It just baffles me that people are drive-by downvoting this on Hacker News of all places. I think most of us here agree that transparency is desirable in government, software development, security, and so many other areas. Why do employers get a pass with the tired old "we're keeping secrets from you for your own good" line?
How is my privacy protected by a rule that says I'm not allowed to disclose my salary to my coworkers? Because that's what we're talking about, not just that the company doesn't publish salaries.
Are you arguing that the purpose of secret salaries isn't to keep employees from a better understanding of how much the company would be willing to pay them? We can have that discussion, but it would help if you made a coherent counterproposal. If you claim that open salaries cause significant friction between employees, for example, please cite comparisons to the countries and business where open salaries are common; there's enough of them that data should be available.
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - John Steinbeck (disputed)
This is a comforting but dangerous illusion for the American left. It leads to failed political tactics like John Kerry's "misery index", where he tried to tell voters how badly off they were.
This stance fools the left into thinking they need to tell the working class that they are losers. People react badly to that; they will happily forgo new welfare programs and regulatory subsidies and will instead rail against the status assertions behind it all.
