Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: November 05, 2010 11:34AM
Thorsten Veblen, commenting on the Gilded Age (iirc), said that the purpose of European aristocrats going to Monte Carlo and losing $20,000 at baccarat was to show that they could lose $20,000 and not flinch. Acting like you had money to burn was the height of cool.
Similarly, in the Victorian Age, there was still a well defined servant class, and tipping was a way for the tipper to prove they were above the servant class, and by inference, that the tipee was a servant.
To this day, we tip professions that were part the servant class in the mid 1800s. We do not typically tip people with jobs that came along since then, or that were "professions" back then - gas station attendant, snow plow driver, your doctor, lawyer, checkout clerk at the grocery, postal delivery person, airline pilot, or flight attendant (though that is very much like a restaurant server job).
We tip the servants to prove that we are not part of the servant class, and there is a certain noblesse oblige to help our lessers.
Frankly, my car mechanics have been a lot more important to my life, and I don't tip them. It's a racket, powered by guilt and peer pressure, and encouraged by American restaurants, because they can get away with not paying their employees. Europe, and most of the rest of the world, didn't have this racket, though they are starting to pick it up from Americans, via the same guilt and peer pressure, not to mention restaurateur greed.
Fortunately, restaurant employees and maybe hairdressers are the only major remnants of the Victorian servant class that we routinely tip. Oh, and strippers. And Cabbies! :) For everyone else, their employer is responsible for paying them, as it should be.
Yeah, I tip. But it is a racket, and a remnant of a social class system we should be embarrassed to support.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2010 11:43AM by Brother Of Jerry.