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Socialist theory is great, but material conditions don't care about our ideologies :) I use Marxism and socialism to help myself understand why I feel so alienated and to help fight those feelings, but I still understand that every worker in America lives as an exploited laborer under capitalism. I'm not wealthy or politically powerful or willing to use violence to enforce my views, so my praxis must be aimed at helping the little people until we have enough of a leftist coalition to take on the bigger issues.
Essentially, I'm not big enough to change the world for the better all on my own, but I can change the parts of it that I can reach out and touch with my hands, so why shouldn't I?
You should, by not tipping, which will help create positive social change.
[email protected] typed up the perfect response to this in another thread, let me copypasta their comment for you:
you are proposing that if we all stop tipping, companies will be motivated to pay their workers; you are correct, this is what would happen if we all stopped tipping at the same time.
this process is known as collective action. it is incredibly important to remember that collective action only works when it actually happens. in other words, your individual action of not tipping your waiter is ONLY beneficial to your waiter if you can make sure one else tips either.
do you have this power? (i think you don’t; if you do i beg of you to exercise it lol.)
now consider who actually holds the power here. at any point, your restaurant’s owner could institute a no-tip policy, thereby ensuring that no one has to tip, ever. several restaurants already have done this, and it works. now, you might (correctly) note that this may gives an unfair advantage to other competing restaurants who do not implement no-tip policy. this is where local and regional policy can come in to help coordinate transitioning to a more helpful model of compensating employees.
so there’s kind of this imbalance, where yeah technically it’s possible for us as eaters of food to “fix” the tipping problem, but its way way easier for the people in charge (whether that’s government or owners) to fix it, because they have the power of coordination on their side.
tldr, tip your waiters and advocate for anti-tipping policies if you want to maximize long term benefits for everyone.
Yeah, guess people shouldn't vote in elections either since their vote doesn't single handedly settle the election. What an absurdly stupid position to hide behind.
Relying on restaurant owners to 'do the right thing' without any incentive to do so is extremely naive. And they just, don't. Look around. They could but they don't.
this is where local and regional policy can come in to help coordinate transitioning to a more helpful model of compensating employees.
The answer to your criticism is in the very next sentence of the paragraph that you object to.
I said owners, but should have been more clear and stated both owners and politicians are not taking action. I don't expect them to anytime soon without incentives.