Hacker News Reader

Comment by drivingmenuts | Hacker News Reader

Seems unethical to me, strictly speaking.

Sure, everyone's doing it. Doesn't mean cheating someone else out of their fair share is right, though.

It's an interesting question, and to me a real ethical gray area. At my favorite bar, I usually tip very generously, and all the bartenders know me. I tend to get my first drink free, and if I stay for a while, often a shot with the bartender later. For those, I tip extra big - not quite, but almost, the cost of the drink. For a while I felt bad about "taking advantage" of the system. But in fact I think this is part of the system, because every bar needs regulars, and since people like me and I don't cause trouble, my patronage is useful even to the owners (though they may get less revenue from my drinks). I also think this may constitute a sort of perk for the bartenders - to be able to give free drinks to a limited number of friends probably makes them enjoy their job more. I do notice that after I get a free one the bartender makes some sort of note on a piece of paper near the register, so maybe this is an official part of the system.

I'm not sure if the restaurant business is the same, but I can imagine that the owners anticipate this sort of thing, and maybe even encourage it, since it means their employees get more money and might be happier as a result.

But yeah, it doesn't seem particularly fair, at least the way I was raised to think of it.

I think it's fair. On any given night there's probably quite a few people in the bar who outspend you. But you're a regular. That means that over a long period of time, you probably hand over more money to the bartenders and the bar itself than most people there that night. They are both rewarding and encouraging that behavior.

What you described is the original "rewards program."

"Fair share"? As if each person deserves to be served? Talk about a sense of entitlement. The restaurant will serve whomever it likes. You wouldn't think it unethical for the restaurant to give regulars a friendlier smile, or a specific table they like? If you have a personal relationship with someone, no matter how tenuous, they will give you better service. It's not "cheating." Especially for busy restaurants, there is no reason for them to serve an "average" customer and ignore a "good" customer.

'"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.

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."

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

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

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

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.

Well... it's a spectrum from this to Jim Crow. Obviously it's nothing like it, but in the States we tend to say all forms of discrimination are socially unacceptable in order to avoid any slippery slope issues.

This is exactly wrong. Jim Crow and that spectrum is based on race and other prejudices. It's based on things people can't change (reasonably), and on "knowing your place" in society. This is the exact opposite. This is about personal relationships, connections, sphere of influence. This is not about classism, or racism, or any kind of prejudice.

I agree that the language of "fair" and "ethical" seems a bit over-entitled (although I admit, my emotional reaction is one of unfairness and unethicalness).

But I'd like to try to reframe this, to focus on what is lost, and who pays the price.

I value transparency and predictability in (most) transactions; I want shopping to be easy, and so I'd rather pay a non-negotiable $100 for something, versus see a pricetag of $200 that I know is negotiable in the range of 30%-70%. (Admittedly, if we're talking about $100,000, I start being interested in the $200,000 plus haggling).

As such, if I learn that a certain business has a non-transparent cost structure, including this tipping-oriented one, I'm disinclined to shop there. So if I witness you bribing the staff, the business owner loses some of my goodwill (even more if you bribe the staff to cut ahead of me in line), which is a Real Loss for them. I'll acknowledge that perhaps the business owner would rather have the business of the bribing type, for whatever reason (perhaps they're bigger spenders).

I guess my conclusion here is that it is unethical for an employee to accept bribes, if and only if they have been given (explicit or implicit) work direction to not do so.

I don't have much to say about whether it's ethical to bribe them, except of course bribing them for unethical gain (e.g. bypassing safety inspections) would be unethical, and maybe it's unethical to incent someone to behave unethically?

Why do you find it unethical? I'm not being glib. You can see why I don't find it unethical in posts below.

Many companies would find similar behavior among their employees to be unethical and cause for termination.

For instance, large retailers have strict gift rules in place so that suppliers cannot "bribe" the retail buyers to get their stuff on shelves.

But those are instances where there is no precedent for tipping.

Our Walmart contact in their technology center wouldn't accept a cup of coffee during a site visit, without putting a quarter on the table. They Strictly enforce a ban on gifts and favors, calling it all bribery and grounds for getting fired.

it's not unethical. It's the market economy.

Do you think bribing government officials to get preferential treatment is also OK? If not, what is the difference?

Government officials are not a part of the market economy.

It's paying for service, it just goes through unofficial channels. I live in a small college town. I eat at the same vegetarian restaurant for lunch almost every single weekday. I sit at the counter with a book, and make small talk with the cooks and servers as appropriate. I unquestionably receive preferential treatment from them. The cooks sometimes slide me extra food if it's not enough to sell as a full meal, or if someone sends back food that's fine to eat. The servers take my order almost the moment I take a seat at the counter and it's usually served the moment it's ready.

I don't tip extravagantly ($2 for an $8 meal), but I'm friendly, easy to serve and they know they'll see me every day. I get preferential treatment, but I'm also giving them preferential treatment by coming in every day.

You have a right to be treated the same as everyone else by the government. You have no such right at a service establishment - yes, they cannot refuse service for the all of the standard prejudices. But they most certainly can offer a higher level of service to people who pay more.

OK, what about if you employed someone to tender contracts for you and one of the tenderers took this person out for an extravagant lunch in the expectation of influencing the bidding process? Wouldn't that be immoral?

I would think so, yes. But restaurants, bars, massage parlors, etc. are service-oriented places where tipping is already the norm. The precedent for more-money-means-better-service has already been set.

No - it would be a gamble. Immoral, and possibly a fireable offence, would be if your employee actually gave them a better deal in exchange for the kickback - in which case you, as their employer, can deal with them as you see fit.

You only get to choose your government every n years, so as part of their pitch to you, they make a promise (in law) that their officials will not be bribable - any subsequent bribe violates that promise and that law. By contrast, you can choose which restaurants you visit (on a day-to-day basis), so they have no need to make such formal promises or contracts, so they don't. They are then free to offer service x for price y, you are free to accept or reject, and they are free to change it the next day.

The underlying assumption that being a market economy precludes a market from being unethical strikes me as overly simplistic.

I believe his point was that if you're going to call this unethical, then you have to also consider, say, an inferior television costing $200 and a superior television costing $800 unethical.

No, you don't. The difference is one of transparency. Information about various televisions and their pricing is freely available to anyone who asks, whereas reliable information about the necessity or possibility of bribes is hard to obtain. The end result is a less efficient market.

And a less efficient market is necessarily unethical? I also don't think the situation is opaque: tip well, be genuinely friendly, and you'll receive better service.

People will find a market unethical if it's consistently biased in a way that seems unnecessary and "unfair." In this context, since bribery isn't a common part of American culture, it seems unfair to give an advantage to people who are skilled at it.

The situation you described is very opaque, compared to the television market. How well is "well," and how much better might the service be? The answers vary wildly depending on your manner and the establishment in question, and you're almost never going to know them before you pay.

This isn't "buying" a better table (although that can happen). This is about building a positive relationship with a person. You do something positive for the maitre'd, and now he's on your side. It's more about making a contact with someone "on the inside" and less about making a purchase.

Except the maitre'd isn't the restaurant, and what he's selling technically isn't his to sell. So as such it's more of a black market for stolen goods. If the restaurant had a stated policy where tables where auctioned off at busy times then that would be different.

You don't know whether it is or isn't his decision to make - that would be between him and his employers.

He may very well have the discretion to bend the rules a bit for the right kind of people to keep the place popular - wealthy people who like to buy their way to the front of the line are also people who are likely to spend more extravagantly on the wine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com