McDonald’s Closes All Their Restaurants in Bolivia

[tom1992]

http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/notitas-de-noticias/details/mcdonalds-closes-all-their-restaurants-in-bolivia/12787/

Bolivia will become the first McDonald’s-free Latin American nation, after struggling for more than a decade to keep their numbers out of ‘the red.’
After 14 years in the nation and despite many campaigns and promos McDonald’s was forced to close its 8 Bolivian restaurants in the major cities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra.



McDonald’s served its last hamburgers in Bolivia Saturday at midnight, after announcing a global restructuring plan in which it would close its doors in seven countries with poor profit margins.


The failure of McDonald’s in Bolivia had such a deep impact in the company’s Creative and Marketing staff, that they produced a documentary titled “Why did McDonald’s Bolivia go Bankrupt,” trying to explain why did Bolivians never crossed-over from empanadas to Big Macs.



The documentary includes interviews with cooks, sociologists, nutritionists and educators who all seem to agree, Bolivians are not against hamburgers per sé, just against ‘fast food,’ a concept widely unaccepted in the Bolivian community.



Fast-food represents the complete opposite of what Bolivians consider a meal should be. To be a good meal, food has to have be prepared with love, dedication, certain hygiene standards and proper cook time.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I like fast food.

[Zostrianos]

Beautiful :cool:

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Many people in my country don't like fast food,
yet they go to mcdonalds from time to time

[Prometeo liberado]

Thank Lenin! I know that the french have led the way in exposing how mickey d's bulldozes over culture and does this under the guise of bringing jobs to the community. Duped into handing over dollar after dollar by offering inexpensive "food", countless many have only seen their waistline grow and arteries clogged or stuck in a minimum wage(which means if they could pay you less they would) job and no chance of ever making a living wage.

Think I read something a while back that a McDonalds shell company held the contract for "food" service for the french prison system. Market that. Fast food has its price and it isn't fast.:laugh:

[Zostrianos]

McDonalds and Walmart are my top blacklisted companies. I've never gone there and never will.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Thank Lenin! I know that the french have led the way in exposing how mickey d's bulldozes over culture

French culture needs to be bulldozed.

[Misanthrope]

..and no one gives fuck all about the workers losing their jobs.

Liberalism is alive on revleft.

[Impulse97]

Thank Lenin! I know that the french have led the way in exposing how mickey d's bulldozes over culture and does this under the guise of bringing jobs to the community. Duped into handing over dollar after dollar by offering inexpensive "food", countless many have only seen their waistline grow and arteries clogged or stuck in a minimum wage(which means if they could pay you less they would) job and no chance of ever making a living wage.

Think I read something a while back that a McDonalds shell company held the contract for "food" service for the french prison system. Market that. Fast food has its price and it isn't fast.:laugh:

They're not our Gods and nor should they be.

[Tovarisch]

..and no one gives fuck all about the workers losing their jobs.

Liberalism is alive on revleft.
Culture first, useless minimum wage jobs second

[Renegade Saint]

Culture first, useless minimum wage jobs second
When did leftists become concerned with preserving 'culture'?

[Misanthrope]

Culture first, useless minimum wage jobs second

BA: You missed a troll.

I shouldn't dignify this with a response. So a jobs "usefulness" is based upon its wage?

[Krano]

I wish i could get this rotten company out of Finland as well, but the good news is McDonalds has been losing millions every year here, so i'm pretty sure they will be forced to close eventually.

[Q]

Companies come, companies go.

Why is this even worth a thread? Just because McDonalds has some bigger "evil" status than other capitalist companies? It's not like capitalism has been abolished in Bolivia or anything.

[Die Neue Zeit]

True, and moreover public food-making (like in cafeterias, canteens, etc.), like laundry services, has a more socializing effect than domestic food-making.

[tom1992]

..and no one gives fuck all about the workers losing their jobs.

Liberalism is alive on revleft.

In most Latin countries, multinational companies give very little jobs, and very low paid ones, at the end they are better of working for a national company, which give most of the jobs, but these guys get young people with fake hope. My country is an example of the "yankee" culture destroying our lives. Pizza hut, domino, burguer...People forget the cheap street food, which is healthier and supports a poor man/woman that sells it.

This type of company destroy culture and peoples dignity. The owners of MC are the same ones that control the land, at the end, it is for the best.

[Prometeo liberado]

They're not our Gods and nor should they be.
Sorry if you missed it as a joke my little mensheviki!:laugh:

[Rafiq]

French culture needs to be bulldozed.

No

[Impulse97]

Culture first, useless minimum wage jobs second

No.

Culture doesn't feed the masses, money does, no matter the amount. Although, of course common sense tells us, that with money more really is better, but I'm sure you get my meaning.

[tom1992]

Companies come, companies go.

Why is this even worth a thread? Just because McDonalds has some bigger "evil" status than other capitalist companies? It's not like capitalism has been abolished in Bolivia or anything.

Lol who are you to say what is a worth thread?
"companies come, companies go", This is not so true if we talk about something like McDonalds.
No, but it is a step. Latin America has been destroyed by US companies. So we are happy with news like this.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No

Yes!

[Os Cangaceiros]

I imagine that food rationing under socialism will probably look a lot like McDonalds, actually. Cheap, mass-produced food assembly line style, cooked in ovens or on stoves calibrated at exactly the right temperature to kill any nasty food-borne illnesses, and tastying varying shades of bland. Bring on the dystopia.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

No, but it is a step. Latin America has been destroyed by US companies. So we are happy with news like this.

So all the local companies that destroy, they're all right? Shifting the burden upon "companies" is irrelevant. It's the system of capitalism at work, not individual corporations and companies. This is not an materialist position; companies, like people, do not exist in vacuum. A defeat for McDonalds is not a blow against capitalism in this sense whatsoever, and to play into nonsense about sacred culture becoming tainted serves only nationalism; and playing into equally nonsensical rubbish about "evil corporations" as though these agents of capitalist working were somehow detached from the system they form a apart of is equally reprehensible and serves only social-democratic and liberal ideas that capitalism can be responsible and reformed into careful goodness and moral and ethical acceptability or similar.

[GatesofLenin]

Great news indeed! You can feed yourself cheaper and healthier than McRuns. Some of the best slavic dishes like my favorite cabbage and potato stew are delicious, healthy and cheap to make.

[tom1992]

So all the local companies that destroy, they're all right? Shifting the burden upon "companies" is irrelevant. It's the system of capitalism at work, not individual corporations and companies. This is not an materialist position; companies, like people, do not exist in vacuum. A defeat for McDonalds is not a blow against capitalism in this sense whatsoever, and to play into nonsense about sacred culture becoming tainted serves only nationalism; and playing into equally nonsensical rubbish about "evil corporations" as though these agents of capitalist working were somehow detached from the system they form a apart of is equally reprehensible and serves only social-democratic and liberal ideas that capitalism can be responsible and reformed into careful goodness and moral and ethical acceptability or similar.

Please read a little about indigenous Latin culture (for me this is the real culture, not the Spanish shit), it is never used by politicians to inspire chauvinism or nationalism, because most if not all are 100% against capitalism and they have always attacked the state (200 years+).
Lol, most local companies destroy little, this just shows how little you know about these areas (although I am against local businessmen, they do not affect the country as much as the foreign ones), because the companies that destroy are owned by people from the developed world (Europe, Australia, North America).

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Lol, most local companies destroy little, this just shows how little you know about these areas (although I am against local businessmen, they do not affect the country as much as the foreign ones), because the companies that destroy are owned by people from the developed world (Europe, Australia, North America).

You fail to grasp the point. Foreign or local companies - there's no need for a distinction. They are a part of the same system, they form a part of capitalism: it is capitalism that destroys, not the individual actors of it; it's imperialism as a system, not an individual politician or some sinister villain of an executive somewhere far-off. The failure of McDonalds, then, is not a victory against capitalism, merely a sign to the capitalist that they have to modify their ways to continue to thrive, but it does nothing to counter capitalism, it does nothing to stop exploitation.

[Rafiq]

Yes!

But I like crussiants

[Le Rouge]

French culture needs to be bulldozed.

The American culture too...

[Os Cangaceiros]

"But I like crussiants"

I suppose that's a fair point.


The American culture too...

Preaching to the choir man. I can't wait until "American culture" is torn asunder.

[Rafiq]

Preaching to the choir man. I can't wait until "American culture" is torn asunder.

But I like hamburgers and twinkies

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Fast food," like frozen food / "TV dinners," most often flourishes where there is a need for it -- where women are too busy (racing from home, to work, to school, to home, etc.) to do "traditional housewife work" like cooking meals for their families at home;* and where workers and school children are too busy in their regular routines to eat at home during the day.

It's been exported to "underdeveloped" countries to some extent, but usually as an expensive luxury snack for urban middle classes.

So the "advanced" countries like the U.S., the UK, South Korea, Japan, etc., are littered with fast food restaurants, whereas in places like the Dominican Republic they are few and far between (and completely non-existent outside of the very major cities).

I don't need to tell you what the situation is like in Bolivia.

* I am not endorsing this traditional role, which needs to be abolished as soon as is humanly possible. I hope that would be obvious, but around here you never know.

[Vanguard1917]

..and no one gives fuck all about the workers losing their jobs.

Liberalism is alive on revleft.

Liberal anti-McDonald's hysteria is so strong among those on the left that it's easily forgotten by them that eight workplaces closing down due to unprofitability probably means hundreds of workers losing jobs.

Thus when middle-class 'anti-consumerism' food snobs try to employ the rhetoric of "workers' rights" the next time they attack McDonald's (or Walmart, Tesco, whatever), you'll now know they're bullshitting.

[Zav]

A corporation such as McDonald's is certainly evil, as much meaning as has the word aside. It's removal from a country is certainly great because the workers there employed will have one less predator out to get cheap labor. With it gone smaller businesses will grow and hire as the giant's clout is gone, and due to their size will exploit said labor less. The unemployment resulting from it's removal is only temporary.

[Vanguard1917]

A corporation such as McDonald's is certainly evil, as much meaning as has the word aside. It's removal from a country is certainly great because the workers there employed will have one less predator out to get cheap labor. With it gone smaller businesses will grow and hire as the giant's clout is gone, and due to their size will exploit said labor less. The unemployment resulting from it's removal is only temporary.

By similar logic, we would support the shutting down of, say, an unprofitable steel plant employing hundreds (and oppose the workers fighting against the closure), because it was exploitative and because the working class is better off with small-scale exploiters rather than large-scale ones.

Petit-bourgeois economics in all its glory.

[Vanguard1917]

"Fast food," like frozen food / "TV dinners," most often flourishes where there is a need for it -- where women are too busy (racing from home, to work, to school, to home, etc.) to do "traditional housewife work" like cooking meals for their families at home;* and where workers and school children are too busy in their regular routines to eat at home during the day.

Good point. And to follow on from Die Neue Zeit's point above, that the preparation/semi-preparation of food is increasingly being taken care of by social rather than domestic labour has a liberating impact on, firstly, women and, secondly, workers generally. When people, especially 'leftwing' people, begin denouncing mothers for not having enough time to cook nice traditional meals for their families, I wonder what someone like Alexandra Kollontai would have made of such 'leftism':

'The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove...?'

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1913/womens-day.htm

[Commissar Rykov]

By similar logic, we would support the shutting down of, say, an unprofitable steel plant employing hundreds (and oppose the workers fighting against the closure), because it was exploitative and because the working class is better off with small-scale exploiters rather than large-scale ones.

Petit-bourgeois economics in all its glory.
Exactly, I don't begin to understand the logic of how it is better to be exploited by the Petit-Bourgeoisie or your own National Bourgeoisie. I thought we were against the system of exploitation known as Capitalism? Surely people on revleft are not delving once again along the path of Yellow Socialism supporting the Petit-Bourgeoisie and National Companies due to a need to defend culture or national systems. I would really hope that nonsense was disproven in the early 20th Century when Yellow Socialists supported the rise of Fascism.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Exactly, I don't begin to understand the logic of how it is better to be exploited by the Petit-Bourgeoisie or your own National Bourgeoisie.

Well it's the petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeooisies that push this kind of shit. So it's them that it helps. That other people buy into it is just a case of the ideas in society being the ideas of the ruling classes.

[piet11111]

The American culture too...

Does America have something that can be considered an independent culture compared to other western cultures they are more of a mixture then something uniquely different.
Then again that they are a blend of several cultures could be argued to be 1 culture of itself i guess.

[danyboy27]

they will be missed, that for sure.:rolleyes:

[A Revolutionary Tool]

A corporation such as McDonald's is certainly evil, as much meaning as has the word aside. It's removal from a country is certainly great because the workers there employed will have one less predator out to get cheap labor. With it gone smaller businesses will grow and hire as the giant's clout is gone, and due to their size will exploit said labor less. The unemployment resulting from it's removal is only temporary.
Yay, McDonald's in Bolivia is closed! Now those minimum wage workers can go be employed by a good small business person who surely won't pay minimum wage!

Are people seriously saying this? C'mon now, do we really think "small businesses" aren't just as exploitative as "big businesses"? I've got news for you, they are. I've worked for a local small business before and gladly quit from that piece of shit minimum wage job. Now I'm working at McDonald's for the same minimum wage and I find it a thousand times more bearable than the former. Some of you need to get a grip on reality.

[ellipsis]

moved to OS:LA.

[chegitz guevara]

I like fast food.

I like it before and during eating it, but afterwards, I always feel cheated.

[agnixie]

Please read a little about indigenous Latin culture (for me this is the real culture, not the Spanish shit), it is never used by politicians to inspire chauvinism or nationalism, because most if not all are 100% against capitalism and they have always attacked the state (200 years+).
Lol, most local companies destroy little, this just shows how little you know about these areas (although I am against local businessmen, they do not affect the country as much as the foreign ones), because the companies that destroy are owned by people from the developed world (Europe, Australia, North America).

Latin culture is the spanish shit; otherwise it's not latin (also the majority Guarani republic of Paraguay disagrees with you when it comes to native cultures being inherently anti-capitalist, hell, the only reason they're inherently anti-imperialist is because even the imperialist cultures like the quechua were rolled over by even more ruthless imperialists - we see how well that sort of assumption worked with jewish culture). Additionally there is next to no indigenous culture in two latin american countries. What's with the bullshit nationalist cultural hierarchy anyway?

[the last donut of the night]

those happy meals will be missed. big mac, rest in peace. good night, sweet prince

[the last donut of the night]

I like it before and during eating it, but afterwards, I always feel cheated.

i like it when it's not spewing out the other end

[o well this is ok I guess]

..and no one gives fuck all about the workers losing their jobs.

Liberalism is alive on revleft. And apparently, so is right conservatism.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

my first guess is that this is less about preserving local culinary culture and more about american fast food restaurants in the third world being unable to compete with superior and more inexpensive alternatives. here in brazil, for instance, the attractiveness of mcdonald's is the fact that theyre often open 24 hours/day, drive thru and their appeal to children. unlike in the united states, we dont have vast urban/suburban areas with no alternatives except fast food and mcdonald's is very far from being widely affordable. in fact it's pretty fucking expensive considering our purchasing power and their competitors' prices.

[black magick hustla]

Culture first, useless minimum wage jobs second

the working class has no culture