[jerf]

'"Fair share"? As if each person deserves to be served?'

Everyone does deserve to be served. Why? Is it because it's an immutable ethical truth? No. It's because that's our culture. The US is a pretty egalitarian society. It isn't perfect but it's still in our cultural DNA.

A lot of the objection is the issue of slipping the seater a $100. If it was an open auction at the door and everybody had to bid for seats, that would just be the way it is, but in America the act of slipping someone $100 to be seated is basically sneaking out of the egalitarian society into a society of privilege, and the egalitarian among us find that offensive. If you want to buy privilege, which is a perfectly valid thing to do, buy it on the open market, not with bribery.

If everybody engages in bribery, and everybody knows it, the sneaky cheating aspect goes away, though I tend to agree with other posters that this creates a moral hazard. Not being a cultural relativist, I am free to say I believe the egalitarian culture here produces superior results to a culture that accepts bribery routinely. It really does lead fairly directly to things like paying off inspectors to not do the inspections, in a non-trivial percentage of the population.

[philwelch]

Just because something is done surreptitiously doesn't mean it's against cultural norms--it may just mean the cultural norm is to be surreptitious about it. Cultural norms are weird that way.

For instance, maybe the taboo isn't against bribery per se, but against conspicuous displays of wealth--"flashing your cash". For instance, it's taboo to openly discuss one's salary or other financial details. You might think conspicuous consumption is a counterexample, but really it works for this point too--since there's no surefire markers of social class and it's taboo to just go around saying "ha ha, I earn 100 times more money than you", people who want to brag about how rich they are buy really expensive things and make sure everyone notices them. (Similarly, since there's a taboo about exposing certain parts of your body, women who want to brag about how fantastic certain parts of their body are wear tight clothing and cleavagey tops.)

If this trick works universally among high-class restaurants in a certain culture (be it the US, New York City, or whatever), it's indeed a cultural norm to do it--even if the norm requires surreptitiousness.

[tkahn6]

Don't you think it's kind of a dangerous thing when you start saying you deserve something by virtue of the fact you perceive it to be a cultural norm?

"I work hard but was laid off from my job. America is all about rewarding people for working hard so I got screwed. Therefore it's OK for me to rob a bank in order to compensate myself for my monetary losses which society owes me."

[mikeknoop]

Well, not rob a bank per say. But they certainly might feel entitled to receive compensation from the Government.

[hnal943]

And how is that different? You're still soothing your problems with other people's money.

[jerf]

In response, I simply lean over and gently light your strawman on fire.