The grasshopper made the life of the hard working ants happier with his music, but the ants were to selfish to tip the artist and left him to die.

Moral: There is no place for art in a capitalistic collective system of production.

I usually tip 0%, but of course I'm not American.

I think the tipping thing is pretty stupid... No one tips me at my job when I do something well, why should waiters be any different? Oh well, I guess it's one of those traditions which never go away.

When I tip it's not based on any percentage either... Doing it on a percentage basis makes even less sense to me.

Wouldn't it be too late for the waiter to piss in the soup by the time you do not tip him/her?

Art tends to thrive in capitalist countries ... The artists that tend to complain (the most) about it being impossible to make a living in a capitalist society are (generally speaking) either fairly bad or go out of their way to offend as may people as possible.

I could be living in a bubble, but I have know several graphic designers who have done web-design or corporate art in order to pay the bills while they worked on their more serious pieces. Countries like the United States and Canada have many more musicians, artists, film makers and (pretty much) every kind of artist than communist countries because people will spend their disposable income on art to make their homes, offices and public spaces look better.