I've always found the taboo about discussing salaries weird. In my experience, it's almost nonexistant among Russian immigrants to the US—at least the ones my family knows—and yet hasn't caused any real problems.
Sure, there are issues of status and perceived worth around salary—but hiding the numbers doesn't help. People still know your job title, understand your company and see your lifestyle. That's more than enough! Numbers only matter if you want to talk about relatively small differences—ones that matter far more for salary negotiation and evaluating a position than they do for cocktail party
Now, perhaps I'm just being simplistic, but the way I see it is genuinely simple: markets are about transferring information. To do this well, participants have to know what the prices are elsewhere. An arbitrary cultural taboo around the prices does nothing but impede the flow of information. The fact that it's asymmetric just makes it doubly worse.
Transparent salaries are about as capitalistic and idea as can be.
Unfortunately, by character, I'm also unlikely to take my own advice: I fear awkwardness disproportionately. Just one more reason why I deeply dislike arbitrary social rules.
Sure, there are issues of status and perceived worth around salary—but hiding the numbers doesn't help. People still know your job title, understand your company and see your lifestyle. That's more than enough! Numbers only matter if you want to talk about relatively small differences—ones that matter far more for salary negotiation and evaluating a position than they do for cocktail party
Now, perhaps I'm just being simplistic, but the way I see it is genuinely simple: markets are about transferring information. To do this well, participants have to know what the prices are elsewhere. An arbitrary cultural taboo around the prices does nothing but impede the flow of information. The fact that it's asymmetric just makes it doubly worse.
Transparent salaries are about as capitalistic and idea as can be.
Unfortunately, by character, I'm also unlikely to take my own advice: I fear awkwardness disproportionately. Just one more reason why I deeply dislike arbitrary social rules.