[kgmpers]

For just some interesting historical context, around the turn of the last century, new middle class in America were very against tipping in restaurants, viewing it as un-democratic and un-American.

> Anti-tipping advocates often championed an egalitarian vision of capitalist consumption in which both consumer and employee would benefit. Tipping, they maintained, undermined the dignity and independence of citizens in a democracy. “Let us not congratulate the servants on their gain,” one writer admonished, “for no servant takes a tip without losing something of manhood or womanhood.” Another argued that to accept a tip “is to enter into a relationship of dependence to the giver and by implication to acknowledge his superiority.” Frank Crane, a syndicated columnist, contended that the tip put waiters “into a class with the beggar, or the receiver of a bribe.” And Alvin Harlow, a historian popular at the time, wrote: “What, may I ask, is more un-American than tipping? It doesn’t belong in American society; it doesn’t belong in a democracy. It is a product of lands where for centuries there has been a servile class.” http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/summer2012/features/tip...