I don’t tip as well. But I live in a civilised country where everyone gets at least a tolerable minimum wage. No one is paying me extra money just for doing my job. So I won’t either. If they want more, they need to talk to their employer. It’s not my responsibility.
Would I live in the United States of Idiots though, where a severe lack of ethical economic behaviour is observable, I indeed would tip the waiters, as that’s sadly their financial lifeline.
I’d like to add that in the US people rarely think of it as extra either. In most places in the US we also don’t include taxes on the menu listed prices, but you know they will be on the final bill going in. The semantics of whether there should be tipping or not is hardly the line people should be arguing. What should be argued when discussing tipping is management abuses around tipping (like paying out others, stealing tips, or forced tip sharing), mandated minimum tipping, what items should be tipped and how much.
There is a ton of room to debate tipping culture in the US, but complaining about doing so isn’t the right place.
-Anon comes from cuntry half the size of average American state.
-Anon fails to realize the ezy button ruling a nation of 3rd cousins.
Totally. Everyone being different is the reason we’re okay with unnecessary poverty in this country.
They missed a step. "Waiter is paid below the already sad minimum wage because tips are somehow factored into their paycheck. "
Also don’t forget the folks working in the back of the house. Tip if you’re able, despite our shitty system.
Some parts of the US, not all
I’m sorry, but is “tipping out” no longer a thing, where the servers are expected to give a percentage of the tips to the hosts, bussers, food runners, kitchen staff, and anyone else who supported them that night?
I’ve never worked in the service industry, so that might still be a thing, but even if it is, that shouldn’t have to exist.
Then, are tips included in the waiters taxable income, or is it more like extra money not contributing to the common thnijgs ? (genuine auestion)
tipping should be illegal because it leads to underpaid workers. but until tipping becomes illegal, you are a fucking asshole if you don’t tip. you’re not sticking it to the man, you’re just shitting on a minimum wage worker because m-muh principles. grow up or move to a country where they don’t tip
I hate that argument though. “You shouldn’t enjoy things because you should pay more than the advertised, because that’s just how things are”. Change doesn’t happen unless change happens. Basically, if you want tipping culture to change, you actually have to start changing tipping culture.
And you think the best way to do that is by stopping waitresses from being able to feed their kids? Because that’s the only thing that will happen if you don’t tip
Overwhelmingly when polled, waits staff much prefer to keep tipping over a living wage. They make far more from tips. Trust me, me not giving a waitress a tip isn’t the line that keeps he kids from dying of hunger.
You alone won’t, but you would definitely be directly contributing to her being closer to said line
Ultimately, the restaurant industry’s management tier collectively agreeing with wait staff that wait staff doesn’t require a working wage and depending on handouts from customers is a fine solution is the problem.
Quite honestly, that isn’t my problem. I’m there for some food, not to be guilted into running a charity function to make up for greedy management and a staff that prefers this bullshit.
If they had to pay their staff more, prices would be higher. If prices are higher, not as many people can afford to go, resulting in prices going up even more. When waiters can rely on tips instead of just the hourly wage, they are given the chance of getting a really nice tip from someone who is generous, resulting in more money than without the tips. By not tipping, you are relying on the generosity of others to keep the workers you aren’t tipping above the line. If you think they don’t deserve to be tipped, don’t go there, otherwise you’re being a mooch in the society you live in, even if it’s in a minor way.
Sorry, but I pay for the food and if I feel its deserved, the service. Being a mooch would be not paying g for the food.
Do away with tipping and food prices go up by the cost of paying workers a fair wage. To the consumer it ends up being an even trade. Ultimately, the only group getting hurt is the owners.
It works fine in other countries but can’t in the US because…?
We could start paying the entire bill as a tip to mess with the restaurant owner. Keep the same amount, just let it go to the waiter instead.
Just state that the food wasn’t good enough, but the service was great!
Would this be illegal? You are still paying for your food.
Doesn’t get paid properly to deliver a service you’re relying on.
Tipping culture is stupid, but that doesn’t mean you get to fuck over workers by refusing the tips they rely on. If you want to fight that fight, take it up with the business or your legislator, ya cheap asshole.
Restaurant owners everywhere would be so happy to know you think the customers are the ones fucking over the workers
Do you imagine that the people refusing to pay tips aren’t fucking over the workers, or do you believe that because customers are fucking over workers, the restaurant owners can’t be fucking over the workers too?
It doesn’t matter - either take is transparently stupid.
I believe it is on the owners to provide fair wages to workers. When the plumber, electrician, mechanic, sales rep, or whoever else tells you they don’t make a livable wage, you’re going to feel it is your responsibility to tip them too?
If you don’t want to tip people that can’t otherwise make minimum wage, use restaurants that pay minimum wage. You don’t get to steal those workers’ labour because the restaurateurs and legislators have failed them.
Others industries have to pay minimum wage - your contribution isn’t factored into their base requirements for survival. This is a silly comparison. Do I support an increase in minimum wages? Abso-fucking-lutely - but electricians aren’t routinely being paid less than $3/hr.
You recognize that restauratuers and legislators are the ones failing workers, yet you attribute the lost wages to the paying customer. What can we as paying customers do to fail the workers so that you recognize restauratuers and legislators as being responsible for their fair wages?
are you allergic to believing that two things can be true at once
If you fail to tip them, you’ve failed them too. It’s not complex.
You argument absolves the restaurateurs if consistently applied because the legislators failed them upstream (that’s not to speak of absolving the legislators because of the voters) - I’m saying the legislators failed them, then the restaurateurs failed them, then the people that refused to tip them failed them. There’s not a single point of failure, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK for you to decide to be the ultimate point of failure.
oof another internet user who thinks two things can’t be true at once 💔
“yeah i know i slashed your tires but at least i’m not as bad as the oil and motor lobbies that make it so you’re reliant on your car to fucking commute to work and not starve, you should be grateful next time” — that’s how you sound 🫶
Ayup. I live in a non-tipping country, but in the US, well…
- the farmer doesn’t deal with the customer
- the logistics company doesn’t deal with the customer
- the inspector doesn’t deal with the customer
- the manager doesn’t deal with the customer
- the cook doesn’t deal with the customer
It’s an arsehole tax
If you don’t think restaurant managers deal with customers than all I can say is I’m so happy for you for never having to work in that industry lol. All of the other people you named also have customers they deal with except maybe the cook. Logistics company is the farmer’s customer, restaurant owner is logistics company’s customer, etc. All of said customers can also be arseholes.
Managers mostly placate and throw their waitstaff under the bus.
And no, logistics companies do not deal with the restaurant patron, the fuck are you on
I didn’t say restaurant patron. Usually there is an employee or even the owner (what i said in my previous reply - not patron) of a restaurant that has to order and receive ingredients and other equipment to run the business. Suppliers also have employees that negotiate and coordinate deliveries with these restaurant staff. In this specific situation, the restaurant managers/owners are the customers of their suppliers.
So you’re saying the restaurant owners should give the suppliers a good tip if they’re polite and efficient? Nuance is hard
Not saying they should more than I’m asking why they shouldn’t
Because being polite and accommodating to people who are being shitty to you isn’t important for those jobs.
And i wasn’t talking about logistics customers. I was very clearly talking about the restaurant customer, whom the waiter deals with.
So why should only restaurant customers tip? Why should only waiters expect tips?
Jesus christ dude, let it go.
You know why tipping is a thing in the US, and as I clearly stated, I don’t live in a tipping country
Me too - though I’ve lived in both.
Choosing to frequent a business that you know underpays their workers, where you know those workers rely on tips to survive, then choosing to take their labour and not pay for that labour isn’t an arsehole tax - it’s an arsehole subsidy, and it’s the workers footing the bill.
I think workers should be paid enough to live comfortably without relying on tips, and that they should be a nice, but entirely unnecessary option - but you don’t get to steal workers’ labour just because you disagree with tipping.
An arsehole tax that you don’t need to pay if you are an arsehole?
How would that work?
Ya’ll are all wrong. Tipping is to compensate the 2 dollars they make an hour. It’s a shitty system, but that’s the deal. If you don’t want to tip then don’t go eat at a restaurant that supports that system. It’s not some luxury add-on for excellent service (though it can be). It is purely to make up for the extremely low wages. Does anyone remember the rest of the dialog in this scene?
That only applies in shit states that allow that wage fuckery. There are several states where the minimum doesnt change based on whether the job receives tips.
This is one of the problems with the argument online. Too many off us have different realities around them. Where I’m at they get a pretty healthy minimum (~$17/h) + tips.
Being a waiter at a decent restaurant is quite lucrative in my area. I don’t want to change that for the person, after all, the waiter is getting a cut off every check. It’s like a form of profit sharing! However, I’d rather just have the prices on the menu reflect reality and the business handle all the dispersion of pay without me and my feelings getting manipulated for an extra 5% (after the previously established 18% tip standard was deemed too low by people who get tipped that for decades.)
this would be cool info to have. do you think there is a state by state or municipality breakdown that shows the degree to which me not tipping is a burden to the staff? /gen would be slay to have in my bookmarks!
Based
Is that really what you think is all they do? I’ve run restaurants and they’re like what nurses are to hospitals, the ones doing most of the work. Everything from cleaning the restaurant to stocking everything, keeping the cooks happy and helping in any way they can
A little trivia about this monologue: Quinton Tarantino wrote this in the movie as it is his own opinion, but didn’t want his own character to say it for fear of backlash at the time. Remember this movie was made before everyone was expecting a tip like they do today.
Wtf are you talking about servers were expecting a tip in the 90’s. That’s the majority of thier wages.
One of the characters even mentions something like that in the movie.
If you reread my comment, I mentioned the movie was made BEFORE everyone expected tips like they do TODAY. I was a server in the 2000s myself, and today there are tips asked at every register, sports games or entertainment show concession stands for example.
No one should really defend tipping. It literally has classist history that was updated from that to a racist history and criminal history.
I don’t think you can’t pay extra to someone because you liked them or what they did for you. We have whole holidays for gifts but man if people knew the history of tipping and why Europe picked up Americans anti tipping policy once upon a time I think we could move past it.
The argument being made is a rather poor one. In the example given, the waiter walked 10 feet to you, I would agree that you shouldn’t have to tip.
I’m ambivalent on tipping culture, if we can institute a fair minimum wage then I’m fine with getting rid of it, if not then shut up and tip. All that said, the things we tip for has gotten way out of hand. Tipping used to be 15% for good service while some people were giving 20% because prices had remained low. Now with food prices increased businesses and wait staff are encouraging 20-25% and tipping options are being added everywhere.
My rule of thumb now is 20% for standard wait service (taking my order, bringing my meal, refilling beverages, and cleaning the table afterwards). If any of those elements isn’t being fulfilled then I do not give a percentage, though if someone is going around filling drinks I’ll probably leave a dollar or two. I also don’t give a percentage tip for drinks that don’t come with free refills, instead I will calculate the 20% tip without those beverages (typically alcohol) and then leave $1 per drink.
YT things
Id be amazed if a single commenter in this whole thread has worked in hospitality in any capacity, let alone waiting tables.
Most of these comments make me wonder if the poster has ever even once had a good night out at a nice restaurant.
Disclaimer: I live in a country without a serious tipping culture. But still…
“as a man who has definitely worked food service, THANK YOU for speaking out against individuals tipping me. me personally i hate getting tips! and it REALLY shows my boss what’s what, any day now he’s going to pay me a living wage, you sure are showing him!” —my impression of every individual downvoting you
I’m not the employer, don’t complain if I see you doing the job you are paid for and am happy paying the price listed. tips are reserved for people who go beyond their job. people who screech about that need to cope
It’s about the social contract. If you go to a restaurant in the US, you should tip for service (unless it is poor). Your not sticking it to the man, you just are selfish.
no. I will not pay twice for service. fuck off with that shit. we all have to work in this same society we are not your fucking employer and it’s not selfish. It’s like you expect we don’t pay taxes and you want us to feed you a commission for doing the bare minimum. clown world
You should pay for an education and learn to form a coherent thought.
Who’s the cheap one in this equation?
… the customer who is paying the owner of the restaurant for the food AND is obligated by social convention to pay extra to the waiter who is underpaid.
or
… the restaurant owner who doesn’t mind living in a world where we have normalized underpaying restaurant workers to the point where we pass down that responsibility to the customer who is already paying for the food.
Pay your workers a proper wage and get rid of the idea of tipping.
Don’t like tipping? Protest the policies by not going to restaurants, dont shove it on the workers who are stuck in the system.
The owner is 100% happy you came to pay him and not the waiter he didnt wanna pay anyway.
Honestly, in these debates more often than not I find that the waiters don’t want tipping culture changed either. A lot (not all, I understand) of waiters make bank on tips and then don’t accurately report them as income so it’s not even taxed correctly. They don’t want that to change.
I don’t give a shit what the waiter wants honestly, I shouldn’t have to pay the owner and the worker separately
I don’t disagree with you.
How does this form of protest translate into a change of the tipping system?
Yeah this protest only works if there are also another set of restaurants that specifically tell you not to tip that you can give business to. I have been to some but they are very rare where I live.
Or just don’t go to restaurants. There are other ways of getting food.
Forcing everyone to live the way you want to live is such a cretin way of thinking lmfao
Blocked lmfao.
Enjoy your echo chamber, dumbass.
At this point youre just being disingenuous. There’s a thousand comments in this thread answering that question, and explaining why stiffing the workers doesn’t really affect the owners, or incentivise them to change anything.
If no one is going there and they don’t know why, and they’re losing money because they’re not getting enough business, they’re not going to decide the solution is to start paying their waiters more. That will just cause them to close down sooner.
Also, just as they don’t know why people stopped going there unless every single one calls them and makes it clear it’s due to tipping/wages, the people protesting aren’t going to know even if they do start paying the waiters more.
Almost every waiter I’ve ever spoken to also prefers tipping because they make more than if they were being paid more, because the business isn’t going to pay them as high as they were making in tips (on average).
The only way they even could, is if they raised the price of everything by 25%. As much as people say they’d be fine with that, such high prices would drive some number of people away. There’s also the issue that if the business owner realised people would pay that much higher, they’d inevitably keep some for themselves and only somewhat increase server wages.
This isn’t to say that I think avoiding tipping is the way to fix it either, just that I don’t think it’s as clear cut as just avoiding the business.
Yeah lets ignore all of history and just invent stuff about “free markets”. All this and you haven’t addressed why we bother with minimum wage at all if this was true. Or why we bother with OSHA if construction workers would just pressure companies to change.
You know when the ad for your phone bill says “no hidden fees” ? They know that’s what people cared about, and they changed it. Now it’s just commonplace even when it’s not regulated. Shoving this on the worker makes no sense, the employer has the leverage
Those are laws. If you want a law that bans tipping and assures a higher wage for waiters then sure, that’s fine, but boycotting businesses won’t get those laws made.
Cmon dude. All these people are saying we don’t need these laws because waiters can just quit to pressure businesses to pay them well. So why do these laws even exist? You didnt even respond to the last post. I wont hold my breath.
Businesses that don’t have convoluted pay schemes that involve tips will die, and businesses that advertise tipping isn’t a thing will thrive, like has happened many times in the past.
You know what doesn’t change anything? Forcing the people stuck in the system to get more stuck in the system…
Thats one way of looking at it… but if everyone would stop tipping, they would be forced to pay them a living wage or go out of business when all the staff quit. Its actually in the consumers power to effect that change, but only on a mass scale. Unfortunately its an awkward social coercion tactic at play now, which just continues to perpetuate the problem pitting us against each other just as capitalism intends to.
If tips are bad, the worker quits. If sales are bad, the worker is fired and might collect unemployment benefits.
So we don’t need OSHA? We can just let construction workers quit if the contractors make them do dangerous stuff?
Youre a bit oblivious to your privilege. People can’t just quit or yknow, they starve.
Fuck that, there’s federal mandated minimum wage if waiters don’t make enough through tips. You’re a misinformation spreading lunatic. Probably right wing too.
Tipping is fine, but as in “keep the change”, not “we need to change this tipping culture”
I have no problem with tipping, I have a problem with expected tipping.
Waiters should be paid properly and tips should not be expected or even mentioned. If I get exceptional service, I may want to leave a tip. There should be an optional tip section when paying the bill, but no separate screen or list of expected tips (or even percentage calculations) anywhere at all.
And who is hurt by not tipping
The staff member who is likely significantly impoverished…
OR
The business owner who got the $12 he’s charging you for tendies?
The business owner doesn’t give two shits if you tip, they get paid either way and $7.25 an hour per employee is pocket change to them.
Here’s the equation. Restaurants keep food costs low by paying servers next to nothing. If they paid them what they deserve, the cost of your meal would increase.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
If you don’t want to tip, don’t go to a restaurant that has servers.
Now, other places that actually pay a living wage and also have a tip button (ie concession stands at a sporting event) can get fucked.
Except that I’m fine if the cost of my meal increases if they paid their servers what they deserve.
Same here. I’m just saying don’t protest tipping by not tipping. You’re screwing the wrong person.
Honestly if you think about it. The cost of your meal going up and the cost of tipping are not different in their end result for the consumer.
The employee still gets the short end because people won’t always tip. Or even show up.
The owner gets the long (?) end because they don’t have to pay their workers a higher wage (very bad if it’s a slow day) and the customers who otherwise wouldn’t have eaten there if the prices were high will still eat there and not tip.
So it really doesn’t effect the consumer at all but it does effect the employee quite a bit for sure.
Are you suggesting that food prices will go up by more than the cost of the tip tacked on?
Because if not it’s really just more honest pricing, and the same (or reduced) impact on customers, but without having to do math or having the option of being a leech.
If tipping ended and restaurants paid their servers, food prices would go up. That is undeniable.
You are eating at a discount with the expectation that you will pay the owner’s employee for them. Yes, it is unfair and sucks but the one making out like a bandit here is the owner.
So, not tipping is your way of benefiting personally on a discounted meal AND STILL giving the owner money. And the only one you have punished in your equation is a server (the leech???) who is generally living off that tip day to day.
So if you want to make an impact, quit going to restaurants that have tipping as an expectation! That’s it! Otherwise you are just encouraging the owner to keep the status quo!
It’s not a discount if you are expected to pay more to add a tip.
But dude, quit changing the subject, I’m not talking about people not tipping within the current system, never have been, and neither was the person you originally replied to. I’ve worked tipped positions, so I very much understand how they work.
So again, are you suggesting that if we do away with tipping, costs of food would increase by MORE than the present amount of a tip that gets tacked on? Because that’s the only way prices for the end consumer actually meaningfully raise. Most likely they will actually go down overall. Because again you have to pay the tip too.
You are really bad at reading comprehension btw. That, or you are a piss-poor troll and intentionally misrepresenting literally everything… the option to be a leech is the customer, who in the present system can skip the tip. Like a leech.
Also, there aren’t any restaurants around me that scrapped tipping, not a single fucking one within at least an hour of where I live, so your suggestion is impossible for me and very privileged.
So by not tipping, you are benefiting from the low cost of food while screwing over the person that has no control over the situation. YTA
Customers aren’t the assholes for the failures of the restaurant industry, just as customers aren’t the assholes for the refusal of the federal government to ensure restaurant workers are paid a living wage.
Customers who don’t tip are not the enemy.
*artificially low cost of food
About that, though: yeah they are.
The owner is evil, but anyone who doesn’t tip a waiter that earns too little to be able to afford to live is an asshole.
Why stop at waiters? I’ve had several jobs that didn’t pay a livable wage, only in restaurants did my customers feel obligated to tip me.
Here’s a tip: that waiter should unionize.
You heard it here folks, it’s just that easy. Unionize today! I’m sure there is a well established Union already in your area ready to take you on and fight for you and your $15 a month in dues! Go gettem, tiger.
Of all the reasons I’ve seen for why people struggle to unionize, I have never seen anyone suggest that unions don’t want members.
It’s not that they don’t want members, it’s that people assume all unions are massive machines capable of turning your life around in a second, where in reality most of them will give you some legal packets so you know your rights, and a pat on the back if you take your employer to court. There isn’t a large restaurant union in my city, just a few small ones that are focused on single businesses. We all have to start somewhere, but just up and joining a small union isn’t going to help when the owner of the business can just let you go and hire someone else who isn’t unionized.
As someone who works in the service industry, this is the argument that I see all the time. “We aren’t going to subsidize your wage because your owner is an asshole.” Weird, you have no problem being a patron of his establishment. Do you think that your refusal to tip somehow hurts him? Because it doesn’t. It only hurts the staff. My argument always has and always will be that we increase the cost of menu items by 18% and then split that additional 18% with the staff. However, that idea always falls flat with the owner because, “We’ll be the most expensive restaurant in town. No one will come here.” Which is a valid concern. And so, we are at an impasse. He can’t afford to pay me what I’m worth, and he can’t increase the cost of the menu or he’ll outprice his customers, and I can’t quit because it’s not better at any other restaurant. In the end, in any direction, the customer is going to pay more, either as a tip, or just for the cost of the food, or they’ll pay with worse service because the experienced staff can’t afford to work there anymore. Refusing to tip isn’t a protest, it’s just being cheap and making yourself feel better about it. If tipping went away, prices would have to increase, and either way, the buck stops with the consumer. Want to eat cheaper? Cook at home. I’m sure you’ll be just as good as any of your favorite restaurants with their specialized equipment and cooks with a decade of experience.
I hope all you downvoters have something of value to contribute… Oh, no, you’re just downvoting to show your solidarity with the rest of the cheap-os? Ok, enjoy your meal.
So… If i read this correctly… The net difference is zero? Except when I’m being an asshole and I dont tip.
So in the end, this boils down to offering the option of being an asshole to your customers.
As an european I always find this discussion weird. And when visiting stateside I never really can “gauge” what I should tip. Am i in a joint which underpays the server? Is (s)he fine? Is 10% enough? More? Should i just make it whole? I just never know. I sometimes even have resorted to just bluntly ask the server or a patron what is customary. (my weird accent helps getting an honest answer)
It’s quite honestly a shit fest. There is an amount on the billl… But that isnt the real amount, except when you’re an asshole. And if you over tip you’re still an asshole, just a stupid one, and if you’re undertip you’re also an asshole.
Come to think about it: it really boils down to which kind of asshole do you want to be.
It’s a VAT, but it’s a choose your own VAT, and it’s based on what the service is worth to you. The customary amount is 20%, but a lot of people go between 15% and 20%, with my average take home being around 13% because of the people that don’t tip. So, choose your VAT. In the end, when adjusted for the cost of living, eating out in the EU is about the same as eating out in the US and adding a tip. The tip is just already included in the meal cost. If we could all agree to do that in the US, then it would be fine, but we can’t, so it isn’t done. It’s part of the establishment at this point, and change is something hard to sort out across 330 Million people all at once.
Only thing that stands out to me is the percentages you’ve listed. I was always taught (and most of my peers seem to have been as well) that the normal tip for average service was 15%. Poor service (that is in the waiter’s control) gets 10%, and good/great is 18-22% (but usually 20%).
I was born in the early 90s if it makes a difference.
Varies regionally. For example, San Francisco techies should be tipping 20% (for typical sitdown service).
It used to be that way, but now standard is 20%.
I was also taught that egregious service (like bigoted remarks from the waitstaff or getting told to go fuck yourself) gets 1¢ to assure you aren’t just someone who doesn’t tip
No idea why you’re being downvoted so much, you’re absolutely on point for US restaurants. I’ve served in them, I’ve managed them (still didn’t fucking get paid doing that)
And this press the union button bullshit above is insane. Restaurants have like a 5% success rate already, if they can just yeet entire Starbucks/Walmart locations on a whim, how the fuck do you guys think that’s going to go with a restaurant?
Unionizing may be the best route, but we have to stop pretending it’s a walk in the park to do.
I’m getting downvoted by the same people who think that it’s OK to pirate all the current running TV shows and movies. Everyone is selfish, everyone wants it for free.
There’s no problem with piracy if you never ever ever intend to subscribe to a streaming service though. Give me the option to pay for DRM-free .mkv files with differing qualities and bit rates and I’d consider not pirating, provided the prices are reasonable.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted, it’s the average decent opinion: the pay has to be somewhere, either fixed in the prices or in decent tips.
Sorry for the downvotes. Lemmy users can be remarkably shitty
Replace waiter with “CEO” and you begin to understand why socialists believe what they do
banger of a comment, you deserve some sort of compensation for this contribution
Except instead of 25%, it’s 250%.
And the company owners do not walk or have to deal with customers.
Of course they don’t walk, they ride pelotons
It must be hard not knowing even the most basic math. How is this CEO getting more money than I pay for the meal?
Sorry, I probably should have explained better, it’s a bit of intentionally misusing the meaning of the term “value” for a joke - the original greentext said “25% of the value of the food”, so if you think of the amount of money required to purchase the raw ingredients and the labour required to create the final meal, that could be considered 100% of the food’s value. So if the food cost $5 to make, the company would sell it at $12.50 to get 250% of the “value” of the food.
But the term “value” usually refers to whatever the customer is willing to pay in exchange for a product, so the joke has an extra meaning - the CEO demands to be paid 2.5x more than anyone is actually willing to pay for it.
Ironically though, CEOs getting paid more than the value of any of the actual sales they generate isn’t uncommon, especially in tech. There are a number of economic sectors (like tech) that function effectively as ponzi schemes. “Venture capitalist” firms invest in tech companies which never actually generate a profit, in the hopes that they will at some point hit it big and make a shitload of profit - which does happen, every now and again: Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.
Eventually, most tech companies reach a point where they’re pretty much about to collapse, then they’re bought out by some other company - either a larger tech company that wants to acquire their intellectual property, or some other company to strip them of assets or just hold onto the company for some other purpose.
The majority of the VC-funded tech sector is completely unprofitable and held up entirely by investment. For example, OpenAI has billions of dollars worth of debt and has never made any kind of profit.
We are well overdue for this bubble bursting and having another crash akin to the .com bubble
Hey, that’s fair, and I obviously didn’t get the play on meaning.
And as for the rest, I was flabbergasted when Amazon only had losses of $400 million one year and their stocks went up. Amazon went on to produce some value, and profits, and then screw over a number of businesses and employees with their market dominance in the online store business before completely abandoning any standards for the sake of profits. So the only thing I’m certain of in the stock market or industry values in general is that I’m woefully unqualified to determine what’s valuable or not.
*Manages the business, pretty sure that is their actual job, but…
I believe in socialism because the lions share of value should be returned to those who exerted the majority of effort, not the inverse, which is the stupid system we have now
Yeah. Co-ops of sufficient size have CEOs it’s just that the workers are the board
While I agree with you - who can say which workers exert the majority of effort?
By the amount of physical effort - sure, blue collar workers do the most. But this effort is also easy to find from others - everyone can do unskilled labor. So should they receive a lion’s share of the company profits just because, what? They managed to get hired?
By the amount of admin, maybe it should be IT or HR or some similar department. Without them, you wouldn’t be efficient. Without them you’d never be able to expand. But they don’t work on the actual product, they’re just there for the ride and would be doing the same thing for any other business.
Should it be sales? Engineers? Security? All these categories have the same pluses and minuses going for them.
And now let’s say I start a small business. I go through the trouble of being good enough in my field to come up with a product or service that people will like. I invest my own money into this small business, and I sometimes don’t get paid so I can afford to pay my suppliers. I have months where I cut electricity at home so I can keep it on in the office. I fight the beaurocracy of the state, with its million forms I have to fill in and it’s million hoops I have to jump through. And this business takes off, and I finally make enough to have it be worth it. And you’re telling me I should share with the others? With everyone else who hasn’t put as much as me on the line, but now wants to be part of the success? Motherfucker I will cut you.
Or let’s say I don’t keep the company, I sell it. It goes to some conglomerate who keeps it functioning but installs a new CEO to cut costs and streamline processes. Are you telling me they paid me tens of millions of dollars for the company just so that they can share the profit with the workers? So that they can take directions from them? From the workers, who paid nothing? Who offered nothing in exchange for the rights to the business? Fuck, I’m taking you to the parking lot and breaking your kneecaps with a baseball bat, where the fuck do you even get the balls?
Or let’s say I go public. I sell shares, and people buy them. A lot of people invest a lot of money into the company, and want to get their money back. You’re telling me that when I turn a profit and decide to share it, I shouldn’t give dividends and reward the shareholders who believed in me - instead I should reward the workers who’ve been getting paid all this time, who’ve been risk-free in this enterprise, who’ve been profiting whether I go up or go under? Eat shit and die.
There is no universe where workers, who are staking nothing in a company, should get rewarded over those who have a financial stake in it.
Your comment is weirdly aggressive and is entirely predicated on the idea that we can’t have any economic system other than the one where the ownership class and the working class are distinct.
The whole point of workers owning the means of production is that they will take on the risk as well as the reward. The belief in that idea conjoins with the belief that it shouldn’t be possible to profit from the labour of others purely because you have money to start with. It’s conjunctive with the belief that the investor class is surplus to requirements.
An argument against this is, how would we maintain productivity if no wealthy people were investing in new businesses or in reviving dying ones? There are entire industries that exist only to feed into this machine. This system, that claims to be only motivated by increasing productivity to increase profits, is only putting the brakes on human advancement and betterment of our quality of life. Advertising is, by many measures, the largest industry in the world. So much talent and effort is exerted on how best to sell people a product they don’t need, an art form mostly now perfected to convince us we can’t live without these things, all in the name of profit.
I’m not well read enough to say that I definitely believe that the world would be better if we enforced worker co-ops. There’s so many other ways things could go wrong. I do think you need to open your mind to the fact that the systems we have in place exist only due to opportunism of those who came before us.
Your comment is weirdly aggressive
Yeah, sorry about that. I was imagining myself in those situations and offering my own reply to the supposed request of someone different taking the credit for my own hard work, while not taking any of the risks.
I feel like enough attempts and takes have been had at workers owning the means of production, by all communist states that have existed. And since they all had the inherent flaw that they are ran and populated by humans, they all end up in corrupt enterprises where there are still just a few sitting at the top, while the masses are fighting for scraps. Arguably the best implementation of it would probably be coops, but the people managing the coop are as susceptible to corruption as any other and are also likely to end in embezzlement/power trading.
the systems we have in place exist only due to opportunism of those who came before us
Oh, I fully agree. However, I was literally a few months away from being born in a communist state. All my life I heard stories from my parents and grandparents about the small daily injustices they lived through. I’m 100% sure capitalism benefits a handful of people and the rest are suffering - but they’re not suffering more than in communism, I’ll say that much. People aren’t disappearing from the streets if they criticize the CEO of coca cola. They don’t get found years later in a government camp, or in another communist country, or not at all. You don’t need to hide your comments about the head of state in a layer of fable-like obfuscation. You don’t have to worry about if the friends you’re joking around with will rat you out to the government because 1/10 of the population is recruited by the secret police, and even more are collaborators. For what it’s worth, you have these small liberties under capitalism. I was almost on the other side of that line, and it really annoys the shit out of me when I see people who are only arguing in favor of communism from the safety of their capitalism-created life, unaware that if the situation was the opposite and they were a capitalist in a communist country, they couldn’t even dream of making their pro-capitalist thoughts public for fear of their and their family’s life.
A dull knife like you won’t cut anyone.
