Economic Imperialism

McDonalds uses Economic Imperialism in order to earn revenue for the company.

The Exploitation of Resources:


In Third-World countries there are many children who are undernourished. Nevertheless, the staple food from these Third-World countries are used in order to feed the livestock (Whats Wrong, Green Peace) that is used to make burgers for the First-World counties. Acres of adequate farmland, in poor countries, are being used to for growing the staple crops to produce burgers. As a result, McDonalds earn a lot of revenue and the people in Third-World countries are starving.

To make this slightly easier to comprehend, the statistic should clarify the statement made above:

Staggering Fact:

In order to make one calorie of beef ten calories of grain or soy must be used(What Wrong with McDonalds, Green Peace). On average 75 McDonalds Burgers a second. An average burger has 300 calories in it (McDonalds Lean Beef Burger, CalorieLab) . 300x75 = 22,500 beef calories are sold every second by McDonalds times that by ten to make grains. 225,000 grain calories could feed the entire 10th grade at ICSZ and 20 teachers for one day.

(Fast Food News, Texas Farm Bureau, Ken Kuhl)

This source supports the fact above that McDonalds should only be feeding their cattle grain. If the cattle are only fed grain, that would prove that the fact above would be accurate.


However, McDonalds has run into a problem. Where do they raise there live stock? Their choice is to destroy the rainforest in order to raise the livestock. There are about than 100,000 Beef-ranches solely in the Amazon. By desolating the Amazonian rainforest, the pollution has caused extinctions of many different species of plant and animals and forced Amazonian tribes to migrate (What Wrong with McDonalds, Green Peace).

This is very similar to what King Leopold did when he went into the Congo and exploited rubber in order to transport it back to Europe during the industrial revolution.


In addition to exploiting resources McDonalds economic strategies are similar to those of the British Empire while they used indirect rule in India. The British use indirect rule as a way to control a certain areas of land but letting the Indian princes do the work. Almost like manipulating them like puppets, but giving the Indian princes some sort of freedom with some of the minor rules and regulations. McDonalds does a similar thing by requesting the government of certain countries to force farmers to move from the land in order to farm cattle.

Lastly, they also exploited workers by paying them on average only 8.90$ an hour in the USA. (McDonalds Admits it May Lose the Fight to Keep Wages Low, Jillian Berman). The amount that they earn is about 1 dollar above the minimum wage.