How to do it

CONGRESS SHOULD BAN ADVERTISING that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead‑end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power. Congress should do all those things, but it isn’t likely to do any of them soon. The political influence of the fast food industry and its agribusiness suppliers makes a discussion of what Congress should do largely academic. The fast food industry spends millions of dollars every year on lobbying and billions on mass marketing. The wealth and power of the major chains make them seem impossible to defeat. And yet those companies must obey the demands of one group – consumers – whom they eagerly flatter and pursue. As the market for fast food in the United States becomes increasingly saturated, the chains have to compete fiercely with one another for customers. According to William P. Foley II, the chairman of the company that owns Carl’s Jr., the basic imperative of today’s fast food industry is “Grow or die.” The slightest drop in a chain’s market share can cause a large decline in the value of its stock. Even the McDonald’s Corporation is now vulnerable to the changing whims of consumers. It is opening fewer McDonald’s in the United States and expanding mainly through pizza, chicken, and Mexican food chains that do not bear the company name.

The right pressure applied to the fast food industry in the right way could produce change faster than any act of Congress. The United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups have brought widespread attention to the child labor, low wages, and hazardous working conditions in Asian factories that make sneakers for Nike. At first, the company disavowed responsibility for these plants, which it claimed were owned by independent suppliers. Nike later changed course, forcing its Asian suppliers to improve working conditions and pay higher wages. The same tactics employed by the antisweatshop groups can be used to help workers much closer to home – workers in the slaughterhouses and processing plants of the High Plains.

As the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, the McDonald’s Corporation must be held accountable for the behavior of its suppliers. When McDonald’s demanded ground beef free of lethal pathogens, the five companies that manufacture its hamburger patties increased their investment in new equipment and microbial testing. If McDonald’s were to demand higher wages and safer working conditions for meatpacking workers, its suppliers would provide them. As the nation’s largest purchaser of potatoes, McDonald’s could also use its clout on behalf of Idaho farmers. And as the second‑largest purchaser of chicken, McDonald’s could demand changes in the way poultry growers are compensated by their processors. Small increases in the cost of beef, chicken, and potatoes would raise fast food menu prices by a few pennies, if at all. The fast food chains insist that suppliers follow strict specifications regarding the sugar content, fat content, size, shape, taste, and texture of their products. The chains could just as easily enforce a strict code of conduct governing the treatment of workers, ranchers, and farmers.

McDonald’s has already shown a willingness to act quickly when confronted with consumer protests. In the late 1960s, African‑American groups attacked the McDonald’s Corporation for opening restaurants in minority neighborhoods without giving minority businessmen the opportunity to become franchisees. The company responded by actively recruiting African‑American franchisees, a move that defused tensions and helped McDonald’s penetrate urban markets. A decade ago, environmentalists criticized the chain for the amount of polystyrene waste it generated. At the time, McDonald’s served hamburgers in little plastic boxes that were briefly used and then discarded, making it one of the nation’s largest purchasers of polystyrene. In order to counter the criticism, McDonald’s formed an unusual alliance with the Environmental Defense Fund in August of 1990 and later announced that the chain’s hamburgers would no longer be served in polystyrene boxes. The decision was portrayed in the media as the “greening” of McDonald’s and a great victory for the environmental movement. The switch from plastic boxes to paper ones did not, however, represent a sudden and profound change in corporate philosophy. It was a response to bad publicity. McDonald’s no longer uses polystyrene boxes in the United States – but it continues to use them overseas, where the environmental harms are no different.

Even the anticipation of consumer anger has prompted McDonald’s to demand changes from its suppliers. In the spring of 2000, McDonald’s informed Lamb Weston and the J. R. Simplot Company that it would no longer purchase frozen french fries made from genetically engineered potatoes. As a result, the two large processors told their growers to stop planting genetically engineered potatoes – and sales of Monsanto’s New Leaf, the nation’s only biotech potato, instantly plummeted. McDonald’s had stopped serving genetically engineered potatoes a year earlier in Western Europe, where the issue of “Frankenfoods” had generated enormous publicity. In the United States, there was relatively little consumer backlash against genetic engineering. Nevertheless, McDonald’s decided to act. Just the fear of controversy swiftly led to a purchasing change with important ramifications for American agriculture.

The challenge of overcoming the fast food giants may seem daunting. But it’s insignificant compared to what the ordinary citizens, factory workers, and heavy‑metal fans of Plauen once faced. They confronted a system propped up by guns, tanks, barbed wire, the media, the secret police, and legions of informers, a system that controlled every aspect of state power – except popular consent. Without leaders or a manifesto, the residents of a small East German backwater decided to seek the freedom of their forefathers. And within months a wall that had seemed impenetrable fell.

Nobody in the United States is forced to buy fast food. The first step toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: stop buying it. The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free‑range, organic, grass‑fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit. The usefulness of the market, its effectiveness as a tool, cuts both ways. The real power of the American consumer has not yet been unleashed. The heads of Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s should feel daunted; they’re outnumbered. There are three of them and almost three hundred million of you. A good boycott, a refusal to buy, can speak much louder than words. Sometimes the most irresistible force is the most mundane.

Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk inside, get in line, and look around you, look at the kids working in the kitchen, at the customers in their seats, at the ads for the latest toys, study the backlit color photographs above the counter, think about where the food came from, about how and where it was made, about what is set in motion by every single fast food purchase, the ripple effect near and far, think about it. Then place your order. Or turn and walk out the door. It’s not too late. Even in this fast food nation, you can still have it your way.