I’d find it almost funny, how much capitalism as a system seems to favor those who are most capable and willing to detach morality from their actions for capital gain, if it weren’t so sad.
There are good criticisms of other economic systems that have been tried, but capitalism really seems designed to transfer the most power and resources to the greediest and least ethical.
No but you don’t understand.
Capitalism works because it pits everyone against each other and so even though every single person is greedy and unethical, they begrudgingly improve society overall because of reasons.
All we have to do is make sure we teach every child that all humans are fundamentally greedy and evil and the only ethical response is to out-greedy and out-evil them.
And then we’ll have a prosperous society!
- Adam Smith basically
I understand your point, and i totally understand the hatred of capitalism, because it is a cruel system.
Just let me put things into context, though:
Capitalism isn’t the fundamental origin of the difficulties of our time. The difficulties have already existed earlier. There were the romans who waged war against basically the rest of the world, putting many people in hardship, and then there were the English in the 18th century who developed the modern version of capitalism.
In the roman system, it was all about power. You conquer some other country to get its resources, and you use these resources for personal gains. So it was direct personal greed.
The english refined the system in the way that they said, “alright, people are fundamentally greedy, but at least let’s try to put that to good use. let’s use the destructive power as positively as possible”. And then they went and designed a system where companies that are more fit to provide attractive products to others gain power; As such, greedy assholes have an incentive to provide something to others, even if it’s ultimately to their own gains.
I understand it’s a small positive in an overwhelming crushing wave of greed and sociopathy; i just wanted to explain the background of modern-day capitalism and the origin of “companies” the way we know them today.
We should end tipping culture. Wages should never be optional, and anyone working full time should be paid by their employer a living wage as described by FDR when the minimum wage was created.
Until we end tipping culture, tip your servers. You’re not some edgy social justice warrior by quoting Mr. Pink and acting like keeping your two dollars is somehow helping. You’re just an asshole.
The whole point of that scene was that even a room of psychotic killers was disgusted by the idea of not tipping.
It’s amazing how many people saw it and said, “You know, the crazy-eyed murderer makes a good point.”
Until we end tipping culture, tip your servers.
If everyone continues to tip by default, then I believe this will delay or prevent an end to the culture. If servers don’t have an issue with tipping (because everyone does so), then there is less reason to support change.
If one person doesn’t tip:
You’re just an asshole.
If a large majority doesn’t tip:
Maybe there is a problem with tipping by default?
That’s not how anything works. If you want change, you need to vote for it. You’re not going to change the entire economic structure of the whole restaurant industry by being a selfish asshole. You’re just punishing the people who handle your food and making life harder for everyone.
It definitely does not work in an environment where lazy aggressive apatheists will support a system they don’t like by claiming it can’t be changed.
If the large majority doesn’t tip, wait staff will become homeless. That’s the only “message” you’re sending. Restaurant owners won’t care in the slightest.
Don’t patronize organizations that don’t pay their employees. This is the message, you’re claiming you want to send. You have to take money away from the people who set the policy, not the worker who has to live under the policy. Find restaurants that refuse tips and spend your money there. (Or just don’t go out.)
Until we end tipping, tip your servers.
…not the worker who has to live under the policy.
They don’t have to work there.
The single best thing people can do to end tipping culture is to just stop tipping.
Vote for social safety nets or make donations to care for those who will be harmed by this.
But right now it’s people like you that are perpetuating tipping culture.
And yes, I am an asshole - but it’s not solely because of my stance on tipping.
Nah, it’s a known cultural fact that tipped wages are offloaded directly onto the consumer. Not paying them is refusing to participate in the game of capitalism in the worst possible way. By withholding the wages of your fellow worker but continuing to do business with their employer, you are just increasing the value extracted from them.
If you don’t want to tip, don’t go to tipped restaurants.
That’s it. That’s the only ethical play to avoid tipping. Don’t participate at all, don’t fund the unethical business model at all. As it stands, not tipping doesn’t threaten the business model - they still get paid.
Lol, I’m sure your reasoning is really going to make a difference to the person depending on tips to make rent. And I’m sure the owner is just going to feel terrible that his server didn’t get compensated.
Maybe you should just avoid giving your business to restaurants that exploit the tip based system? You aren’t ending tipping culture by not tipping, you’re just taking advantage of workers just as much as the owners.
If a person doesn’t tip, their server doesn’t get tipped.
If that same person avoids giving business to restaurants that exploit the tip based system, the same server still doesn’t get tipped.
You’re not ending tipping culture by tipping, either. Just saying.
Bullshit, and that’s a dangerously naive perspective. If everyone stopped tipping tomorrow, the only people that would be hurting are the people who serve.
All labor regulations exist because there will always be someone desperate enough to do anything for a paycheck. Child laborers. Prostututes. Dallas Cowboys. People will do anything for money, and the only way to prevent exploitation is with regulation. The “free market” will turn your bones into paste before it provides a living wage to laborers.
Capitalism is an unbalanced power dynamic that relies on an excess of desperation. If people didn’t need to sell their time, they’d never sell it for less than it is worth to employers. So if everyone agreed to just stop tipping, service would get much worse, and servers would be working for $2.10 an hour plus kitchen scraps.
At least we agree on uour last point.
That’s not. How. Tipped. Wages. Work.
Why do people insist that you get paid 2.10/hr? That’s 2.10/hr + Tips IF AND ONLY IF that wage equals more than minimum wage. That’s how it’s always been.
If minimum wage is 7.25 (in a lot of states, it still is), then they are paid 7.25x40 OR 2.10x40+tips, whichever of those two numbers is higher. They CANNOT LEGALLY PAY YOU less than minimum wage.
So when people say “If you stopped tipping today, all that would be hurt is the tipped workers” I’m less inclined to believe them if they also parrot absolutely false information without a second thought.
But I do agree with you, tipped wage jobs suck, and the tips seem to be the only benefit. So, let’s ensure they get a proper wage from their employer, stop tipping, and if service sucks until things are figured out, I guess I’m eating at home or eating shitty-service burgers because I’d rather the system get un-fucked than continue to engage in that system.
If everyone stopped tipping tomorrow, the only people that would be hurting are the people who serve.
Who would then not want to work in those places that depends entirely of tipping. And then it hurts the owners of those places.
How are you unable to realise this? It is all connected.
Calling it culture sounds a bit weird to me it’s an exploitative loophole that’s illegal in cultured places.
No your tips become profit for the greedy assholes who own the restaurant, you aren’t compensating for non tippers, you are compensating for greedy cunts not paying people a living wage and the fact that most Americans can’t understand this and are agreeing with the post calling people who don’t tip as rude is why tipping is never gonna leave this fucked up country
Not tipping is rude. You are not facilitating change by not tipping, because the burden of your choice is felt almost entirely by the worker you stiffed. The employer is not motivated to pay their employee more from reduced tips because they aren’t really worse off for it. Sure, maybe their employee eventually quits if they aren’t making enough, but tip industries typically have high turnover anyway, so the worker is already considered replaceable. The worker suffers from missing an expected part of their income, but they also lack the ability to make things better for themselves. So it’s just piling onto their bad situation.
If you want to get rid of tip culture, stop patronizing places that rely on tips to give their employees a living wage. That’s how capitalism works, businesses make changes in their power when something affects their bottom line. So you have to protest in a way that actually hurts the person with the power to change something, not someone caught in the crossfire. And of course, try to support reform that guarantees a living wage regardless of tips.
In Europe tipping is optional and the expectations are lower because the base wage is the full minimum, or higher.
In North America tipping has become a necessity because there is a lower minimum wage for waitstaff, which is a stupid arrangement that allows management/ownership to keep wages low and also now claim a portion of tips, for some reason.
Anyone who thinks that is a good system and that the problem is “cheapskates”, not the deeply flawed system for paying waitstaff, is not thinking things through
It works both ways. If noone tips then noone will work at restaurants where their wage consists solely of tipping. That is also how capitalism works.
If everyone quit tipping at once, yes, that would mean immediate, dramatic change. But that is unrealistic. And some people not tipping in protest when it is expected while most continue the tradition is the worst outcome for the workers. It makes their material conditions worse but not to the point of achieving anything.
Capitalism works by putting poor people is actual crossfire and then incentivise giant hulking demonic entities to engulf the planet. Sterile headless doom machines that employ sociopathic human turncoats and force them to labor or lobby in the name of profit, the final score of which global rabiate construct was the best at the game of purging tellus. You conflate the two
Yes, at this point it’s rude people that don’t tip.
It’s like people moving next to an airport, then complaining about planes. If you don’t want to tip, don’t go to a full service restaurant.
That being said, every single order at the counter POS terminal that asks for tips can fuck right off.
The tipping system sucks, but short of passing some laws mandating a livable wage WITHOUT tips, going out now and not tipping for a full service dining experience is absolutely a bad move.
Basically you’re advocating for customers to screw over the wait staff since, as you clearly point out, the owners aren’t on the hook for the tip income.
The tipping system is fucked, but that doesn’t at all change the fact that it’s baked into the system. EVERYONE (in that moment) expects you to to tip; so if you don’t, you’re effectively stealing from the server.
If you don’t want to tip, your only options are to either not eat out at restaurants, or to find restaurants that have “Hospitality Included” service (a trend which I’m thankful to see growing – albeit slowly).
It’s rude that the insane hyper capitalist dictatorship forces this, but you attack your own class, exactly like the oligarchs want. They want free mercenaries to sow hate and dispute in their own class so they can win the class war. In the end when all humans die it will be because nobody attacked the oligarchy while they set up the feral slaying machine corps that will salienate the planet.
It’s like people moving next to an airport, then complaining about planes.
I believe this analogy works in the opposite way?
Moving next to an airport is like starting a job at a restaurant that doesn’t pay minimum (or living) wage.
In either case, you know ahead of time that it’ll be annoying to live/work in those situations because planes are loud and not all people tip to make up the poor wage level.
And then to solve these problems, instead of requiring that planes be quieter or that people always tip, perhaps re-zone the areas surrounding the airport so people can’t move there, and sign into law minimum wage that scales with cost of living so people don’t have to need tips.
In the US, servers and restaurant staff tip like 100% of the time they go out because they know how important it is with our current pay laws, and they know that the waiter expecting that tip isn’t the one making the laws or who deserves to be punished for them. So that tip is almost always going to someone else who also tips.
Btw, don’t bother arguing with me that tipping is wrong so we shouldn’t do it. I agree that it’s wrong, but abstaining punishes the wrong people (servers, not owners or policymakers). So instead of writing a comment, write a letter to you local govt to eliminate sub-minimum wages for tipped workers, and keep tipping poor waiters and drivers til they change something.
All the things I’ve read say that a majority of tipped workers (as well as the general population) prefer the current tips system. Maybe it’s not true, but looking at the comments here it seems accurate.
Former tipped employee here. This is probably correct, but I don’t care. The majority is often wrong. They can be educated. Change is scary, and the people who benefit from the status quo demonize changes that will give them less power.
I would probably have made less money if paid a salary, but it would be worth it to not have to balance priorities between getting a good tip and following restaurant policies.
to not have to balance priorities between getting a good tip and following restaurant policies.
Can you explain more? Like, why is it an either-or-situation?
I work at the most expensive restaurant in my town, FOH workers are paid $2.13 (regardless of tips) and servers have to tip out 30% to assistants and bar. If everybody stopped tipping one day then some of them will literally not even have the money to buy gas to go home.
Usually if you make under the federal minimum wage they’ll bump you up to minimum wage for the shift. I know my restaurant does. But yeah thats still nothing
Our job does not apparently, asked my sous chef about it when I learned and he doesn’t understand if it’s legal or what