The American Tipping System

Tipping is so normal, so engrained in certain industries, that it might be overlooked as a very serious manifestation of workplace exploitation.  Like with any concept, there are people who go to the left and right of the truth (ironically, in this case the words left and right are also political terms associated with fallacious philosophies!).  There is the notion that tipping is inherently for the good of workers and then there is the notion that tipping could not be anything but the enslavement of the working class.  The truth is that neither of these ideas is the case, and, as small as it is compared to certain other philosophical issues, American-style tipping and its broader economic system are not irrelevant to rationalistic philosophy (nothing is) or to Biblical ethics--the connection to the latter being that any ideology or practice which prioritizes profit over humans made in God's image is an abomination on Christianity.

Optional tips would indeed be a great way to boost income if the context was different than the present American norm.  As a main or significant source of income, tips are random, having more to do with the willingness or ability of customers to part with money beyond what they have already spent than they do with the worker's time or aptitude--and more importantly, the general tipping system is popularized almost exclusively so that employers do not actually strive to provide livable compensation for their workers.  By pressuring or allowing customers to be responsible for whether or not the workers, in some cases, earn anything above minimum wage, selfish and neglectful employers can take a disproportionate amount of revenue for themselves.

If the base wages were livable at least at 40 hours' worth of pay, tipping would neither be something workers depend on nor something customers might feel trapped into offering.  Yes, even in the current tipping system, tips could sometimes work very much in the happenstance favor of certain employees, but they are not guaranteed to receive tips of any amount or any tips at all, and many employers still use them as a supposed excuse to underpay workers and pass on part of their own role to their customers.  Tipping as a secondary, bonus form of compensation is not exploitative at all; the standard tipping system in America exploits both workers and, to some extent, those who are paying for a meal or service as it is.

Businesses like restaurants do not have to be structured in this way.  As things that people create, businesses can be structured to enrich those at the top at the cost of rationality, moral correctness, and sometimes even greater efficiency, or they can be structured so that the owners, managers, employees, and consumers all benefit.  As with business itself, tipping is not problematic because it is not itself what is predatory.  Fierce leftists tend to be too stupid to realize this even as conservatives are often too emotionalistically attached to the status quo to realize how the current tipping system contributes to Biblically unjust business priorities.

One of many ways that workplace norms genuinely do oppress workers in contemporary America, the very culturally visible approach to tipping is no equivalent substitute for livable base pay.  It is at the same time only one of multiple ways that tips could be incorporated into compensation, so it is not the option of providing workers in service jobs with tips that is exploitative.  Only when it is something a selfish, irrationalistic business leader uses to sidestep paying their workers well does tipping become a harmful thing.  Perhaps one day it will be something that collective American workers look to for a performance-based "bonus" of sorts instead of a primary part of income they are desperate for.