Tip Your Server and Save the World

[ErikJ]

17. Tipping is fundamentally classist; holdover from slavery?

I've always been a bit uncomfortable tipping which is why I prefer buffet restaurants. I feel like its classist, where the server and I both assume that I am from a higher class "Mr. Rich Bigshot" and perhaps even the master and he/she the servant slave.

Here's a comment I found online:

I mean, tipping in restaurants etc. all the other countries in the world didn't have such tradition except North America.

Japan does not have, China no, Australia no, Europe generally no except maybe somehow influenced by America.

it makes me wonder why America developed such a habit.

is it because of the slavery? because Australia didn't have slavery they don't have tipping habits.

Tipping is like slave keepers sometimes give to the slaves or servants. Slaves do not get salaries, they sometimes get tipped by their masters for encouragements.
http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories/TPP625HEJ9LJTC98V
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Response to somebody asking how much to tip in Japan on Yahoo Answers:

ACK.. DO NOT TIP ANYWHERE. its the height of rudeness to tip in Japan.. it insults the owner, implying he doesn't pay his employees enough. It insults the employee, implying that you had to bribe him to do his job.

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Perhaps America should start to somehow ease our way out of this classist holdover from America's slave days?