To employ the well-worn pun with which some newspapers have headed the story, McDonald's UK "has a beef" with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition of the word 'McJob' as "An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service industry."

Predictably enough, McDonald's sees this as a slur on both its people-management practices and its employees, and in consequence is considering petitioning the publisher to remove the distasteful entry.

Fat chance, I'm afraid, as any dictionary worth its salt, as the OED has certainly proven itself to be, doesn't dictate or decree which words its contributors and editors deem permissible or acceptable.

Dictionaries include and define words that speakers and writers of the language actually use, together with descriptions of what they are generally understood or in some cases misunderstood - to mean.

Or, to state the proposition in terms McDonald's might understand, a dictionary isn't a 'menu' that can be changed at the whim or will of management, or an exercise in public relations, but as faithful as possible a record of contemporary words and meaning. And as such, it's a true representation of people's language and thought, or, in other words, literally an exercise in verbal democracy.

So it's hardly surprising that McDonald's has a problem with this concept of linguistic liberality, as, like most other large organisations from commercial corporations to most political parties and a great many entire countries, its structure and culture is the very antithesis of democratic: McDictatorial.

In fact the very secret of McDonald's survival and success lies in its power and ability to maintain tight discipline if not total control over everything from selection of franchisees and store locations to product range, raw materials sourcing, fixed and variable costs and that most ornery of variables, the workers.

Discipline if not domination of the people who flip the beef patties, sizzle the fries, ring the cash registers and wish the customers a nice day - the McStaff, McHuman resources, call them what you will - is absolutely vital to the McDonald's organisation. As are McWorkers who are hungry and needy enough to tolerate unstimulating, low-paid jobs with few prospects are essential to every sector of the global economy, from the service industries through manufacturing to agriculture.

Self-interest first

Admittedly there appears to be an increasing number of employers whose enlightened self-interest has alerted them to the desirability of paying their McLabourers better and making their jobs as McInteresting, McStimulating and McAspirational as possible.

McDonald's itself, for example, proudly boasts on its website of what it calls 'McProspects', proclaiming that "over half of our executive team started in our restaurants. Not bad for a McJob."

On the other side of the coin, it's tempting to ask what miniscule percentage of people who started work for McDonald's at restaurant level stayed on to rise to the executive ranks. But at least McDonald's appears to be genuinely McTrying to rectify the McJob situation. Just as the Indian IT giant Infosys has famously done for its thousands of call-centre operators.

But most corporations and countries, unfortunately, do everything in their considerable power to sustain the McJob culture on self-interested economic grounds. Many first-world marketers of obscenely-expensive 'designer' goods, for example, make fortunes out of farming-out their manufacture to McSweatshops in the third world.

Global food conglomerates keep their prices low and margins high by paying peanuts to peasant McFarmers for their produce. Nations ranging from the US through the Middle East to Malaysia tolerate if not outright encourage the exploitation of imported labour, both legal and otherwise, as cheap McMaids, McLabourers and McPlantation workers.

Most McNations that engage in this McPractice are as McDomineering as any corporation could be, and as intolerant of protecting their McWorkers with human rights or social safeguards like minimum wage or any other labour laws. And they sustain the McStatus quo by discouraging or banning such protective organisations as trade unions, dominating or marginalising McOpposition politicians, and silencing potential criticism by muzzling their McMedia.

Doing it differently

Some countries with enough of their own home-grown McHuman resources do it differently.

Japan, for example, has achieved McProsperity through a system of McRegimentation involving such McMotivational techniques as the singing of McCompany songs and a McSalaryman culture requiring McWorkers to stay on the job until the McBoss goes home, and to go out boozing till all hours in McBonding sessions with their McColleagues.

North Korea has opted for bare survival by McStarving most of its McPeople of McWork, let alone freedom, prosperity or prospects, choosing instead to go McNuclear for the purpose of extorting aid in cash and kind for the enrichment of its dear McLeader and his McCronies.

China, on the other hand, has switched to a brand of McCommunism that's enriching McEntrepreneurs and generating more McJobs at the price of soaring levels of McCorruption, McPollution and social McMisery, and with no apparent slackening of political and social McTyranny.

In fact, just as McDonald's is agitating to have the word 'McJob' removed from the OED, McChina has pressured McInternet providers from the McFree world to block emails and websites discovered by McSearch engines to dare use forbidden words like 'freedom', 'democracy' and 'Tienanmen'.

Verbal freedom, as all McDictator and McMarketers are aware, reflects freedom of thought, which may in turn lead their subjects or consumers to dream of freedom of choice.

So the only sure way to sustain supremacy is to McManipulate the McPopulace from McCradle to McGrave. With whatever it McTakes to produce McMeek and McCompliant McSingaporeans, McMalaysians - or McCitizens of anywhere else - from McTraining them in McSchools to McUniversities to permitting them to vote in one-sided McElections and misleading them with McInformation.

Anything to achieve a state of McMindless McThought, which can be safely expressed in oppropriately McCensored McLanguage.