In Australia, before globalisation, it was generally an insult to offer a tip. We had the "basic wage" http://www.awm.gov.au/forging/australians/men.htm
which meant any bloke (yes it was a sexist system) who could hold down a job could afford to raise a family with a decent standard of of living. Any one who asked the customer for extra money was considered a "mongrel", a begger. If you offered a tip to a Sydney taxi driver in the 1960s, he would probably hit you.

British visitors sometimes complained that workers would not be talked down to, mistaking self-repect for insolence.

My first experience with tipping in America, the waiters dashing about with desparate smiles, robotically reciting "have a nice a day", invoked a deep sense of pity. I asked one waitress about her working conditions and it seemed she didn't really have any, to speak of. No wonder they're forced to beg, I thought. "In my country," I replied, "the employer is responsible for paying the wages." The only waiters I could respect where the "surly" ones.

Sadly, as neo-fascist economics, masquerading as "free trade", infests the world, and money and profit becomes more important than life, we too will be reduced to begging, just like our great and powerful friends.