• IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

        • idunnololz@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

        • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
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            30 days ago

            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.

            • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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              30 days ago

              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

              • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
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                30 days ago

                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.

                • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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                  29 days ago

                  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…

      • VantaBrandon@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

      • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        29 days ago

        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.

      • terminally_offline@infosec.pub
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        1 month ago

        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.

    • abbadon420@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Tipping is fine, but as in “keep the change”, not “we need to change this tipping culture”

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • ramble81@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Except that I’m fine if the cost of my meal increases if they paid their servers what they deserve.

        • danc4498@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Same here. I’m just saying don’t protest tipping by not tipping. You’re screwing the wrong person.

        • vala@lemmy.world
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          30 days ago

          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.

      • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • danc4498@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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!

          • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            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.

      • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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        1 month ago

        Here’s another part of the equation, the owner gets enough of a share of the business profit where they can buy a new house, expand to multiple locations, buy new cars, etc.

        The extra couple bucks an hour per employee is a tiny drop in the cost pool per business operational hour compared to that. They could perfectly well keep prices the same without paying sub-minimum wages by taking a smaller cut themselves.

      • Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        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.

    • Sop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      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.

        • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • hypna@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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.

            • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              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.

      • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
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        29 days ago

        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.

      • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • Redredme@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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.

            • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 month ago

              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.

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                30 days ago

                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

            • chingadera@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              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.

              • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                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.

                • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  30 days ago

                  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.

        • HaleHirsute@infosec.pub
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          1 month ago

          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.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        It must be hard not knowing even the most basic math. How is this CEO getting more money than I pay for the meal?

        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          29 days ago

          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

          • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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            29 days ago

            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.

    • VantaBrandon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      *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

      • Skates@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • hangonasecond@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • Skates@feddit.nl
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            30 days ago

            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.