Russia and the death of the Golden Arches theory
Ah, well, it was a lovely idea, born of the age of liberal-democratic triumphalism that was the 1990s: the ‘Golden Arches theory’, which held that no two countries that had McDonald’s franchises had ever been – or would ever go – to war. Remarkably, it wasn’t the product of McDonald’s PR department but the work of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He argued that the arrival of McDonald’s signified a society that had become so consumerist that enough people had enough invested in economic stability to ever risk a war. Armed conflict ain’t good for the hamburger trade The final nail in the coffin of the Golden Arches theory has come with the news that McDonald’s is to abandon Russia permanently.
