The Guilt-Propelled Slavery of America’s Tipping Culture

Gratuities—generally 15-20 percent in the U.S.—perpetuate a slave-master binary that is fueled by a sense of karma, writer and musician Ian Svenonius argues. Those who tip “well” often do so out of camaraderie, claiming they too were once victims of the service industry and understand the terrible conditions and poor wages commonly associated with the field. Or else it is done to assuage the culpability inspired by purchasing a luxury, he explains in Jacobin. Whatever the reasons for tipping someone, doing so allows this form of indentured servitude to prosper in the United States by justifying the service industry’s mistreatment of workers while deluding and encouraging them with the overhanging carrot of the tip jar.

Svenonius describes how the degrading system functions:

Tipping is the onus of the purchaser who pays the wage of the worker on top of the cost of whatever service provided, which goes to the business itself.

If one ever tries to discuss tipping in America, one is immediately met with a dismissive and lofty: “Well, I tip really well because I was/am part of the service industry.” Like veterans of the armed forces, the “service people” are bound together in a cult whose members have experienced the true nature of work servitude and the demeaning, harrowing experience it represents. The fellow warrior conspicuously tips well in a great display of homage and respect. Service implies a subservience but also a noble sacrifice. The service industry workers prepare our sandwiches nobly, submitting to our personalized mayonnaise requests. Almost all Americans have worked in the service industry at some point and many will only ever work in it.

Tipping for these service-industry comrades is outside of money. It is an alm or genuflection; a gesture of humility to the tippee designed to recognize and rehabilitate the degrading nature of their work, and also to connect with them spiritually. The camaraderie and smile dispensed by the waitstaff on receiving a generous tip after a suspenseful meal service brings the light of spiritual nourishment to the tipper, who can rest well that night