germany (which was controlled by the Soviets), it was chosen, in 1990, as “the first McDonald’s site in East Germany.” And that McDonald’s was the first new building built in Plauen since the re-unification of Germany after the falling of the Berlin Wall.

Schlosser notes that throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and increasing in the 1990s, fast-food companies in America began setting their sights on overseas expansion as a way of increasing profits, since so much of the American food market had been saturated. When fast-food companies expanded abroad, they also brought with them the “efficiencies” of food production developed in the United States, transforming how food was produced in foreign cultures. In places as remote as India, Beijing, and Germany, fast-food in the ‘90s was hip, modern, and “American,” a “status symbol” for many who wanted to appear knowledgeable of American culture.

Schlosser tells of the most “bizarre” experience he had during the three years writing the book: a speech he witnessed, in Las Vegas in 1999, delivered by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, and given to the 26th Annual Chain Operators Exchange, a meeting for owners and franchisers of fast-food restaurants. Schlosser notes that Gorbachev’s politics—far to the left of many anti-union American franchise owners—were an odd match for the convention, and some people became so bored during Gorby’s speech that they walked out of the auditorium, complaining that the previous year’s speaker, Margaret Thatcher, was better. Schlosser tells this story simply to demonstrate how powerful fast-food interests in the US are: they are capable of hiring the most famous politicians in the world to speak at their conventions—even politicians who are a poor fit for their policies.

Schlosser describes the impact of “Americanization” of food on global health. Fast-food is low in fiber and nutrients, high in fat and sugar—a poor substitute for fruits and vegetables and home-cooked meals. And yet Americans, and many others in countries around the world, are eating more fast-food—and experiencing a vast increase in clinical obesity. Schlosser notes that obesity, as a national and global problem, is hard to fix, especially since fast-food chains seem to satisfy such high and entrenched consumer demand, inside and outside the US.

Schlosser mentions another case, which was litigated throughout the 1990s, in which London Greenpeace activists produced and distributed a leaflet, accusing McDonald’s of selling food filled with “lethal toxins.” McDonald’s fought Greenpeace in court, using aggressive British anti-libel laws, which typically allow corporations and famous individuals to fight back against those who criticize them without strict and complete factual accuracy (celebrities have also fought British reporters in court using these laws). But despite this, various courts of appeals in the UK still acknowledged that some parts of the “McLibel” leaflets, issued by Greenpeace, were true—that McDonald’s food is unhealthful, and that it causes, or is one of the primary causes of, an enormous number of ill societal effects, including increased obesity on a grand scale. Schlosser notes that, as of his book’s publication, the McLibel case had not been fully settled one way or another.

Schlosser closes the chapter by writing that life in Plauen now is far different from what it was in East German times, and that McDonald’s plays a major part in that city’s “Westernization.” American-themed bars have sprouted up, and the McDonald’s in town is “spotless,” a “beacon” of American-style living, hard to miss when one walks around the downtown portion of Plauen. Plauen is by no means perfect, as Schlosser asserts—there is, as a consequence of the influx of western-style businesses, a more visible difference between the “haves,” who run these businesses, and the “have-nots,” who have not benefitted directly from market-style reforms in East Germany. Schlosser notes that Germany presents a “new frontier” for companies like McDonald’s, which were founded in the “frontier” land of California in the US—a place where capitalist values and spurred the streamlining and explosive growth of the fast-food industry.