I don’t disagree with your diagnosis of American culture, but the tip thing is just shifting wages from employer to customer. It’s no different from VAT versus sales tax: same result, different math.

Opting not to tip when it is part of the economic transaction is no different from walking out with the silverware; not expressly forbidden, just a breach of social contract.

It's absolutely different because a customer is not legally required to tip, and if a customer decides not to, that is directly impacting a worker's take-home pay.

And walking out with silverware is theft, I genuinely have no idea where you pulled that from as a similar example.

>It’s no different from VAT versus sales tax: same result, different math.

There's lots of evidence that tips vary significantly based on the traits of the customer (like the customer's self-esteem and sense of shame: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ijchm-02...) and the employee asking for the tip (e.g. attractiveness and simple demographic characteristics: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01674...).

> walking out with the silverware; not expressly forbidden

Isn't property theft very expressly forbidden?

Then why call it a tip? It's just cynical then, which I don't know what's worse.

> when it is part of the economic transaction

Well, shit, if I made it part of the economic transaction, you'd have a point. What you're saying is that the employers are not holding up their end of the transaction.