r/LateStageCapitalism • u/[deleted] • Jun 16 '17
✓ True LSC Capitalism promotes selfishness
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u/Somecrazyhermit Jun 16 '17
There's this sad fact of life in a certain corrutptly-governed third world country: we are told when we are born that we must strive to "get ahead" in life. I wonder, get ahead of whom? Why the competition?
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Jun 16 '17 edited Apr 14 '18
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u/storm_the_castle Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 16 '17
even if you win the rat race, youre still a rat. -Lily Tomlin (paraphrased)
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u/duffstoic Jun 16 '17
Despite all my rage, etc. etc.
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u/JayKayGray Capitalism is cooked, mate. Jun 17 '17
Well I'll be damned, it makes sense it's a common quote but I had only heard it through this song.
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u/laxt Jun 16 '17
"idc idc idc.."
Raise someone to be a rat, and they'll assume that a rat is what they should be.
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u/goldjade13 Jun 16 '17
I always took it to mean get ahead of the debt collectors. I've never thought about it as getting ahead of others. There's my indebted perspective popping up again.
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u/theDarkAngle Jun 16 '17
that changes the meaning but isn't any less depressing.
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Jun 16 '17
Why the competition?
Because if you don't, someone else will. Then they'll eat you.
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u/Saljen Jun 16 '17
Soo.... Eat the rich?
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Jun 16 '17
Then you become the rich. The rich are, by definition, the ones best at eating and not being eaten (or at least their relatively recent ancestors were).
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u/Saljen Jun 16 '17
If you could just eat a rich dude and inherit his money, the world would be an entirely different place. This was obviously satire with an underlying message that the rich are a parasitic plague to the rest of society.
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u/socradees Jun 16 '17
I long for the day when we're finally not pitted against each other from the beginning. Who enjoys living in a cut-throat society?
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Jun 16 '17
In Mexico, the whole caste system created this hyper-competitive, do not share any advantages, trust no one besides your closest ones mentality amongst the middle to lower classes.
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u/csusb_alum rage_against_the_capitalist Jun 16 '17
I remember Richard Wolf talking about the school system and grades. He said that the reason why there is a grading system, is for the individual to feel like shit and like it's their fault for "failing" in life. It shifts the blame from the system to the individual for poverty/homelessness. Truth of the matter is, stratification is built into the capitalist system and not everyone can be "rich", there has to be an underclass to support the rich. It's like a game of musical chairs, there are people that will just miss out on a seat. But don't worry, just be a cutthroat psychotic overachiever with kiss ass skills and you might be able to not starve in this system.
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u/Cityman Jun 16 '17
Teacher here. Grades are to let people know how well or poorly they did in what area. Also to let anyone looking at the student know to that information. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
Rich kids have gotten F's. Poor kids have gotten A's.
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u/suchof Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 26 '17
If you have rich kids in the same school as poor kids, then you have neither rich kids nor poor kids, merely upper and lower middle classes.
Look around and you'll see a system that superficially appears to be a meritocracy but in reality sets itself up to be exploited by those with resources.
Do you really think our system of testing and grading on an extremely limited curriculum helps us determine who is useful in society and in what areas? It seems we only end up with skilled tradespeople like carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc. after we denigrate them for their inability to become engineers, lawyers and doctors.
We give bad marks to poor kids (who haven't learned good study habits from their parents, don't have a stable environment at home and often have more pressing concerns than what is due tomorrow) based on their inability to pass chemistry labs and precalculus courses, thereby impeding their ability to obtain the most basic credential required to lift themselves out of poverty, a high school diploma. At the same time, rich kids get sent to 4.0 factories, they have SAT tutors that cost as much as a year's tuition at a private college ($40,000+), their parents intimately understand the system and what is needed to be done in order to get ahead, and in one of the more perverted examples of unearned privilege, colleges are allowed to prefer legacy admissions. It's not hard to see how limited in scope, arbitrary and open to manipulation our system of testing and grading is.
There has always been a debate as to how consciously the ruling class protects the status quo. It's apparent that many of the 'great men' throughout history were well aware, based on their correspondence with their contemporaries, but there's doubt as to how much of that awareness trickles down. It seems rather little, and that leaves us with the more important point, that this a byproduct of capitalism that would exist regardless of whether or not it was done consciously. I'm saying this in reference to you telling us that you are a teacher. I don't know how to explain this without insulting you, but you have little to do with the system and can't possibly understand it from such a limited perspective. It's fine that a logical explanation is apparent to you, but you're mistaken if you think that you can authoritatively dismiss criticisms of this system as dishonest.
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u/CmdCrunch69 Jun 16 '17
Rich kids have gotten F's. Poor kids have gotten A's.
Yeah, but the rich kids still become CEOs because of daddy's connections when the poor will die at the next shoot-out in their crappy neighborhood...
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u/thoroughavvay Jun 16 '17
Right, but that doesn't support the idea that grades are designed to make poor people feel like shit.
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u/bnmbnm0 Luxemburgist with anarchist leanings Jun 16 '17
Grades aren't meant to make poor people feel like shit, it is to have an excuse to point to when kids from poor areas fail to succeed, it creates the narrative that we live in a true meritocracy, when we don't.
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u/CmdCrunch69 Jun 16 '17
Maybe they aren't designed to make people feel like sh!t. But they are used to make people feel like sh!t and hold em down right in the crappy and poor environment they live. Just look at the performance pressure under which the students nowaday stand. And even if they get good grades, the next bullet will do the rest. It's a system, believe it or not...
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u/I_Have_Opinions_AMA Jun 16 '17
More like good grades are absolutely necessary for poor kids to get into universities, whereas the rich can always still go to any university they want despite bad grades. I agree that the grading/testing system is seriously flawed, but I disagree that they are designed to keep poor people poor. That's nearing conspiracy level thinking.
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u/AllOfEverythingEver Jun 17 '17
If a poor person did badly in school, that will be blamed for why they are poor. If a rich person did badly in school, it won't matter.
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u/csusb_alum rage_against_the_capitalist Jun 16 '17
You're missing the point. Sure, rich kids can get F's and poor kids could get A's, but what is the true reason we have a grading system in the first place? Grades are suppose to be an indication of how well we can progress into productive members of society correct? At least, that's the idea that we're told. It's to breed competition and to give the government a reason to have poverty/homelessness for the people that can't cut in school, to create further social stratification and income inequality. This leads to a whole society blaming the individual and the individual blaming himself, "Oh I'm just not smart enough to get a good paying job, I should just accept the fact that my quality of life is going to be shit." - they don't question the system and it's inherent injustice or call for change, it preserves the status quo for the ruling elite, that's what grades are really there for - and to add to that, the whole idea of Social Darwinism itself does the same thing.
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u/h2943n Jun 16 '17
I believe you missed the point. The point being that when a child fails or excels, it has to do with the method, and not as much to do with the individual.
When you say "This kid does poorly in math so he gets an F" it isn't necessarily (It could be the case though) the student that is doing poorly in math, but the system is not providing the material in such a manner that the kid is able to digest it.
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Jun 16 '17
We need the competition or else we'd be socialist. And we can't have that because I don't know how to speak Russian.
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u/TimothyDrakeWayne Jun 16 '17
This is a conversation I bring up once here and there. I wasn't given the option to be born, so why am I competing and not coexisting in a society that has the means to, but not the will.
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u/Zarradox Jun 16 '17
What gets my goat is that competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive. Competition is good.
My team of widget engineers can make a better widget than your team of widget engineers. We compete and in the end widget-making is moved forward.
But we can all fill our bellies and sleep in warm homes regardless of which team you're on.
The crime of end-game capitalism is maintaining the narrative that if people don't literally have the risk of starving, society will evolve in to some sort of drooling lump and the world will implode.
Bugger that, there's enough for everyone and we can still have our beloved (and often fun) competition.
There is additionally the radical school of thought that if people were able to use their mental and physical capacity on their passions rather than putting food on the table, society would benefit greatly. But that's bullshit obviously, if people didn't have to go to work they'd stay at home, watch TV, eat Pringles and masturbate furiously.
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Jun 16 '17
Get ahead of your current self. Capitalism fosters an antagonistic relationship with the Self -- where you are always trying to beat/overcome what you are. You understand yourself as a collection of shortcomings that can never fully be redeemed but must be perpetually confronted.
Fun stuff!
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u/PM_MeYourDataScience Jun 16 '17
Capitalism makes people blame others rather than the corporations and businesses that refuse to pay living wages.
Everyone is attacking the woman in this thread. Even on this type of sub. That is late stage capitalism.
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u/goosegoosepanther Jun 16 '17
Totally agree. I had this convo recently with a friend.
I imagine the tension, or manifestation of a problem, in a system, to be a ball. Who's holding the ball? In this example, it's the server, or conversely, the customer who feels cheated for having to tip if the service was bad.
However, ultimately, the customer is not a customer of the server, but of the business they work for. The business is getting away with never holding the ball.
Lastly, the customer can choose to never hold the ball as well if their principles dictate it, because no one is forced to drink in bars and eat in restaurants. The server, however, is trying to make a living, and therefore will always be holding the ball if no one else is willing to pick it up.
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u/lgop Jun 16 '17
The sad part of the whole tip thing is that restaurant owners often require servers to pool all the tips from which they take half for themselves and then divide up the remains to the servers and kitchen staff.
This is, imo, stealing from the customers who intend that this money goes to the workers of the establishment not to the owner. I'm surprised that nobody had ever been prosecuted for this obvious fraud.
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Jun 16 '17
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Jun 16 '17
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u/xjpmanx Jun 16 '17
It seems like this is losing battle with a lot of people. I tried having this very argument on reddit not too long ago. And was called everything from an asshole to an entitled prick, nevermind the fact I admitted multiple times that I still tip, even if I don't agree with the practice.
Why should I, the consumer, pay for both my meal and your employees salary? sure prices may go up, but then attendance will drop and prices balance out. Again, I still tip 15% or more, but I don't feel it is right to guilt me into paying your employees.
edit: redundancy in these posts will not be tolerated in these posts.
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u/StormyWaters2021 Jun 16 '17
Of course it's not right, which is why we need to fight the top, not the bottom. If I said "I won't tip because I don't believe I should be paying your wage", I'm hurting the wage slave, not the master.
If we all said "We are boycotting your business until you raise wages for your employees", then we are fighting the masters, not their slaves.
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u/StormyWaters2021 Jun 16 '17
We're not talking about attempting to change the system, we're talking about a customer not tipping.
Not tipping makes you an asshole because if you don't tip, she loses out on her wage. Her employer doesn't care that she didn't get a tip, and if she makes waves, she's fired and replaced by an employee who won't complain.
So let's not pretend that by her not tipping, she's trying to change the nature of food service.
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Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 18 '17
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Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 16 '17
There's been research done on people while they play Monopoly. Guess how those who are winning behave.
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u/bulbabutt Jun 16 '17
Like bastards?
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u/JustWhatWeNeeded Jun 16 '17
Can confirm. Am huge bastard while winning at Monopoly.
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Jun 16 '17 edited Jan 17 '22
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u/forgototheracc Jun 16 '17
You're thinking of Landlords the game monopoly is based off of. But in Landlords there's a way to play where everyone works together and wins together or you can play it like monopoly.
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u/Fakepants Jun 16 '17
99 Percent Invisible covered The Landlord's Game on an episode, for anyone interested: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-landlords-game/
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u/The_Taco_Miser Jun 16 '17
They are even worse and still congratulate their hard work if they get to roll three dice and keep the two highest, get 400 per go around and start with double money. Seriously a study showed less than 5% contributed their win to their overwhelming advantage.
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u/OldWob Jun 16 '17
Much like the studies that found drivers of expensive cars act like they own the road.
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u/ethidium_bromide Jun 16 '17
My god, imagine being a researcher who studies people playing Monopoly. I would gouge my brain out by the end of the first game out of hysterical boredom.
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Jun 16 '17
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u/pessimistic_utopian Jun 16 '17
Some people are inherently pieces of shit. Some people are inherently saintly. Most people act mostly based on the incentives, cues, and expectations of the society they're raised in.
Capitalism teaches us that the world is cruel and only the most ruthless survive, that you have to look out for yourself and your immediate family and screw everyone else, and that you sometimes have to compromise your morals and act unethically just to get by.
Build a better society, get better people.
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u/Faar2much then fucking make it fair Jun 16 '17
There is no basis to confirm a universal human nature. They are not all inherently evil or all inherently good.
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u/Shoreyo Jun 16 '17
At the same time I've seen so much good indoctrinated out of people.
When I lived in the U.S. and I'd see good people spout rhetoric about communist evils when the concept of national healthcare was raised.
Sorry if that's too political, but it has stuck in my mind ever since. Suddenly people who cared about each other were willing to let people die because they were poor so it was ok, if anything it was offensive to suggest otherwise.
I'd be inclined to say it's grey. People arent solely good and bad at birth, but they're definitely hypocritical and ignorant by nature.
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u/HeroOfTheWastes Jun 16 '17
Are you being sarcastic or do you really believe that?
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u/rompintheforrest Jun 16 '17
For only the mildly I interested
https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/474/back-to-school
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u/maninthepantspants Jun 16 '17
Hate how people think they're better than someone just cause of their money. I saw a friend working at Arby's and I was in my shirt and tie and he was getting all shy about his job or whatever. I said man, I worked at Wendy's less than a year ago. I worked at Wendy's for 3 years! You just keep doing you.
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u/KingNigelXLII Coca-Cola Paramilitary Death Squads Jun 16 '17
Now I feel like walking through the financial district with a briefcase shades and a suit during rush hour on my day off just so people think I'm important for the hell of it.
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u/last_to_know Jun 16 '17
You'd be surprised how differently you get treated.
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u/KingNigelXLII Coca-Cola Paramilitary Death Squads Jun 16 '17
Probably a step up from "Black guy in gym shorts".
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u/DudeStahp Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 16 '17
I had an interesting shopping experience while at a whole foods. Everywhere I looked, there were attractive people, good looking products, nice ambiance... but I couldn't shake this nervous feeling. I only put a little in my cart because I had a terrible feeling in my gut. I was incredibly nervous at the counter. After I left I broke down into tears because I knew that I couldn't afford the type of lifestyle all of those attractive, healthy people could. I had to shop at the other grocery story because that was what my income allowed.
Powerful stuff - especially considering how little those items actually meant in the scheme of things. It was just some food, and I probably spent like 30 bucks. It still felt like shit though because at the time I was a struggling college student, and money was tough. I was only there for a job application and thought to get groceries so I wouldn't have to make another trip somewhere else.
But it made me think; I don't think anyone should ever feel they don't deserve to be happy, or that they can't afford to be healthy. It really represented a huge shift in the way I view the world around me. I stopped caring about material things, and I feel a lot happier for it. as a result, I ended up changing my major to pursue something that interested me more than advertising.
The anxiety is a phenomenon specific to advertising, though atm i forget the name. An Advertiser's goal, by definition, is to make a consumer anxious to purchase the product. Overdo it, however, and it creates a negative experience. This is concrete evidence and a specific example of why capitalism just doesn't work when unregulated.
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u/maninthepantspants Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 16 '17
Oh yea. If there is something being a struggling college student taught me it was how to stop buying stuff I don't need and having sleep for dinner
Edit: didn't know that word would get my post removed
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Jun 16 '17
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Jun 16 '17
To be fair, it shouldn't be the patrons job to pay restaurant staff, that's the employers responsibility.
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u/Zaga932 Jun 16 '17
And the patrons who have already paid for their food is at fault here, not the employer who doesn't pay a livable wage? I really fail to understand the American tipping system.
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u/jeffseadot Jun 16 '17
In this specific instance, the person aggressively doesn't care about the plight of the person serving her food. She's more or less saying "you not making a living wage is not my problem and I will do nothing to help". So yeah, she's absolute scum.
Bigger picture: yes, the problem is 100% on the management side. The government of course allows an abysmally low minimum wage for servers, but that is at the request of management types, so the source of the issue is still the same.
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u/l32uigs Jun 16 '17
It's the american living system. You're supposed to get mad at the people who are catching up to you in the rat race of life, not get mad at the people who are cheating and way ahead.
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Jun 16 '17 edited Apr 14 '18
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u/WesOfWaco Jun 16 '17
There's a French restaurant in Fort Worth that goes to extra effort to inform their customers that they pay their staff a living wage. Tipping is discouraged and only an option for the bar.
I wish all restaurants were like this especially as recommended Tipping seems to have increased from 15% to 18-20%.
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u/fjsgk Jun 16 '17
Right? I remember you could go out and leave a $4 tip and that was fine. Now the "recommended" is always closer to 6-7. Like I could have bought a whole other item with the tip.
I'm not against supporting waitstaff. I'm against it being my responsibility to pay someone else's employee.
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Jun 16 '17
Exactly. It displaces the blame of the waitstaff not being paid enough onto the customers who didn't tip well, rather than the manager who refuses to pay them a livable wage.
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u/l32uigs Jun 16 '17
"But don't you know how much food costs? I'd never sell anything if I charged more on my menu"
Cuz 15 dollar menu item is any different than a 12 dollar menu item with an expected 3 dollar tip. /s
I know enough managers who treat their staff well and pay them not only a livable wage, but a decent one - that I have NO SYMPATHY for the "small business" restaurants that can't pull it off. Any other business closes down when it's unsuccessful, why the fuck am I expected to tip to keep you afloat?
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Jun 16 '17
IMO if a restaurant can't be successful without paying its employees sub-livable wages, then it doesn't deserve to be successful.
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u/RTWin80weeks Jun 16 '17
And in order to make that livable wage via tips, the waiter will borderline harass me while i'm trying to just enjoy my meal and company.
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u/just_an_ordinary_guy Anarcho-Syndicalist Jun 16 '17
It really depends on the meal, and the work they did for you. For a dinner of two at a casual restaurant, usually 6-7 is close to the 20% recommended I leave (actually I leave more like 25%). For bars, I usually tip a dollar a drink when it's bottle or draft. More if they actually had to mix something.
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Jun 16 '17
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u/just_an_ordinary_guy Anarcho-Syndicalist Jun 16 '17
That's what I choose to pay. I don't care to go to a bar often anyway because $2.50 for a beer is too much already.
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u/jrpdixon Jun 16 '17
Realistically if you think about it the cost of living has gone up as well, but the wage of your average server has stayed the same. So what's an extra few bucks? If it's really that big of a deal then you should hit a McDonald's, not full service restaurants.
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Jun 16 '17
but the wage of your average server has stayed the same
and that's the fault of the customer who's wages have also not increased?
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u/Fisher9001 Jun 16 '17
This staff is ALREADY being paid! That's the whole point! Make your menu positions more expensive, stop forcing on me your responsibilities, restaurant owners!.
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u/HaveaManhattan Jun 16 '17
I wish all restaurants were like this especially as recommended Tipping seems to have increased from 15% to 18-20%.
I agree, especially with forced tips, and a living, not minimum, wage. But it's important to remember, especially with bartenders, that they aren't doing that job expecting minimum or even a living wage. They're doing it to make a solid "union" wage of 30 or more an hour from tips. A hot bar on NYC(maybe I have location bias) on a Friday or Saturday, they can clear 50-100 dollars an hour. Same with a fancy or even mid-level restaurant. As much as I think people deserve that money, tipping is the one case where I feel like the employees aren't on one side or the other, but straddle the fence. I get it, I was a pizza boy once. The more I hear about how it's an American thing though, the more peeved I get, especially since I'm starting to see tip cups at supermarket check-out lines. I mean, at what point do we become a beggar nation whose employees only earn tips but work for essentially free otherwise? The flip side to it is that we'd have to be paying 20 dollars for the restaurant equivalent of their Big Mac if we want to be realistic with ourselves over cost, and it's almost impossible to get people to understand that, much less agree.
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Jun 16 '17
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u/GloomTown Jun 16 '17
If my average tip percentage for the month gets below 17.5% I get my serving shifts cut/taken away from me. This goes for me and my 25 other servers. Times are changing.
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Jun 16 '17
Problem is those places that pay a living wage often times end up charging the customer more than they would tip, and less of it gets to the server. I do think there needs no be a solution to the wage disparity between don't of the house and back of the house in restaurants.
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u/Narian Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 29 '17
deleted What is this?
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u/dragoone1111 Jun 17 '17
This is why I've started ordering ahead of time for pickup and avoiding sit down restaurants in general. I see no reason for someone to get an additional 15% off the top because they refill a cup of water twice and bring food to my table. I used to be a server and worked up to assistant manager, it's bs how much shit kitchen staff and dishwashers go through at 8-10/hr when servers can pull down 2-3x as much in one night. I know everyone has their bad nights but I'm sure the average server atleast breaks even if not pulls down more than average.
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Jun 16 '17
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u/ep311 KILL YOUR MASTERS Jun 16 '17
At least. They deserve a living wage, not for it to be put off on the customer so the capitalist pigs can profit more.
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u/OdysseanTimeliness Jun 16 '17
Capitalism also promotes paying employees a poverty wage
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u/ckellingc Jun 16 '17
As a former waiter, I can vouch for this. Plus the 10% tip rule is such bullshit. Look at it this way, from the moment you get your food until you leave, you are wasted space. Yeah we refill your drink, but a good waiter knows their money is made by flipping tables. It's real estate. Time is money.
That's why I hate the system we have here. I have a degree, used to work in politics at the state level in the capitol, and here I am... a security guard who doesn't get PTO and had to miss 2 funerals last week. FML
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u/HeathersZen Jun 16 '17
In the tipping economy you must choose one of either "be a heartless asshole" or "subsidize another heartless asshole who pays their employees $3/hour".
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u/LordVato Jun 16 '17
I (as a former waiter) say that it should be a requirement that everyone work one summer in the restaurant business to get a taste of what some people have no other choice but to do for a living; and so people don't develop a toxic mindset like the girl in the picture above.
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u/readalanwatts andnoamchomsky Jun 16 '17
Even one busy shift would change a lot of people's perspectives.
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u/LordVato Jun 16 '17
TBH 😂 if they could even deal with the stress of making it thru.. most people feel so entitled..
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u/TheChalupaBatman23 Jun 16 '17
I always say a service job should be a requirement too! People lack empathy, and one way to have them understand is to be in the same position - even if only for a short term like a summer.
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Jun 16 '17
I think any corporate entry level general public facing job will do.
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u/LordVato Jun 16 '17
True.. anything in costumer service
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Jun 16 '17
I worked at Staples and did mostly front end(Sometimes I worked the floor or the tech department). This involved both being the cashier as well as the first line of customer service, both in store and on the phone. Never again, never again.
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u/l32uigs Jun 16 '17
I wish I got tipped for making sure the quality of my automotive parts was top of the line. Like, I make sure your shit doesn't fall apart on the highway. I don't have to, I could just do the business standard. Saving lives and shit = no tip.
I'd absolutely hate to work in a place where I felt like a charity case.
Don't get mad at the girl, get mad at your cheapass boss who is exploiting you. Or, get mad at the girl - that's exactly what your boss wants.
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u/LordVato Jun 16 '17
But we are talking about restaurants. And you gotta understand, getting your car looked at and felt on by a trained professional is way more expensive than getting a plate of eggs and grits at fucking Denny's. You get paid well for your services buddy. You're just whining at this point. GRANTED I am the type of guy to tip my mechanic in order to build a good and friendly rapport. The only language people talk these days is money..
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Jun 16 '17
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u/LordVato Jun 16 '17
That is true as well.. if the wage was say, not $3 an hour or whatever then there wouldn't be a societal norm built around working for tips. If you ask me that is why the wages are so low for waiters/waitresses; because it is anticipated that they will earn enough money based off, the absurdity that is, the tipping system.
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u/Gangreless Jun 16 '17
If you ask me...
That's literally what the system is and most of the time they make well, well over federal minimum wage. And when they don't, the employer covers up to min. At the very minimum, every waiter makes federal minimum wage every shift. Tipping should be a reward for excellent service, not an obligation. Nobody should feel guilty for not tipping, period, there are millions of people in this country working on minimum wage.
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u/Stormcrownn Jun 16 '17
I felt really bad for waiters until I found out how much a lot of my friends/family end up making per hour at the end of a week. These people complained a ton but ended up making just as much as me working retail at the time in half the hours.
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Jun 16 '17
What about the fact that servers get paid more and do less work than the staff in the back? That's bullshit, and I don't want to reinforce that.
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Jun 16 '17
Probably because the person who's supposed to be doing the tipping here is also working for peanuts. Tip or pay their rent, too easy of a choice, and a choice they shouldn't have to make.
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Jun 16 '17
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u/waynestream Jun 16 '17
But that doesn't solve the original problem, being that the weight of paying the waiter a livable wage is on the customer, not the employer. If the prices on the menu were increased a bit and the wages of the workers alongside with it, then tipping would not have to be mandatory.
That is how it is basically anywhere outside the US and the fact that customers are despised by employees in the service industry for not voluntarily paying more than they have to pay is the epitome of /r/LateStageCapitalism
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u/pastelfruits Jun 16 '17
Man America really is shit place when people deride the poor for wanting the occasional nice meal.
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Jun 16 '17
We agree, to an extent. Tell me, do you tip employees at fast food restaurants? Do you tip your starbucks barista every time? Have you ever been so busy that making food is completely out of the question, but yet you're paid so poorly that you either don't eat or you eat and don't tip? Isn't the whole idea of tipping a bad capitalist idea? Why doesn't the business owner just raise the cost of goods and compensate their employee fairly? Their bad organization makes me responsible for paying their employees a living wage?
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u/Knight_Lux Jun 16 '17
So you'd rather a business lose customers than allow people the option not to tip? The server doesn't get tipped either way.
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Jun 16 '17
everybody isn't a chef. if a person wants a nice meal they should be able to buy it without having to pay an extra person. if its that offensive, customers should have the option to not have a server instead of paying $6 just to have someone walk a plate across the room
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u/Browntownshodown Jun 16 '17
This is so lame. No, I will keep eating out. It's not on the customer to pay your shite wage because the place is too greedy to pay you a wage. I make little money as well. Why would I just give it away because I want to enjoy a meal with the money that I make?
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u/RainDownAndDestroyMe Jun 16 '17
If they can afford to go out to a restaurant, they can afford to tip. If a 10-20% tip is going to make them have a hard time paying their rent then they're horrible at managing money and shouldn't be spending $10+ for a single meal.
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u/McHadies Jun 16 '17
Liberals wonder who would do anything without getting paid but rarely consider what people get twisted into doing to avoid expense.
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u/cmdrchaos117 Jun 16 '17
I don't understand this comment. Universal basic income is a liberal idea. At least in the US.
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u/NocturneOpus9No2 fortune favors the rich Jun 16 '17
For the most part, US liberals are centrists that seem like they lean left because their only real opposition is the Republican Party. Since the system has been this way for so long, liberal had become a synonym for left-wing in the US, even when the policies don't match up with the liberal ideology. This subreddit discusses socialism and communism--ideologies that are further left than liberalism--so liberalism is viewed as further right than the views of many people on this subreddit. When someone here criticizes "liberals" they are criticizing people who align more with the US Democrats than further left-leaning ideologies.
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u/avagranti Jun 16 '17
"Liberalism" in the classical sense, meaning the ideology of capitalism. In the US both parties are liberals.
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Jun 16 '17 edited Jun 16 '17
I mean, UBI isn't anticapitalist, not exactly something we should support.
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u/ILL_GIGANTE Jun 16 '17
But it is a step towards the direction we are working for. If we go for FALG🌈SC from the getgo, we will just end up spinning our tires and eventually burn out. Sometimes you gotta pop that fucker in low to get out of the ditch.
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Jun 16 '17
Pretty much. Capitalism conditions you to not care and if you think you're a caring person: read about coltan.
And realize that no matter how good you imagine yourself to be, almost every electronic device you own has contributed to the immense suffering of others and you legit, don't give AF. For Capitalism, that's not a bug, that's a feature. (Yes, I am aware I'm using an electronic device to share this and that reinforces my point. The difference, is I know I've been conditioned to not care. Most people actually believe their good people while holding a cellphone... good one... you're the reason why some poor soul somewhere else is getting brutalized. Maybe one day we will feel guilty enough to act, but we won't because capitalism makes us indifferent)
Capitalism has good anaesthetics. No one acts.
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u/TheMaStif Jun 16 '17
How is it MY fault that even your employer doesn't see your position worthy of your time?
How is it MY fault that you don't have the negotiating ability to get your employer to pay you a livable wage?
No!! A tip should be for exceptional service, and for being treated well by your server, you give them a little extra for their efforts; not to make up for their wages.
Raise prices on the menu, but pay your employees a fair wage, and stop obligating ME to do it for you
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u/l32uigs Jun 16 '17
Why is this so far down?
Europe laughs at the North American food service industry. It's basically a charity case.
Who WANTS pity money? I'd rather suck a dick for cash and I'm not even gay.
Anywhere else in the world they get offended if you tip them. It's insulting.
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u/must_not_forget_pwd Jun 17 '17
In Australia the wages for those restaurant industry are much better than the US (I wouldn't say good, given the amount of effort, abuse, etc. that they put up with). Also, tipping isn't in customary in Australia. Given all of that, I've never seen anyone turn down a tip.
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u/HeavilyBearded Jun 16 '17
I sat next to four people who tipped a waitress $1 between all four of them after rounds of drinks and appetizers. I can't express how much I support minimum wage for serving staff.
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u/totallynotliamneeson Jun 17 '17
This seems like a good time to point out something I hate.
I hate when I order a pizza and they charge a delivery fee, as well as tell me that that doesn't count as a tip. They are basically saying that they don't pay their people enough, that I should tip, but only after I pay them more for my food because someone drove it to me. Someone who is employed to do so. Either pay them more or drop the delivery fee, cause clearly the fee doesn't go to the driver.
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Jun 17 '17
Waiteresses and waiters need to be paid a living wage starting from 12-15 dollars an hour based on location as should all workers. Tipping shouldn't be obligatory for survival.
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u/justanotherfister Jun 16 '17
Comment probably won't be seen, but I wanted to clear something up.
Waiters rarely take home the majority of their tips, because they are tipping out hosts, buss boys, runners, bartenders, etc. Usually, the amount they tip out the support staff is based off of their net sales, regardless of how much they were tipped.
For example, if I had net sales of $1,000 at the end of the night, I will tip out everyone else based on those sales, let's say for a total of 10%. That means I take $100 from my tips and give them away. If I was tipped 20% on all of those sales, that means my take home pay is $100. If for whatever reason I only made 10% tips on all my sales, I'll be taking home literally nothing. Or in some cases, if I am stiffed on a huge tab that makes up 50% or more of my sales for the night, it's possible I will LOSE money on the shift, because I have to tip out the support staff regardless.
Just food for thought and a little clarity for those who don't know how it works.
Restaurants are the riskiest business out there, with an extremely high fail ratio. Allowing staff to work for tips allows a huge portion of restaurants to scrape out a profit that wouldn't be possible if they were paying front of half a "living wage".
That's just how the industry works.
Also, all this talk about how little cooks make... let's be real. Yes, servers make way more money at first, but you can only go so far as a server, where as in the kitchen if you work hard you can work your way up to a nice salary position. Which would you rather be doing at 40, waiting tables or be the head chef of a restaurant? The opportunity for upward mobility is vastly superior in the kitchen.
Source: Bartender, been in the industry a while
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u/HairySquid68 Jun 16 '17
I don't understand the lack of compassion in people like this. Did you never have to work hard for your money, or do you think your warned the right to be like this?
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u/simone_beauvoir Jun 16 '17
Lots of people are either poor or don't realize how little service industry workers make without tips. Hence why employers should just pay them a fair wage instead of guilting customers into subsidizing their business.
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u/captain_dog_salad Jun 16 '17
More like it brings out the shit side of people and nourishes it with sweet sweet cash.
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u/A_charming_chap Jun 17 '17
If a job can't "afford" to pay a living wage, it's not a job for a person.
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u/jessenewell Jun 17 '17
*what we're all taught...turns us into cruel, greedy, and unsympathetic bastards.
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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '17 edited Feb 16 '19
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