Johan Norberg's Documentary on McDonalds Essay

Submitted By plantedwanderer
Words: 1235
Pages: 5

1. Johan Norberg
One of the key points of Norberg's documentary is the idea of land ownership by the people. By having the people own their own land, it gives them a sense of ownership and motivation to take risks and invest in their own property. Before in Taiwan, majority of the land was owned by a small group of elite people and they would have farmers take care of their land. This was detrimental to the majority of the population because the people working the land for the elite people didn't care about investing in their land. Only after the government bought the land from the elite, and started giving the land back to the people to own for their own personal use, then the people were willing to take the risks to invest in their own property. In Taiwan, it started with the farmers cultivating and growing crops on their land, which then lead to them investing in machinery like mills to increase productivity. This lead to the owners investing in factories on their properties which initially started producing simple goods like toys and bicycles. With the presence of more and more factories, it lead to more labor, which lead to more competition among the factories for labor which lead to increase wages. Also, as a result of this competition, this lead to increased innovation and increase in technological advancements so that now the factories in Taiwan are producing modern goods like CDs and computers. However on the flipside, Kenya is the complete opposite of where lack of land ownership by the local people prevents any kind of advancement. Without the sense of land ownership, the Kenyan people have no motivation to invest in and take risks regarding the government’s properties. Also, without land, there is no collateral to try and get a loan. Also, the government makes it difficult for the people to open up their own businesses because it takes up way too much time and money that the local and foreign investors do not want to go through in order to open up a business. It is easier for these foreign companies to just go to a different country instead.
All the developed countries have to go through set stages before they become developed. Usually, it starts with farmers, then they go through an industrial revolution where factories/sweatshops proliferate. These factories allow the population to be concentrated in the cities where the factories are located because workers migrate from the countryside for better opportunities. This concentration of labor usually leads to regulation like outlaw of child labor which allows the children to go to school instead of working. This allows for the long term strategy of having a highly educated work force which will benefit future generations and allow for the innovations in products and in factories to happen. This is evident in Taiwan in an interview where the computer factory owner's father was a farmer who worked the land and the mother worked in a factory so that their children could get a good education which was evident in the successful factory owner's two master degrees which helped promote the business and technological advancement. Also, with the building of the factories, this encourages foreign companies to invest in the land by bringing in advanced machinery, modern management style, money, and successfully tested and established ideas to the local workers.

2. For the McDonald’s company, it supports the idea that their business model has to succeed locally first before making it abroad. If each McDonalds didn't cater to the local population, then the company as a global international whole could not be successful. Each local market has it's own local tastes and customs. For example, beef patties could not be sold in India due to the local beliefs surrounding cows. In places like China, chicken is more popular with the local population. McDonalds has to cater its menu to each local area’s unique demands and tastes in order for the global entity as a whole to be