The ethics are complex for sure... a bit like sailing the high seas:-). I have no right to tell you or anyone else what to do, I just shared my own thought. Fuck the SOBs that started this for sure...but the WORKERS are the ones getting pinched in the middle of that clash of wills:-(.
Also I know of no better way to be generous to my fellow human - unlike some "charities", this is no hand-out b/c there at least you can be 100% certain that they work. Also, a LOT of people do not tip (or if they do, then not much), thus necessitating a more extreme tipping from those that do if the scales were to ever to be balanced (which they ultimately never will, but still a little bit can help).
This is really a trolly problem through and through: someone puts a human on the tracks (lets say mostly innocent - possibly they were goaded rather than forced into being there but for the sake of argument let us presume they have no malice or any ill intent whatsoever, like this is no scam that they are "in" on, again just for the sake of argument), and a tiny but noticeable pile of your cash on the other, then offers to allow you to pull the lever to switch the track. Fuck the evil POS who would do that for their own amusement ofc but... given that it happened, do you play along and sacrifice your cash to help the human, or allow them to get hit? Let us also presume that you have the "right" to your cash, i.e. you would get it back rather than it being impounded for evidence or whatever.
I choose to play along, knowing full well that the system is unjust. Maybe I am contributing to the problem, but I do not know what else to do that could help in even the tiniest manner. Passing laws to enforce payment of a minimum wage that is actually a livable one seems like an entirely separate matter to me btw - b/c whether you tip or not, or whether you want to tip or not (I saw that you do the former but neither of us really do the latter, though I come closer to that in one manner of speaking), without being forced to, greedy-AF people will never (it seems) voluntarily pay the workers more on their own initiative, so simply "not tipping" in protest seems to me to be an approach doomed to failure. I do not deny that you are correct though - they will certainly take my doing so as their cue that they can continue, not that it would matter if laws were passed to literally prevent that happening - it is just that I cannot control them, I can only control me.
Thank you for this respectful conversation btw:-).
True, if you had researched the charity in advance and knew that, or at least trusted the intermediary who told you about it to have done that due diligence. I said "some" and I put the word charities in double quotes b/c not everything that passes itself off as a charity is worthwhile... though that ofc does not mean that the converse is true and that none of them are. I remember when a charity - I think it was the Salvation Army? - collected an enormous amount of funds for Puerto Rico after it was hit with an extremely bad storm, and it made a big fuss about all the houses it was going to build there, but even a year (or maybe it was multiple years?) later it had barely made any (something like 10 houses total, or some ridiculously low amount compared to what they had claimed they were going to do). There are so many stories like this. Another one I have previously donated to are CareNet pregnancy centers - they offer potential mothers neonatal health screenings and such, free of charge, plus diapers and what-not, sometimes even cribs when they have them... thereby being (I thought) authentically "Pro-Life" rather than merely "Anti-Abortion" by offering these people real options to work with, not just heaping heavy burdens on others without lifting a finger to help, b/c these people provide that finger, even if it is not a full-on hand up. Although more recently they have been caught lying to the mothers, telling them about horrific health consequences of having abortions that are simply not medically factual, thereby being more "Anti-Abortion" after all.
So, not all charities are honest. Many are outright scams. Some politicians even set them up as a way to attempt to avoid taxes, while giving themselves perks like Donald Trump used people's donations to commission a painting made of himself, claiming that by doing so he was "supporting the arts". Technically that was even true, as the funds did end up going to an artist. And yet supporting millionaires like Trump to have yet another portrait - of himself no less! - does not necessarily align with my own idea of what a "charity" is, or at least I mean one that I should send my own funds to. Though I have heard of fantastic ones that I would consider giving to even now. So I am not anti-charity, b/c some true charities I am for (and some I am not), I was just saying that sometimes it is so hard to distinguish fact from fiction.
And even if the charity itself is honest, often the people attempting to take from it are less so. So the efficacy of their own screening process comes into question too - yes a food bank can feed people, but how many of those were truly in need? Tbh, mostly I am setting that thought up as a caricature rather than realistic argument, as a bolster for my next point that does manage to stand all on its own, yet is strengthened by this thought experiment:-).
Workers at least you can see with your own two eyes that they are working, plus you consumed the food/drink product even if it was made out of sight in the kitchen. Oftentimes in the past, these are the people who are attempting to work their way through or up to college and may need the most help going through that process. In the last several years that might no longer be true, though it still leaves open the thought that these are the people who struggle the most, and could use a bit of "trickle down". These aren't people who have just given up and looking for others to take care of them, they will accept the wage they are given, but they HOPE for more? At the very least, I identify with that struggle. The owners may be a different matter entirely, but the workers... at the very least they are not evil corps like Disney.
But also, how is what you said any different? Aren't charities doing the same thing for the needy as tipping does for workers? Governments do not take care of people, so giving to charities is like telling the government “Don’t worry about making sure that your citizens get paid a living wage. I got you fam.” Socialism has its downsides, but people don't seem to realize that capitalism does too - i.e. the end stage of a purely capitalistic society is slavery for the masses along with a few at the top who own everything. The reason the USA did not devolve to that stage is b/c of HEAVY checks & balances in the system, e.g. detection & punishment of fraud & other similar events such as product safety - whereas in a purely capitalistic society, that is a "shared resource" hence disallowed, so every consumer would need to test every product by themselves?!? Police, firefighters, teachers, heck even roads are all "shared" hence socialism (government controls the means and production of e.g. roads), or at least capitalism & socialism existed side-by-side (e.g. both socialistic shared resources alongside capitalistic private ones - police/bodyguards, schools, roads, and so much more), but we were more socialist in the past whereas today the spectrum has shifted more towards the capitalist end of the continuum. Hence fewer protections in place - e.g. there is still a minimum wage, but that wage has not been kept updated to what is livable for decades now. So the whole idea of charity then is to circumvent the need for socialism to exist in the USA in order to balance things out, and instead to use the capitalist approach by allowing your money to become your speech and say "I want these people to be helped in this manner". Exactly like tipping?
There is so much more to add but no time or space. One thing I'll say briefly is that enlightened self-interest also seems like it falls on the side of tipping? People when they do not get enough may steal, so offering them a way to earn enough helps prevent that - or if not fully "earn" (like $3 tip on a <$5 meal) then at least you would incentivize good behavior? As opposed to a safety net that helps people regardless of how they act, which I am not saying that is you but some people feel that that is improper, hence the reasoning behind some of my phrasing - e.g. "there at least you can be 100% certain that they work".
Perhaps you knew all this already and it is only I just catching up. In any case this discussion is fun:-).