Norway, where no salaries are secret(bbc.co.uk)
bbc.co.uk
Norway, where no salaries are secret
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40669239
334 comments
It's down to what you think salaries are for. If market value is supposed to equate to social value and ensure a fair distribution of the output of society, then you need open prices or the market won't work properly.
I need to know what you are paid so I can balance what I am paid against what I think you are worth.
Closed salaries only benefit the other side of the negotiating table - the employers - who then divide and conquer.
Which is why they play upon the doubt and insecurity in people's minds that they are actually worth what they have negotiated.
It's the basis of why unionisation works and why it ensured that workers got their fair share of productivity increases. Right up to the point when unionisation was defeated and 'individualists' got to play their game. Since then the productivity gains have gone to the top of town.
Extreme individualism is always defeated by those who know how to share and work as a team.
I need to know what you are paid so I can balance what I am paid against what I think you are worth.
Closed salaries only benefit the other side of the negotiating table - the employers - who then divide and conquer.
Which is why they play upon the doubt and insecurity in people's minds that they are actually worth what they have negotiated.
It's the basis of why unionisation works and why it ensured that workers got their fair share of productivity increases. Right up to the point when unionisation was defeated and 'individualists' got to play their game. Since then the productivity gains have gone to the top of town.
Extreme individualism is always defeated by those who know how to share and work as a team.
> Closed salaries only benefit the other side of the negotiating table - the employers - who then divide and conquer.
Closed salaries might also benefit some employees. I think most people will agree that across any job title, or team, there are people who're favored in some way - better at their job, fun to be around, great motivators or mediators, whatever it is. It might be possible for these people to get better pay for themselves because the company doesn't have to give a commensurate increase to everyone.
Closed salaries might also benefit some employees. I think most people will agree that across any job title, or team, there are people who're favored in some way - better at their job, fun to be around, great motivators or mediators, whatever it is. It might be possible for these people to get better pay for themselves because the company doesn't have to give a commensurate increase to everyone.
Closed salaries would've helped me in a recent salary negotiation. The company's open salaries in combination with their tiered salary concept contributed to their refusal of a raise in starting base salary. "Everyone knows what a Tier 4 FTE starts at, so if I start you higher then I have to give everyone a raise". No problem if we could just keep my salary a secret.
On the other hand, I don't think it's my employer's business with whom I share my salary, though I could see this secrecy being part of an employment contract.
On the other hand, I don't think it's my employer's business with whom I share my salary, though I could see this secrecy being part of an employment contract.
Open salaries is not the root problem in your example, it's the rigid "tiers."
Rigidity in salaries is a natural end result of open salaries, as otherwise everyone demands explanations of why someone else is making more.
Even in this thread you already see people calling for unionization and collective bargaining to ensure everyone gets their "fair share."
Even in this thread you already see people calling for unionization and collective bargaining to ensure everyone gets their "fair share."
It might be possible for these people to get better pay for themselves because the company doesn't have to give a commensurate increase to everyone.
So long as the reason why someone is paid more is also public then it's fine. People could use that as motivation to improve - seeing someone else rewarded for something is a brilliant driving force to do it yourself as well.
So long as the reason why someone is paid more is also public then it's fine. People could use that as motivation to improve - seeing someone else rewarded for something is a brilliant driving force to do it yourself as well.
So long as the reason why someone is paid more is also public then it's fine.
You're assuming perfectly rational behavior, which is... not human.
I'm not arguing against open salaries (I am in such condition), but assuming rational actors is not realistic.
In particular, an example justification along the lines of "X takes more because is a better programmer than you are" is very dangerous, not only in the obvious way.
You're assuming perfectly rational behavior, which is... not human.
I'm not arguing against open salaries (I am in such condition), but assuming rational actors is not realistic.
In particular, an example justification along the lines of "X takes more because is a better programmer than you are" is very dangerous, not only in the obvious way.
I don't know about you, but I have a number of more experienced but less productive colleagues who have been known to gripe about bonuses and raises not being directly tied to seniority. They often pine for unions, where time in grade leads inexorably to higher salary and these young hotshots would have to wait their turn.
"Extreme individualism is always defeated by those who know how to share and work as a team."
Holy shit, that's it! That's why the individual always loses out in negotiating for their salary--the company is already one big team (HR, accounting, all the business processes, etc) and you're just some guy on the other side of the table.
Even for hot shots, a union would only be a benefit. Look at the Screen Actors Guild--hot shot actors bring in bank, they're not constrained by the union, but everyone involved gets the basic union protections.
Wow, that's it. Individuals always get defeated by the team, and that's exactly what it is when you go up against a company to negotiate your salary.
Holy shit, that's it! That's why the individual always loses out in negotiating for their salary--the company is already one big team (HR, accounting, all the business processes, etc) and you're just some guy on the other side of the table.
Even for hot shots, a union would only be a benefit. Look at the Screen Actors Guild--hot shot actors bring in bank, they're not constrained by the union, but everyone involved gets the basic union protections.
Wow, that's it. Individuals always get defeated by the team, and that's exactly what it is when you go up against a company to negotiate your salary.
You're a bit enthousiatic about that, but it's basically why many animals from groups (are gregarious), including humans. Groups are stronger than individuals.
Lone hunters can get one individual out of a herd but they'll never be able to kill the whole herd. And some herds of certain species can kill a lone hunter.
Lone hunters can get one individual out of a herd but they'll never be able to kill the whole herd. And some herds of certain species can kill a lone hunter.
I'm sorry, I think your analysis of the cause of the power disparity is wrong. It's not due to numbers.
It's because power disparity is inherent in hierarchical organizations. The CEO is just one person, but their position at the apex of the hierarchy gives them power over everyone else in the organization. Power disparity is baked into the hierarchy—it's not a hierarchy without it.
Unions are a way to balance the power of the employee group against the management hierarchy. Unfortunately unions are also subject to the corruption that accompanies power.
It's because power disparity is inherent in hierarchical organizations. The CEO is just one person, but their position at the apex of the hierarchy gives them power over everyone else in the organization. Power disparity is baked into the hierarchy—it's not a hierarchy without it.
Unions are a way to balance the power of the employee group against the management hierarchy. Unfortunately unions are also subject to the corruption that accompanies power.
> unionisation works and why it ensured that workers got their fair share of productivity increases
Considering that most unions encourage rigid salary bands, this is a ludicrous statement to make.
It's obvious that different workers have different productivity levels (and those levels don't correspond directly to years of experience). Considering that, I consider it highly unfair to force people into having the same salary.
Considering that most unions encourage rigid salary bands, this is a ludicrous statement to make.
It's obvious that different workers have different productivity levels (and those levels don't correspond directly to years of experience). Considering that, I consider it highly unfair to force people into having the same salary.
> unionisation was defeated
Did I miss something?
Granted, the most powerful and corrupt unions are public sector unions, where salaries are more or less publicly known. Just look at how many police have been indicted for murdering innocent people.
So the balance is clearly necessary -- there is no such thing as a collectivist utopia.
Did I miss something?
Granted, the most powerful and corrupt unions are public sector unions, where salaries are more or less publicly known. Just look at how many police have been indicted for murdering innocent people.
So the balance is clearly necessary -- there is no such thing as a collectivist utopia.
> "We needed person X in January and couldn't wait until march so we promised them more money to come accross."
Yeah but that in itself is useful information. It signifies that demand for those kind of employees is high and that should in turn affect the salaries of both new hires and employees bold enough to renegotiate.
The only reason it's not public, is because an inefficient labour market helps the employers underpay their employees.
Yeah but that in itself is useful information. It signifies that demand for those kind of employees is high and that should in turn affect the salaries of both new hires and employees bold enough to renegotiate.
The only reason it's not public, is because an inefficient labour market helps the employers underpay their employees.
> The only reason it's not public, is because an inefficient labour market helps the employers underpay their employees.
If that were true, why wouldn't everyone voluntarily post their salaries publicly? For that matter, why won't you?
It's already protected for employees to share their salaries. If the only reason salaries are private is to help employers, wouldn't we expect many people to share their salaries voluntarily?
If that were true, why wouldn't everyone voluntarily post their salaries publicly? For that matter, why won't you?
It's already protected for employees to share their salaries. If the only reason salaries are private is to help employers, wouldn't we expect many people to share their salaries voluntarily?
Same reason people buy diamond rings, gendered deodorant, banned nonwhites from boxing, etc.
Culture rules. People are not far-sighted logical market agents.
Consider the opposite: If sharing your salary is so inoffensive, why do companies go to great lengths to stop you from doing it, necessitating enshrined legal protections (that most people are unaware about)?
Culture rules. People are not far-sighted logical market agents.
Consider the opposite: If sharing your salary is so inoffensive, why do companies go to great lengths to stop you from doing it, necessitating enshrined legal protections (that most people are unaware about)?
Transparency always shows the ugly unfair side of things when the sheets are first lifted... That's the whole point. People adjust and systems adjust, and we figure out how to better work together.
Salaries are a reflection of the value you're supposedly contributing to society. Isn't that on principle public?
Salaries are a reflection of the value you're supposedly contributing to society. Isn't that on principle public?
Salaries are a reflection of your supply and demand. Two people with equal demand but unequal supply (one has financial obligations that make them unavailable below a certain salary level) will result in unequal pay.
The notion that salary is meant to be directly tied to productivity does not and has not ever reflected reality.
The notion that salary is meant to be directly tied to productivity does not and has not ever reflected reality.
Current hires are not a fixed supply to be taken for granted.
Hire someone else for a ton extra, refuse me a raise, and I'll leave.
That is, if that information was available. Kinda convenient that it isn't, huh?
Hire someone else for a ton extra, refuse me a raise, and I'll leave.
That is, if that information was available. Kinda convenient that it isn't, huh?
It is absolutely convenient to be able to retain talent for as cheap as possible. Just like it is convenient to pit two suppliers against each other to drive costs down.
Quitting because you don't get a raise doesn't change anything unless you have an alternative that will pay you more. In which case, that alternative is a negotiating piece independent of a coworkers salary.
Long story short, have alternatives.
Quitting because you don't get a raise doesn't change anything unless you have an alternative that will pay you more. In which case, that alternative is a negotiating piece independent of a coworkers salary.
Long story short, have alternatives.
If you leave, even if you are leaving to a worse salary, you are hurting the former company. If that company considers you to be worth whatever they're paying you (read: they can't find someone better for less) than they will give you the raise rather than let you go. All you need to know is the maximum amount they are willing to pay you, which you can then negotiate for.
> Hire someone else for a ton extra, refuse me a raise, and I'll leave.
Hmm.... Wouldn't this inflate the economy? (Edit: seems that it doesn't, at least in Norway.)
I assume there always will be the cases where someone is needed urgently, so such hires are unavoidable.
Hmm.... Wouldn't this inflate the economy? (Edit: seems that it doesn't, at least in Norway.)
I assume there always will be the cases where someone is needed urgently, so such hires are unavoidable.
Salaries are a proxy for value, but how we measure that value in a capitalist society, is most certainly driven by supply and demand. We should be careful not to project the inadequacies of the measuring device onto what's being measured.
Salary cannot exceed the value provided, but otherwise it often does not reflect value. Take for example cleaners, without whom no company could exist (i.e. they provide a lot of value), and yet, because of s&d, they're paid minimum wage.
> Salary cannot exceed the value provided
CEO's of fortune 500, investment bankers, etc...
CEO's of fortune 500, investment bankers, etc...
[deleted]
[deleted]
Salaries are at best weakly correlated to contribution to society. Somebody raising their own children is contributing to society, for example, usually without salary. And producing food is probably a more valuable contribution than arguing in court about patents on round corners and such.
> producing food is probably a more valuable contribution...
This is a commonly held belief, but I wonder if it's actually true? The important things produced in the United States are largely possible because of intellectual property rights, and we pay people to not make food.
This is a commonly held belief, but I wonder if it's actually true? The important things produced in the United States are largely possible because of intellectual property rights, and we pay people to not make food.
> And producing food is probably a more valuable contribution than arguing in court about patents on round corners and such.
The key point of the marginal revolution is it isn't the aggregate contribution that matters, but the marginal.
The canonical example is diamonds and water. We all need water, so why does it cost a fraction of what a tiny diamond costs?
The key point of the marginal revolution is it isn't the aggregate contribution that matters, but the marginal.
The canonical example is diamonds and water. We all need water, so why does it cost a fraction of what a tiny diamond costs?
So you shouldn't be allowed to anonymously contribute to society? Does this include whistle blowers?
Begs the question of whether whistle blowers would be needed if there was more transparency, right?
Only if there will be a complete and enforced transparency, so no one would be able to do anything with secrecy.
Sort of "The Circle" setting.
Sort of "The Circle" setting.
Sure, you can still make anonymous donations to the charities of your choice.
Of course you should. But if you anonymously contribute to society, who do you expect to pay you for it?
> Why keep this stuff secret? Because none of it is fair and we all know it.
Revealing the secrets helps to make the system more fair. Without knowledge of the unfairness, there's much less pressure to increase fairness. Which is of course the point of keeping it secret.
It sounds like you're complaining about the pressure. But the pressure is the point.
Revealing the secrets helps to make the system more fair. Without knowledge of the unfairness, there's much less pressure to increase fairness. Which is of course the point of keeping it secret.
It sounds like you're complaining about the pressure. But the pressure is the point.
But what is the point really when a salary is the product of many things?
I do JS for 10 years, someone else does JS 10 years, should we get the same?
Maybe the other one performes better because she and the boss are a super cultural fit?
Friends for year? Same country? Same age? etc. pp.
I do JS for 10 years, someone else does JS 10 years, should we get the same?
Maybe the other one performes better because she and the boss are a super cultural fit?
Friends for year? Same country? Same age? etc. pp.
This article is on the BBC. Iniquitous salaries are not ideal but they are not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is wealthy people who own land, do no work and demand rent from others for the right to exist.
https://whoownsengland.org/
Paying some people a bit more won't fix the UK. Reporting people to the state for tax evasion isn't the issue. Land is hardly taxed in the UK. We cannot just look at what is legal vs illegal. The state is setup to funnel money to the establishment. We must look beyond this to what is moral and what is immoral. Is it subjective? Sometimes. In Kensington council tax is 1K per anum on a 2MM house which may be empty, paying the owner 100K on a 5% increase in land prices per anum whilst residents burn to death for the sake of a sprinkler system.
Read the Grenfell one if you want to be particularly sickened and to see how the UK really works. The BBC won't touch this.
edit: to the guy below asking about downvotes, here's what happens on HN. Any time you mention landlords they downvote and someone flags the post and then you get, even though I've submitted 4 posts today "you're submitting too fast".
It looks like free speech, but it's not. This happens every single time.
https://whoownsengland.org/
Paying some people a bit more won't fix the UK. Reporting people to the state for tax evasion isn't the issue. Land is hardly taxed in the UK. We cannot just look at what is legal vs illegal. The state is setup to funnel money to the establishment. We must look beyond this to what is moral and what is immoral. Is it subjective? Sometimes. In Kensington council tax is 1K per anum on a 2MM house which may be empty, paying the owner 100K on a 5% increase in land prices per anum whilst residents burn to death for the sake of a sprinkler system.
Read the Grenfell one if you want to be particularly sickened and to see how the UK really works. The BBC won't touch this.
edit: to the guy below asking about downvotes, here's what happens on HN. Any time you mention landlords they downvote and someone flags the post and then you get, even though I've submitted 4 posts today "you're submitting too fast".
It looks like free speech, but it's not. This happens every single time.
[deleted]
I'm assuming you're downvoted because it's not relevant. But I agree with the landownership problem, it has caused a lot of trouble not only in the UK, but in multiple countries and it's never going to stop.
First you observe that something is unfair and then you defend it.
I don't see Norway cities on fire. Actually I have been there and it's pretty much one of the most stable place I've been to.
Apparently they managed to overcome the issues you raise.
Apparently they managed to overcome the issues you raise.
> Why keep this stuff secret? Because none of it is fair and we all know it.
Bingo. It's also why offshore accounts is so prevalent amongst the wealthy.
> So you should piss off everyone else by rubbing it in their face that X was pretty lucky on timing? Or give everyone a raise the company can't afford?
Don't forget the other kind of "luck". So and so's father /friend/etc is X so they get better pay/access/etc.
This isn't just a problem in the private sector, the public sector is a problem too.
> Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays.
Selective privacy is quite fashionable. The peasants don't get privacy.
Bingo. It's also why offshore accounts is so prevalent amongst the wealthy.
> So you should piss off everyone else by rubbing it in their face that X was pretty lucky on timing? Or give everyone a raise the company can't afford?
Don't forget the other kind of "luck". So and so's father /friend/etc is X so they get better pay/access/etc.
This isn't just a problem in the private sector, the public sector is a problem too.
> Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays.
Selective privacy is quite fashionable. The peasants don't get privacy.
I think offshore assets have more to do with navigation taxes.
Back when the lists were completely open and could be searched on multiple different media sites without logging in, I would sometimes look up people out of curiosity.
Since it was put behind a government 2-factor login page I've honestly never bothered.
I think it's pretty cool that this information is open, but I'm not sure if it has any significant impact. I'm sure it's a nice tool for investigative journalism, but what else?
Since it was put behind a government 2-factor login page I've honestly never bothered.
I think it's pretty cool that this information is open, but I'm not sure if it has any significant impact. I'm sure it's a nice tool for investigative journalism, but what else?
I think its fine that it was moved behind a secure login and rate limited - because there's other information that's useful for identity theft and/or stalking (date of birth and municipality - along with a history of re-locations - not at address level, but specific enough that it poses a great de-anonymizing vector for a (working) population of ~3(?) millon. A simple name+city lookup would normally be enough to look up date-of-birth).
But now they've added a "shame"-filter of alerting who you look up -- which makes some sense, but IMNHO removes the democratizing effect a bit. Before, you could look up the salary of the person(s) interviewing you for a job, along with salaries for various people in the company (assuming a public listing of employees, which is normal). You can still do that of course, but I'm afraid too many will be "offended" by this way of using information that's public by law to reduce the information asymmetry. The flip side is that a potential employer can also see what you've earned the past few years.
I don't think most people used it like this though - it's useful for checking what public figures earn/pay in taxes - and it's useful to do a rough sanity check to see if work place agreements on compensation are followed (there's no minimum wage in Norway, but unions are still strong) - and also to do a rough check for gender imbalance in salaries at a given workplace.
But now they've added a "shame"-filter of alerting who you look up -- which makes some sense, but IMNHO removes the democratizing effect a bit. Before, you could look up the salary of the person(s) interviewing you for a job, along with salaries for various people in the company (assuming a public listing of employees, which is normal). You can still do that of course, but I'm afraid too many will be "offended" by this way of using information that's public by law to reduce the information asymmetry. The flip side is that a potential employer can also see what you've earned the past few years.
I don't think most people used it like this though - it's useful for checking what public figures earn/pay in taxes - and it's useful to do a rough sanity check to see if work place agreements on compensation are followed (there's no minimum wage in Norway, but unions are still strong) - and also to do a rough check for gender imbalance in salaries at a given workplace.
You can see what kind of salaries people get in same kind of jobs.
I wonder why nobody gives up his good name for a crawler.
Am I the only one who thinks it's my own business how much I earn as long as I don't do anything illegal?
What's next, a database with all guys dick size?
You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look up your expensive sports car at the DMV.
However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.
However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.
shame isn't the only thing. If everyone knows you deal with trading rare comic books between America and Japan, with no listed prices but a comission between private transactions which you intermediate, have no employees and do it all via a couple of low-key websites, then it is no big deal. They might assume you do a few per year or per month, but that it is hardly some huge market.
If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again.
(For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.)
In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again.
(For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.)
In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
Then, I don't know, don't give it to yourself in that way but rather re-invest in your company if it really is your turnover? Those poor business owners who are making so much money that they're attracting competition can't afford accountants?
that's not a general solution.
firms with employees can also have trouble hiding the size of their divisions if everyone's salary is pubic.
this really is pretty key competitive information.
this really is pretty key competitive information.
Then make the search for each individual a separate query and put a processing fee on it. That would make such a lookup scale very poorly.
[deleted]
why is it in the public interest to make the search possible at all?
> If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again.
Which would be a win for the consumer. Information is supposed to do this to markets.
Which would be a win for the consumer. Information is supposed to do this to markets.
> it's nothing to be ashamed
What? Am I reading this on HN? The place where people like talking how privacy matter all day and how annoying the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't worry about the government/corporations spying on you" is? I'm puzzled.
What? Am I reading this on HN? The place where people like talking how privacy matter all day and how annoying the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't worry about the government/corporations spying on you" is? I'm puzzled.
European-style authoritarianism seems extremely popular for some reason.
"You can do what you want as long as it's not measurably sub-optimal for the community as a whole" is the dominant attitude around here.
Because, opposed to other government spying, this service goes both ways; you can also see how much your politicians earn.
Or "privacy isn't hiding".
What makes you think salary is a matter of privacy? In a lot of countries, many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries. Why do you think a job in a private sector should maintain secrecy for salaries?
Privacy applies to private data. Whether salary should be considered private data is the point of argument here. Nobody is arguing about doing away with privacy altogether. So what is your point?
Privacy applies to private data. Whether salary should be considered private data is the point of argument here. Nobody is arguing about doing away with privacy altogether. So what is your point?
many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries.
Knowing what public servants and politicians earn passes the most basic of public interest tests. What I earn, however, doesn't.
Knowing what public servants and politicians earn passes the most basic of public interest tests. What I earn, however, doesn't.
Fair point. I chose a poor example there. A better example would be: Engineering jobs (not the IT or software kind but licensed engineering jobs) in many European and Asian companies have publicly disclosed salaries.
My point is that what two consenting adults contracts is part of their privacy unless you're an authoritarian State.
Except most contracts in the private sector (IT, finance, etc.) are not between two consenting adults. They are usually between one consulting adult and a huge corporation, a corporation that can choose to pay a certain class of people unfairly and still survive in business. It is in the interest of such corporations to maintain this asymmetry of information where they can know your salary and all your colleagues' salary but would discourage you from knowing your colleague salary.
If you think salary being private data is the obvious assumption, then think again, maybe you have been conditioned by years of employment in the private sector to believe that salary is private data. In many cultures and in many type of jobs, it is not considered private data.
If you think salary being private data is the obvious assumption, then think again, maybe you have been conditioned by years of employment in the private sector to believe that salary is private data. In many cultures and in many type of jobs, it is not considered private data.
> a corporation that can choose to pay a certain class of people unfairly
You can choose not to be part of that corporation.
You can choose not to be part of that corporation.
And how would you know you were being paid unfairly unless someone made their salary public?
That's the issue here. You could be working for a company and never know you're being grossly underpaid until Bob casually mentions his salary being 15-20k over yours despite joining at the same time.
That's the issue here. You could be working for a company and never know you're being grossly underpaid until Bob casually mentions his salary being 15-20k over yours despite joining at the same time.
Don't companies like Glassdoor solve this problem? You don't need to know everyone's salary as long as you know the average, median and maximum in a specific corporation in a geographical area.
I don't see how making everyone's salary public will help more than knowing the average/median etc.
I don't see how making everyone's salary public will help more than knowing the average/median etc.
Publishing a taxable income (not the source of this income) is surely not "government spying on you" because government needs those numbers anyway. You could maybe argue it's "corporations spying on you", but I think it's still far from being in the same league as tracking your mobile phone location or logging your web searches.
You can opt out of the latter, but not the former. Makes a big difference.
Fundamentally, it's about democratizing access to information - and about equal pay for equal work. An employer will always know how much every single employee makes - but in collective negotiations, it's nice to be able to see that people make roughly the same for similar positions. And to be able to see that the head of the union's negotiation team isn't given a massive pay bump (on the books) - possibly as an open bribe...
Coming from ex-communist country and now living in the democratic country which uses collective contracts for government workforce I am willing to argue there is nothing worse for economy (or at least quality of service) then collective contracts.
Not all people work the same or contribute the same, and they should not be paid the same.
What we have where I live is that people don't do anything and still get paid from my taxes just cos they were able to get collective contract signed. And all this leads to less effective government services.
(I am talking a government collective contracts as I am not sure that there are any in real sector)
Not all people work the same or contribute the same, and they should not be paid the same.
What we have where I live is that people don't do anything and still get paid from my taxes just cos they were able to get collective contract signed. And all this leads to less effective government services.
(I am talking a government collective contracts as I am not sure that there are any in real sector)
You believe making less would motivate people to work harder?
As far as I'm aware, research into wages as motivation indicate that high wages don't work well in motivating people who are otherwise unhappy with their work, but paying too low wages can demotivate people who are otherwise satisfied (high enough wages are a condition for job satisfaction, but not a "positive" motivator).
Another question is if you think that most hard worker will negotiate a good salary, or if you think good negotiators are more likely to do that? And if you think that being a good negotiator colleagues well with being a good nurse, teacher, cleaner etc?
It certainly could be that the hard workers you want to reward, are lifted more by collective bargaining, than the lazy ones?
As far as I'm aware, research into wages as motivation indicate that high wages don't work well in motivating people who are otherwise unhappy with their work, but paying too low wages can demotivate people who are otherwise satisfied (high enough wages are a condition for job satisfaction, but not a "positive" motivator).
Another question is if you think that most hard worker will negotiate a good salary, or if you think good negotiators are more likely to do that? And if you think that being a good negotiator colleagues well with being a good nurse, teacher, cleaner etc?
It certainly could be that the hard workers you want to reward, are lifted more by collective bargaining, than the lazy ones?
You believe making less would motivate people to work harder?
No, but I think people who perform worse at their jobs should be paid less the ones that do good job.
As far as I'm aware, research into wages as motivation indicate that high wages don't work well in motivating people who are otherwise unhappy with their work, but paying too low wages can demotivate people who are otherwise satisfied (high enough wages are a condition for job satisfaction, but not a "positive" motivator).
And collective agreement makes you pay everyone the same, so there is a possibility that satisfied worker will get less money then he feels he needs to get and demotivate him.
Secondly, I can only talk personally and anecdotally but knowing that we all earn same amount I would not be motivated to perform better either, and why should I?
And usually what happens with collective agreement is just what you said, good people get paid less bad people get paid more. So we get exactly the problem you described.
Another question is if you think that most hard worker will negotiate a good salary, or if you think good negotiators are more likely to do that? And if you think that being a good negotiator colleagues well with being a good nurse, teacher, cleaner etc?
It is a skill like any other, there will be good negotiators in any kind of work. If someone can get more money for their work by negotiating I don't see anything wrong with that, that is after all how the market works.
Question is how does the individual feel about that. I don't negotiate my salary and I am probably always on the low end and I don't care about it since I make good living. But then again my type of work is specific as I can quit when ever I want and find another job instantly and make that my negotiation tactic.
As a manager you would want to keep good nurses and cleaners and teacher around though and get rid of the bad ones, and one way of doing this is paying them differently even without negotiations.
It certainly could be that the hard workers you want to reward,
Of course, and this is what collective agreement hinders as everyone should be paid the same or nearly the same.
are lifted more by collective bargaining, than the lazy ones?
How so?
This depends so much on what work you do and how you do it and where.
I would argue, if the person in charge of what ever company or service we are talking about wants to keep good people around he will understand the logic behind paying them more then the ones that are lazy. Otherwise the company/service will suffer.
And this is the reason why collective agreements work so well in government as there are no penalties for having bad service, they are after all paid from public money instead of having to perform better to earn the money.
Private company with this approach would fail as it would not be able to provide good service.
Again, having to pay everyone the same will basically make lazy people lazier and better performing people unhappy.
Collective agreements are not just about salary but also about how you can get terminated from your job position. Usually it is very hard to let go of the low performance people. Which makes this a vicious circle of sucking the money out of the (usually) government.
No, but I think people who perform worse at their jobs should be paid less the ones that do good job.
As far as I'm aware, research into wages as motivation indicate that high wages don't work well in motivating people who are otherwise unhappy with their work, but paying too low wages can demotivate people who are otherwise satisfied (high enough wages are a condition for job satisfaction, but not a "positive" motivator).
And collective agreement makes you pay everyone the same, so there is a possibility that satisfied worker will get less money then he feels he needs to get and demotivate him.
Secondly, I can only talk personally and anecdotally but knowing that we all earn same amount I would not be motivated to perform better either, and why should I?
And usually what happens with collective agreement is just what you said, good people get paid less bad people get paid more. So we get exactly the problem you described.
Another question is if you think that most hard worker will negotiate a good salary, or if you think good negotiators are more likely to do that? And if you think that being a good negotiator colleagues well with being a good nurse, teacher, cleaner etc?
It is a skill like any other, there will be good negotiators in any kind of work. If someone can get more money for their work by negotiating I don't see anything wrong with that, that is after all how the market works.
Question is how does the individual feel about that. I don't negotiate my salary and I am probably always on the low end and I don't care about it since I make good living. But then again my type of work is specific as I can quit when ever I want and find another job instantly and make that my negotiation tactic.
As a manager you would want to keep good nurses and cleaners and teacher around though and get rid of the bad ones, and one way of doing this is paying them differently even without negotiations.
It certainly could be that the hard workers you want to reward,
Of course, and this is what collective agreement hinders as everyone should be paid the same or nearly the same.
are lifted more by collective bargaining, than the lazy ones?
How so?
This depends so much on what work you do and how you do it and where.
I would argue, if the person in charge of what ever company or service we are talking about wants to keep good people around he will understand the logic behind paying them more then the ones that are lazy. Otherwise the company/service will suffer.
And this is the reason why collective agreements work so well in government as there are no penalties for having bad service, they are after all paid from public money instead of having to perform better to earn the money.
Private company with this approach would fail as it would not be able to provide good service.
Again, having to pay everyone the same will basically make lazy people lazier and better performing people unhappy.
Collective agreements are not just about salary but also about how you can get terminated from your job position. Usually it is very hard to let go of the low performance people. Which makes this a vicious circle of sucking the money out of the (usually) government.
You should be able to negotiate a better (or worse) salary and there's nothing wrong about that.
Reminds me of Reddit banning salary negotiation because women were worse at negotiating.
Infantilisation of society...
Reminds me of Reddit banning salary negotiation because women were worse at negotiating.
Infantilisation of society...
It depends a bit on the market for labour. In Norway employers are organised to a higher degree than workers are in unions (IMNHO because business owners understand economics and will readily seek to strengthen their position and lower risk, while workers are more easily sold on the naive dream of individual success through "hard work"). But either way increaaed pay and better work conditions has largely been a result of collective bargaining and strikes. And most employers aren't free to simply give anyone any kind of benefits, because through their employer organisation they've already agreed to collective bargaining. Any employer is free to not organise - but like a worker without a union will most likely just put themselves in a poorer bargaining position.
As for highly individual compensation - that would (should) depend on being able to tell how much value a person brings in. And apart from sales, I don't know of many positions where there's a good way to measure that - especially if you try to consider the collective efficiency of a company. Is taking time out of your day to train new employees a net gain for the company? Should you be rewarded or punished if it is?
And there's the long time perspective to consider: should all workplaces cater to workers of all ages, and in life phases? Do you place different demands on an 18 year old, a 30 year old and a 60 year old worker?
As for highly individual compensation - that would (should) depend on being able to tell how much value a person brings in. And apart from sales, I don't know of many positions where there's a good way to measure that - especially if you try to consider the collective efficiency of a company. Is taking time out of your day to train new employees a net gain for the company? Should you be rewarded or punished if it is?
And there's the long time perspective to consider: should all workplaces cater to workers of all ages, and in life phases? Do you place different demands on an 18 year old, a 30 year old and a 60 year old worker?
How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff?
I think most folks are like you - aren't doing anything illegal that they know of and are pretty fair to folks. But the fact of the matter is that some folks aren't fair and are doing illegal things. And even more folks have hidden biases that affect how fairly they pay folks.
Being open about things is one way of trying to overcome that sort of thing.
The bright side is that most folks won't bother. Even fewer will do so if their name is going to be reported to the person they looked up. But by golly, if I were affected by one of those unfair folks, I'd look it up. And I'm guessing you would too, without considering that the unfair folks woudln't like that privacy invasion.
Since it helps those getting screwed over: No. I don't think it is your own business how much you earn.
I think most folks are like you - aren't doing anything illegal that they know of and are pretty fair to folks. But the fact of the matter is that some folks aren't fair and are doing illegal things. And even more folks have hidden biases that affect how fairly they pay folks.
Being open about things is one way of trying to overcome that sort of thing.
The bright side is that most folks won't bother. Even fewer will do so if their name is going to be reported to the person they looked up. But by golly, if I were affected by one of those unfair folks, I'd look it up. And I'm guessing you would too, without considering that the unfair folks woudln't like that privacy invasion.
Since it helps those getting screwed over: No. I don't think it is your own business how much you earn.
> How do you propose we figure out who is doing the illegal stuff?
So if you are saying that it is no my businesses how much I earn but of public interest to battle criminal, how is this different than saying that all cryptography should be banned cos terrorist use it to plan terror attacks?
So if you are saying that it is no my businesses how much I earn but of public interest to battle criminal, how is this different than saying that all cryptography should be banned cos terrorist use it to plan terror attacks?
It is not about how much you are earning, but how much taxes you are paying.
I agree. It's none of anyone's business what I make.
I'm pretty sure that someone is on GoDaddy at this moment registering dicksizedb.com
I think in Germany a large part why Salaries are secret is because most people don't want to think about it.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany
I cannot find anything supporting your argument under that link. Maybe add some quotes?
Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if they do not want to.
I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.
Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if they do not want to.
I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.
Many unions in Norway in the private sector (if not most) generate statistics based on information from their members regarding salary, education, experience and so on, so for me as a developer/sysop there really is no need to check what my colleagues are paid. I work at a place where everyone has a different background, so I don't expect the same pay for everyone. But I expect that I'm paid similar to others with the same responsibility, tasks, background, etc within the industry and geographical area.
It's just a guess that there is a connection between the difference of perceived wealth and actual wealth of a countries citizens and the secrecy around salaries.
If you earn right the median income , but think the actual median is much higher, you tend to not want to talk about your income because you are of low status, compared to everyone else who you expect to earn more.
If you earn right the median income , but think the actual median is much higher, you tend to not want to talk about your income because you are of low status, compared to everyone else who you expect to earn more.
Glassdoor?
I find the linked quora answer pretty confusing. It claims Germans are "taxed to death", but argues from the amount of poverty as defined relative to the median income. This doesn't say anything about overall wealth, but says a lot about income disparity. The poor are by definition not "most people".
I think it's somewhat amusing that I grew up with my single mother making less than the cited poverty threshold for one person, but still had a pretty good life without ever being short of money. She's been putting quite a lot aside for her retirement, too. I guess that goes to show how expectations can differ.
Did she own her own house?
No, we lived in social housing. Homeownership is generally much rarer in Germany than other countries (see also the Quora answer), but between social housing and rent controls, renting was quite affordable.
I think it's more common because employers succeeded in telling employees to not talk about how much they earn. I heard it several times that people got bonuses under the condition to net tell colleagues about it. This puts employees in a situation where also they can loose through wage transparency.
This is one of the things I want to see in the rest of Europe too. Still hope that we'll see a EU wide tax and commerce union leading into a unified system that includes the best from every EU member.
Also liking the sentiment that people want to have some kind of confirmation that everyone pays a similar level of taxes :-)
Also liking the sentiment that people want to have some kind of confirmation that everyone pays a similar level of taxes :-)
Would it not be more likely that we Scandinavians would have to use the mainstream system? I'm not Norwegian, but my nation Sweden does this similarly.
If we accept giving our internal revenue services to the EU, I very much doubt that we will be able to keep this sort of thing, such as the principle of things being public (sv: offentlighetsprincipen).
For reasons like this (giving up what is unique about our culture for the mainstream continental one) I can't help but be sceptic of further involvement with European political unity, and am anticipating that Brits of 10 years from now will be satisfied with their decision to leave.
If we accept giving our internal revenue services to the EU, I very much doubt that we will be able to keep this sort of thing, such as the principle of things being public (sv: offentlighetsprincipen).
For reasons like this (giving up what is unique about our culture for the mainstream continental one) I can't help but be sceptic of further involvement with European political unity, and am anticipating that Brits of 10 years from now will be satisfied with their decision to leave.
Of course salaries shouldn't be secret - everything like this should be in the open and you should be able to talk directly to your boss about contributions to the company that you have made over and above those who are earning more than you. This also helps when in most societies women are paid substantially and illegally less than men for the same job.
This prudish idea of not wanting to talk about money is not a good enough one to stop people from being able to value themselves against their peers. After an initial period of concern everyone would eventually stop worrying about this system as disparities were corrected and fairer wages were introduced.
Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
This prudish idea of not wanting to talk about money is not a good enough one to stop people from being able to value themselves against their peers. After an initial period of concern everyone would eventually stop worrying about this system as disparities were corrected and fairer wages were introduced.
Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
Sorry, don't agree. It is bad for negotiation and getting a favourable outcome for yourself. Unless you actually want everyone in a society to make close to the same amount of money (which is how they roll in Norway, and if you dare make more, they'll basically just tax it away), which I don't think is great, I'd much rather not have anything be public.
In fact, I would never want to live in a country like that.
The people that want to figure out how much others are making can figure it out. From a negotiating position, you're much better off not having your salary be public, than the other way around.
Also, you want to have some inequality in western society (not crazy amounts -- basic needs of everyone should be met), because it motivates people to achieve things. If there's no reasonable reward waiting for you at the end, why even bother?
Norway has high income taxes, high capital gains taxes, wealth taxes, crazy taxes on (luxury) cars, high VAT, high taxes on alcohol, etc. Where's the reward? The warm fuzzy feeling you get from working hard? Hell, where's the fun? I don't see how one could ever be an entrepreneur there. Even if you win, you eventually lose (wealth tax), unless you move away.
In fact, I would never want to live in a country like that.
The people that want to figure out how much others are making can figure it out. From a negotiating position, you're much better off not having your salary be public, than the other way around.
Also, you want to have some inequality in western society (not crazy amounts -- basic needs of everyone should be met), because it motivates people to achieve things. If there's no reasonable reward waiting for you at the end, why even bother?
Norway has high income taxes, high capital gains taxes, wealth taxes, crazy taxes on (luxury) cars, high VAT, high taxes on alcohol, etc. Where's the reward? The warm fuzzy feeling you get from working hard? Hell, where's the fun? I don't see how one could ever be an entrepreneur there. Even if you win, you eventually lose (wealth tax), unless you move away.
Nevertheless, Norway have entrepreneurs and people getting rich, and overall it is a very wealthy country. I believe the social mobility is better then in the US. So I guess some of you assumptions must be wrong.
There is no reward in working hard. Better keep that time for you and your family.
You can work hard for 5 years, make a killing, and never work again. You need to give the people that are interested in that at least the choice.
A lottery ticket is still a lottery ticket, whether you acquire it at a gas station or though your options agreement.
Don't advocate for damaging the fabric of society where everyone should struggle for some Libertarian fantasy that anyone can be fantastically wealthy with enough grit; it's mostly luck.
Don't advocate for damaging the fabric of society where everyone should struggle for some Libertarian fantasy that anyone can be fantastically wealthy with enough grit; it's mostly luck.
>> It is bad for negotiation and getting a favourable outcome for yourself
Sooo, your main argument against this is not some privacy concern, but only the perception that it would somehow help your salary negotiation. When relying on a lack of data/information, the only one that gets increased leverage is your employer, not you and your smart argument of "you just don't need to tell the others, boss <wink>".
>> which is how they roll in Norway, and if you dare make more, they'll basically just tax it away
Norway's tax rate is on par with other Nordic countries: high but nothing exceptional, and you get plenty of benefits (basically you get what you paid for). It's not stopping anybody from trying to make it. As a matter of fact they have one of the highest rate of millionaires per inhabitant (close to 200k for 5M).
Sooo, your main argument against this is not some privacy concern, but only the perception that it would somehow help your salary negotiation. When relying on a lack of data/information, the only one that gets increased leverage is your employer, not you and your smart argument of "you just don't need to tell the others, boss <wink>".
>> which is how they roll in Norway, and if you dare make more, they'll basically just tax it away
Norway's tax rate is on par with other Nordic countries: high but nothing exceptional, and you get plenty of benefits (basically you get what you paid for). It's not stopping anybody from trying to make it. As a matter of fact they have one of the highest rate of millionaires per inhabitant (close to 200k for 5M).
You can share salary data with your peers if you wish to do so and you think its in your best interest. Norway is largely a socialist society and they accept being heavily taxed and publicly sharing salary data. Taxes are on par with Denmark, Sweeden and maybe Finland. English/US culture is different and more capitalist. It encourages individuals to do better for themselves, it encourages competition, just like in nature.
They have the highest millionaire rate per inhabitant mainly because it doesn't have many inhabitants and it's an oil rich country.
They have the highest millionaire rate per inhabitant mainly because it doesn't have many inhabitants and it's an oil rich country.
Norway a socialist society.
Sometimes I feel that every place with even minimal welfare is bound to be defined a socialist country, eventually. By that logic, Trump could be a fascist, Renzi is a commie, and so on.
Sometimes I feel that every place with even minimal welfare is bound to be defined a socialist country, eventually. By that logic, Trump could be a fascist, Renzi is a commie, and so on.
It's actually the amount of state control vs. free market forces that defines if a country/society is more socialist or rather more capitalist. Look at France and the UK for instance.
The US is not such a good example because big companies and lobby groups are actually in control, just like the state is in China.
The US is not such a good example because big companies and lobby groups are actually in control, just like the state is in China.
> It's actually the amount of state control vs. free market forces that defines if a country/society is more socialist or rather more capitalist. Look at France and the UK for instance.
Are you suggesting that the UK is or is not socialist?
Are you suggesting that the UK is or is not socialist?
I think basic welfare and good free healthcare are basic human rights. But tax-wise, Norway is about as bad as it gets. And I am obviously aware those services need to be paid for, but a lot of it has to do with policy as well.
It's probably a decent tradeoff for the average Norwegian, but not for anyone who wishes to (eventually) live off of investment and/or (semi) passive income.
A lot of these taxes don't serve any purpose (and generate very little revenue) and merely exist to stop or limit certain behaviors. Why are luxury cars taxed a lot? They don't want people to drive a Porsche or an Aston Martin, because some people would feel bad they can't afford those cars. Why is alcohol taxed excessively? They don't want people to drink (too much). Why is there a wealth tax? They don't want people to focus on getting rich. Etc
One simple example is a wealth tax: hard to verify whether people are reporting their true net worth, hard to enforce (takes a lot of manpower to check everything), and it brings in very little. In France, the wealth tax barely covers the cost of enforcing it. That's a policy decision, i.e. we want wealthy people to pay X% of extra tax. But it's not a sane decision.
It's probably a decent tradeoff for the average Norwegian, but not for anyone who wishes to (eventually) live off of investment and/or (semi) passive income.
A lot of these taxes don't serve any purpose (and generate very little revenue) and merely exist to stop or limit certain behaviors. Why are luxury cars taxed a lot? They don't want people to drive a Porsche or an Aston Martin, because some people would feel bad they can't afford those cars. Why is alcohol taxed excessively? They don't want people to drink (too much). Why is there a wealth tax? They don't want people to focus on getting rich. Etc
One simple example is a wealth tax: hard to verify whether people are reporting their true net worth, hard to enforce (takes a lot of manpower to check everything), and it brings in very little. In France, the wealth tax barely covers the cost of enforcing it. That's a policy decision, i.e. we want wealthy people to pay X% of extra tax. But it's not a sane decision.
As a Norwegian that aspires to eventually live off investments and passive income, you do have some salient points. We could probably have a significantly cheaper public sector; hiring for the public sector during the last decade has been ridiculous. Counter-cyclical spending during times of economic crisis should not be performed by hiring people for permanent positions with some of the strongest labor protections in the world; you'll never get rid of the expense when the cycle turns back.
And don't get me started on the wealth tax; it's a good and probably necessary idea in the long-term, but here it's both (1) too high; at 1% p.a. it's in effect an extra 25% capital gains tax on top of the 29% which is taxed directly, and (2) assets that "everyone" own (real estate) are only taxed at 25% of their market value. And debt is deducted at its full value! Buy a million dollar home borrowing $250k, and you pay no wealth tax at all! So you are allowed to be a real estate millionaire (and receive tax-free income on rent from your primary residence), but not a stock fund millionaire.
To everyone's big surprise, real estate has appreciated much faster than other assets (20% in Oslo last year), mostly evening out the post-tax advantage over other assets.
The tax on investment income was recently reduced by three percentage points to make the system more similar to other parts of the EEC, but a multiplicative factor was introduced when calculating the "taxable value" for stocks and funds, in effect increasing the tax by two percentage points. I never quite understood this move.
I am proud of our universal healthcare system and our welfare system -- in effect it's a means-tested basic income system; no one starves or freezes -- but some tax policies feel really oppressive if you are trying to do something ambitious.
And don't get me started on the wealth tax; it's a good and probably necessary idea in the long-term, but here it's both (1) too high; at 1% p.a. it's in effect an extra 25% capital gains tax on top of the 29% which is taxed directly, and (2) assets that "everyone" own (real estate) are only taxed at 25% of their market value. And debt is deducted at its full value! Buy a million dollar home borrowing $250k, and you pay no wealth tax at all! So you are allowed to be a real estate millionaire (and receive tax-free income on rent from your primary residence), but not a stock fund millionaire.
To everyone's big surprise, real estate has appreciated much faster than other assets (20% in Oslo last year), mostly evening out the post-tax advantage over other assets.
The tax on investment income was recently reduced by three percentage points to make the system more similar to other parts of the EEC, but a multiplicative factor was introduced when calculating the "taxable value" for stocks and funds, in effect increasing the tax by two percentage points. I never quite understood this move.
I am proud of our universal healthcare system and our welfare system -- in effect it's a means-tested basic income system; no one starves or freezes -- but some tax policies feel really oppressive if you are trying to do something ambitious.
Very nice example, and you can clearly see how market distorting the wealth tax is. In a post below you wrote it triggers from $175k, but the value of a property is only counted at 25%.
Purchasing property is essentially a tax avoidance mechanism to avoid the wealth tax on cash, and in turn leads to a massive property bubble (probably because the wealth tax cap is relatively low, and it hits a lot of people / families).
Even if you don't really want to invest in property, it makes sense to do so, because otherwise you'd just be paying wealth tax. Add to that that you can probably lever it up easily (e.g. buy something with 20% down) and.. you get a recipe for disaster at some point.
Purchasing property is essentially a tax avoidance mechanism to avoid the wealth tax on cash, and in turn leads to a massive property bubble (probably because the wealth tax cap is relatively low, and it hits a lot of people / families).
Even if you don't really want to invest in property, it makes sense to do so, because otherwise you'd just be paying wealth tax. Add to that that you can probably lever it up easily (e.g. buy something with 20% down) and.. you get a recipe for disaster at some point.
Yup, this sums it up nicely.
I wouldn't drive a Porsche or Aston Martin in Norway during winter. I'd drive it in Monte Carlo.
Alcohol is probably taxed because during a six month winter with 16 hours of darkness just about anyone and their mothers would develop chronic alcoholism.
Of course a wealth tax brings very little because anyone wealthy enough would move their assets to other countries with lower wealth taxes. Tax the rich is just an excuse to tax everyone else.
Alcohol is probably taxed because during a six month winter with 16 hours of darkness just about anyone and their mothers would develop chronic alcoholism.
Of course a wealth tax brings very little because anyone wealthy enough would move their assets to other countries with lower wealth taxes. Tax the rich is just an excuse to tax everyone else.
> Norway a socialist society.
This is literally false. Socialism entails worker ownership of the means of production. Norway is a social democracy, not a Socialist society. It's worth remembering that in Marx's time, Socialism and Communism were synonymous.
This is literally false. Socialism entails worker ownership of the means of production. Norway is a social democracy, not a Socialist society. It's worth remembering that in Marx's time, Socialism and Communism were synonymous.
It is socialism to the extent that the means of production is in fact largely publicly owned- or rather than owned, the fruits thereof is publicly redistributed via taxation.
This definition would fit nearly all so call capitalist economies too, which shows wr have VERY FEW purely capitalistic as well as purely socialist economies, although thr latter do exist more frequently in history and a few crazy places.
This definition would fit nearly all so call capitalist economies too, which shows wr have VERY FEW purely capitalistic as well as purely socialist economies, although thr latter do exist more frequently in history and a few crazy places.
>It encourages individuals to do better for themselves, it encourages competition, just like in nature.
Oscar Wilde argued that Socialism is what would push individuals to do better for themselves individually.
Further, if you're interested in the "nature" argument, Russian anarchist philosopher Kropotkin has written about it in The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid, in which he dismisses these ad natura arguments.
Oscar Wilde argued that Socialism is what would push individuals to do better for themselves individually.
Further, if you're interested in the "nature" argument, Russian anarchist philosopher Kropotkin has written about it in The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid, in which he dismisses these ad natura arguments.
> it encourages competition, just like in nature.
you know that cooperation occurs in nature too?
you know that cooperation occurs in nature too?
Yes and so does in capitalism. Some forms of cooperation are having a distribution chain for your products; other forms are called price fixing. The difference is that in capitalism cooperation occurs naturaly while in socialist societies it's largely state regulated.
Is there any evidence for this? Some prominent Socialists would disagree with you, especially anarchist ones, such as Bakunin, Kropotkin and probably even Marx and Engels themselves.
Are taxes in general anti-capitalist? Is publishing salaries anti-capitalist? When I think of anti-capitalism, I think of government owned entities, government backed (directly, or via regulation) industries, and things like tariffs. I know Norway qualifies as socialist for other reasons, but i don't see high income taxes as a stand-alone reason. Is that a reasonable argument?
> It encourages individuals to do better for themselves, it encourages competition, just like in nature.
Nature is savage and cruel. I think there are better arguments to be had in favor of capitalism.
> It encourages individuals to do better for themselves, it encourages competition, just like in nature.
Nature is savage and cruel. I think there are better arguments to be had in favor of capitalism.
> it encourages competition, just like in nature
Where the vast vast majority of creatures are either predated or die of hunger.
Arguments that depends on replicating evolution, socially, are either naive or highly morally dubious. Eugenics would, of course, lead to more populations with more 'desirable' traits: healthier and more productive, on average. That doesn't stop it being repugnant. Economic eugenics in the service of higher GDP is no better.
Where the vast vast majority of creatures are either predated or die of hunger.
Arguments that depends on replicating evolution, socially, are either naive or highly morally dubious. Eugenics would, of course, lead to more populations with more 'desirable' traits: healthier and more productive, on average. That doesn't stop it being repugnant. Economic eugenics in the service of higher GDP is no better.
> Economic eugenics in the service of higher GDP is no better.
I have no sense of a difference between economic eugenics and capitalism; I'm too ignorant of econ theory to tell if this is a feature or a bug.
I have no sense of a difference between economic eugenics and capitalism; I'm too ignorant of econ theory to tell if this is a feature or a bug.
>> When relying on a lack of data/information, the only one that gets increased leverage is your employer, not you and your smart argument of "you just don't need to tell the others, boss <wink>".
This makes no sense. Why wouldn't you be able to figure out how much others are making? There's plenty of data you can gather, online and from talking to people. Just because data is not public doesn't mean no one is willing to share how much they're making.
If I'm making $50k, and I tell a new company I want $100k at a new job, there is no way that will fly if they know you're making $50k. But with opacity on salary, proper arguments and decent negotiating skills that is definitely achievable.
One example: as a consultant, I have (in the past) easily doubled and/or tripled my rate at times, just based on the setting and by negotiating well. That would never work if everything was public. And in the end, the client was extremely happy with the result + I was happy with the (way above average) increased rate.
>> Norway's tax rate is on par with other Nordic countries: high but nothing exceptional, and you get plenty of benefits (basically you get what you paid for). It's not stopping anybody from trying to make it. As a matter of fact they have one of the highest rate of millionaires per inhabitant (close to 200k for 5M).
Perhaps. But that's also because of the problematic real estate bubble in Norway and Oslo. In a country where everything is highly taxed, certain asset classes (in this case real estate) get distorted if they are taxed lower.
Add to that the reserves in their sovereign wealth fund, and you end up with many millionaires.
There's a reason why Tesla was selling a ton of cars in Denmark, and sales plummeted (down from a few hundred to 6 of 8 cars in 6 months?) when they got rid of the tax credit.
Benefits and healthcare are great and important -- I'm not saying you need super low taxes. What I'm saying is, if you don't specifically need to be in Norway to build out your business, e.g. it's something internet based, there are better countries to base yourself.
Norway is a great country to visit though. I (personally) just couldn't live there, because I don't think the model of such a society would work for me. It's great to be able to have a bottle of wine with friends in a restaurant, without having to pay €300 for your meal + drinks in an average restaurant.
This makes no sense. Why wouldn't you be able to figure out how much others are making? There's plenty of data you can gather, online and from talking to people. Just because data is not public doesn't mean no one is willing to share how much they're making.
If I'm making $50k, and I tell a new company I want $100k at a new job, there is no way that will fly if they know you're making $50k. But with opacity on salary, proper arguments and decent negotiating skills that is definitely achievable.
One example: as a consultant, I have (in the past) easily doubled and/or tripled my rate at times, just based on the setting and by negotiating well. That would never work if everything was public. And in the end, the client was extremely happy with the result + I was happy with the (way above average) increased rate.
>> Norway's tax rate is on par with other Nordic countries: high but nothing exceptional, and you get plenty of benefits (basically you get what you paid for). It's not stopping anybody from trying to make it. As a matter of fact they have one of the highest rate of millionaires per inhabitant (close to 200k for 5M).
Perhaps. But that's also because of the problematic real estate bubble in Norway and Oslo. In a country where everything is highly taxed, certain asset classes (in this case real estate) get distorted if they are taxed lower.
Add to that the reserves in their sovereign wealth fund, and you end up with many millionaires.
There's a reason why Tesla was selling a ton of cars in Denmark, and sales plummeted (down from a few hundred to 6 of 8 cars in 6 months?) when they got rid of the tax credit.
Benefits and healthcare are great and important -- I'm not saying you need super low taxes. What I'm saying is, if you don't specifically need to be in Norway to build out your business, e.g. it's something internet based, there are better countries to base yourself.
Norway is a great country to visit though. I (personally) just couldn't live there, because I don't think the model of such a society would work for me. It's great to be able to have a bottle of wine with friends in a restaurant, without having to pay €300 for your meal + drinks in an average restaurant.
I think your prediction of how things would play out is just wrong.
Employers usually have an HR team that is dedicated to knowing what the labor market looks like. They may not know exactly your previous salary, but they keep very up to date tabs on industry trends. They also know exactly how their current human resources are paid.
You know nothing except your past salary. They have more cards than you do.
Public salary means they know your past salary, but it also means you know what they pay their current employees, and can negotiate accordingly.
The only way this is not beneficial to any given employee is if they think they are a huge positive outlier.
edit bc hn limits me if I post like 3 times in short succession:
I don't think you understand the public policy implications of this.
The vast, vast majority of people aren't negotiating 20k increases. And people who are negotiating far more, like CEOs, do fine even with public information out there.
The equation here is one of giving employees more bargaining power over employers. An insignificant proportion of employees currently benefit from secrecy, and many of them aren't even sure they benefit, they just suspect they do.
If it's all "rounding errors", as you say, consider how this alters the dynamics between you and your bosses, not only between you and your peers.
Employers usually have an HR team that is dedicated to knowing what the labor market looks like. They may not know exactly your previous salary, but they keep very up to date tabs on industry trends. They also know exactly how their current human resources are paid.
You know nothing except your past salary. They have more cards than you do.
Public salary means they know your past salary, but it also means you know what they pay their current employees, and can negotiate accordingly.
The only way this is not beneficial to any given employee is if they think they are a huge positive outlier.
edit bc hn limits me if I post like 3 times in short succession:
I don't think you understand the public policy implications of this.
The vast, vast majority of people aren't negotiating 20k increases. And people who are negotiating far more, like CEOs, do fine even with public information out there.
The equation here is one of giving employees more bargaining power over employers. An insignificant proportion of employees currently benefit from secrecy, and many of them aren't even sure they benefit, they just suspect they do.
If it's all "rounding errors", as you say, consider how this alters the dynamics between you and your bosses, not only between you and your peers.
I think your prediction of how things would play out is just wrong.
Employers usually have an HR team that is dedicated to knowing what the labor market looks like. They may not know exactly your previous salary, but they keep very up to date tabs on industry trends. They also know exactly how their current human resources are paid.
Hm? It's correct in my experience. People can get massive raises on the order of 50% or more just by keeping quiet about their past salary.
If they pull some "We need an answer in order to move forward with the job" nonsense on you, tell them your past salary was $1.
Employers usually have an HR team that is dedicated to knowing what the labor market looks like. They may not know exactly your previous salary, but they keep very up to date tabs on industry trends. They also know exactly how their current human resources are paid.
Hm? It's correct in my experience. People can get massive raises on the order of 50% or more just by keeping quiet about their past salary.
If they pull some "We need an answer in order to move forward with the job" nonsense on you, tell them your past salary was $1.
I'm not questioning whether you can get a raise.
I'm questioning whether this raise will usually immediately make you the best paid person on your new team.
I'm questioning whether this raise will usually immediately make you the best paid person on your new team.
Is it hard to believe that the new team's salary fluctuates by as much as $50k solely due to negotiation?
If a company wants someone, and that someone doesn't want to go, negotiation and salary fluctuation is what happens. I think $50k is on the low side of what the disparities could end up being. (See the recent craze of poaching AI talent.)
If a company wants someone, and that someone doesn't want to go, negotiation and salary fluctuation is what happens. I think $50k is on the low side of what the disparities could end up being. (See the recent craze of poaching AI talent.)
There's a reason why it's called "a craze".
I'm being hired for my software skills, not my negotiation skills. The fact that negotiation is so important is cargo culting from business-types who benefit from it.
(I happen to be quite savvy at negotiation, but I've seen many shy people exploited because they're not as cocky as me).
More to the point,
1) If my team was hiring a new guy with skills indistinct from mine for 50k extra, and I found out about it, I'd ask for a raise. If they refused, I'd quit on the spot.
2) If the skills are indeed a whole class above mine, they'll probably have a different title, and it's much less of my concern (I wouldn't call it "a fluctuation among members in my team").
Information may not always make things better, but it always -- no exceptions -- makes a market more efficient.
Moreover, stop focusing on two team members fighting against each other. The big prize here is employees finding out how much their bosses make, especially when it comes to "tightening belt" periods. I don't honestly care if Jeff-next-door is getting 20k extra because he plead for his newborn, but I absolutely care if my salary gets frozen and my boss gets a bonus.
Opponents to salary transparency are basically arguing for an inefficiency that favors higher-ups, preying on the ignorance of less resourceful subordinates.
I'm being hired for my software skills, not my negotiation skills. The fact that negotiation is so important is cargo culting from business-types who benefit from it.
(I happen to be quite savvy at negotiation, but I've seen many shy people exploited because they're not as cocky as me).
More to the point,
1) If my team was hiring a new guy with skills indistinct from mine for 50k extra, and I found out about it, I'd ask for a raise. If they refused, I'd quit on the spot.
2) If the skills are indeed a whole class above mine, they'll probably have a different title, and it's much less of my concern (I wouldn't call it "a fluctuation among members in my team").
Information may not always make things better, but it always -- no exceptions -- makes a market more efficient.
Moreover, stop focusing on two team members fighting against each other. The big prize here is employees finding out how much their bosses make, especially when it comes to "tightening belt" periods. I don't honestly care if Jeff-next-door is getting 20k extra because he plead for his newborn, but I absolutely care if my salary gets frozen and my boss gets a bonus.
Opponents to salary transparency are basically arguing for an inefficiency that favors higher-ups, preying on the ignorance of less resourceful subordinates.
So what you're saying is that there basically is no room for negotiation, because it would deviate too much from the standard scale? e.g. a company needs someone for X, and will fix pay around €XX,000.
At any big company, you need to make sure they want to hire you first. Once you have done that, pay becomes irrelevant because mentally they have already hired you. It's a rounding error on a budget. And it often is not even their own budget.
You would be surprised at how easy it is to negotiate a €20k salary increase by just saying: I'd love to work here, but we need to figure out a salary range that works for both. And if they lowball you (which they probably will), you just counter and take it from there.
At any big company, you need to make sure they want to hire you first. Once you have done that, pay becomes irrelevant because mentally they have already hired you. It's a rounding error on a budget. And it often is not even their own budget.
You would be surprised at how easy it is to negotiate a €20k salary increase by just saying: I'd love to work here, but we need to figure out a salary range that works for both. And if they lowball you (which they probably will), you just counter and take it from there.
There's another scenario that is becoming more common, especially in the company where I work: Changing countries by changing jobs. The markets are dramatically different so any salary comparison makes no sense. Instead you have to compare level and experience, which is what we should be basing salary decisions on in the first place.
> It is bad for negotiation and getting a favourable outcome for yourself.
This means that you believe that you are stronger by negotiating alone just for yourself rather than collectively negotiating as a group of people? How can this work without you winning being to the detriment of others?
I know that a lot of people think like you, but I strongly believe that you are wrong. Historically, the individualization of the negotiations between employees and employers is always to the benefit of the employers, not the employees. The negotiation of one's salary is not an equal to equal negotiation, at least as long as there are unemployed people and the society we live in requires people to be employed to live decently.
This is exactly why people in France were against the "loi travail" of the previous government, and still are against that of the current government: because one of the main objective of these laws is to inverse the hierarchy of norms. This hierarchy stipulates that the labor legal code is above sector/industry-specific agreements which are above individual contracts. This means that a contract can only be enforced if it is more favorable to the employee than their sector's agreements which in turn are only enforceable if they are more favorable to employees that the labor legal code. This is how you can enforce a nation-wide minimum salary for example, or any other social rights for that matter (good social security, good retirement plans, etc.).
> I would never want to live in a country like that.
Having some close family living in Norway I can assure you that you are very mislead about how people live there. You know, there are other incentive to work hard than money. Happiness is not measurable with money for everyone, and working hard is not necessarily one's life ideal :).
This means that you believe that you are stronger by negotiating alone just for yourself rather than collectively negotiating as a group of people? How can this work without you winning being to the detriment of others?
I know that a lot of people think like you, but I strongly believe that you are wrong. Historically, the individualization of the negotiations between employees and employers is always to the benefit of the employers, not the employees. The negotiation of one's salary is not an equal to equal negotiation, at least as long as there are unemployed people and the society we live in requires people to be employed to live decently.
This is exactly why people in France were against the "loi travail" of the previous government, and still are against that of the current government: because one of the main objective of these laws is to inverse the hierarchy of norms. This hierarchy stipulates that the labor legal code is above sector/industry-specific agreements which are above individual contracts. This means that a contract can only be enforced if it is more favorable to the employee than their sector's agreements which in turn are only enforceable if they are more favorable to employees that the labor legal code. This is how you can enforce a nation-wide minimum salary for example, or any other social rights for that matter (good social security, good retirement plans, etc.).
> I would never want to live in a country like that.
Having some close family living in Norway I can assure you that you are very mislead about how people live there. You know, there are other incentive to work hard than money. Happiness is not measurable with money for everyone, and working hard is not necessarily one's life ideal :).
What I believe he's saying is this (charlesdm correct me if I'm wrong):
- Management values Alice 100 (by values I mean - we're willing to pay at most that much to keep her)
- Management values Bob, Fob and Gob 50 each
- Bob, Fob and Gob realize Alice is more valuable, but they don't think she is 2x more valuable
If you've worked in development you likely know that difference in value of developers can be massive, but the ones with less value usually don't perceive themselves as being THAT much less valuable and would have a problem with someone they consider a peer being paid 2x their salary, that's just how things are.
If they all negotiate separately in secret, Alice can get her 100. But if salaries are public, management knows Bob, Fob and Gob will be resentful if Alice gets 100. So a new effect is introduced: the cost of giving Alice 100 is no longer simply 100, it is 100 + the cost of making Bob, Fob and Gob unsatisfied, introducing drama and perhaps them not being willing to work for 50.
So what might happen is:
- They will pay Alice 85
- They will pay Bob, Fob and Gob 55
At first glance this might seem like it doesn't make sense, and that it would be economically irrational for the employer to pay Bob, Fob and Gob more than their perceived value. But this additional 3*5 is actually the price of giving Alice more money to keep her without causing drama. Alice is still effectively costing the employer 100, it just doesn't all go to her. Alice should be rationally paid at most the amount 100-3x at which the satisfaction of the other 3 employees with their pay being 50+x instead of 50 balances out their dissatisfaction with Alice being paid more at 100-3x. Alice is basically causing the cost of other employees to grow and has to pay for this. As long as the company is paying Alice 85, the cost of a 50-employee is raised to 55, making Alice effectively cost 100 with 3 other employees.
In reality, 85 might be 90 and 55 might be 60 because the additional information the employees now have gives them a stronger overall negotiating position, so the average salary level would likely go up. But I believe Alice would still end up "subsidizing" Bob, Fob and Gob. It would be dishonest to claim that the effect I wrote in italics does not exist.
I believe the effect of public salaries, all else equal, would be to move the average a bit up, but also greatly lower the variance.
And just so that this isn't purely hypothetical: at my first job, they refused to pay me more than a certain amount because some employees who had been there much longer were being paid that amount. I was literally told this, and my boss even acted like I was somehow being a dick for not agreeing to that number and quitting over this. They had no problems giving me that number but let me quit rather than go over that number. So in reality, an even worse case happens than the one described above, because they either didn't consider the option of giving me less than I was worth and distributing the difference or they thought they couldn't afford me long-term anyway, and if they did what I described above they would just end up stuck with those raises they gave to others (these people were "lifers") after I eventually left.
So in effect, to have any chance of being paid more in line with what I was worth, I had to quit and move to a different company, even though the first company did realize my value, it is just that because of the effect I described, the cost of paying me what I was worth would have been much higher than just the amount of my salary. They acted rationally in insisting on underpaying me.
This issue doesn't exist with secret salaries.
- Management values Alice 100 (by values I mean - we're willing to pay at most that much to keep her)
- Management values Bob, Fob and Gob 50 each
- Bob, Fob and Gob realize Alice is more valuable, but they don't think she is 2x more valuable
If you've worked in development you likely know that difference in value of developers can be massive, but the ones with less value usually don't perceive themselves as being THAT much less valuable and would have a problem with someone they consider a peer being paid 2x their salary, that's just how things are.
If they all negotiate separately in secret, Alice can get her 100. But if salaries are public, management knows Bob, Fob and Gob will be resentful if Alice gets 100. So a new effect is introduced: the cost of giving Alice 100 is no longer simply 100, it is 100 + the cost of making Bob, Fob and Gob unsatisfied, introducing drama and perhaps them not being willing to work for 50.
So what might happen is:
- They will pay Alice 85
- They will pay Bob, Fob and Gob 55
At first glance this might seem like it doesn't make sense, and that it would be economically irrational for the employer to pay Bob, Fob and Gob more than their perceived value. But this additional 3*5 is actually the price of giving Alice more money to keep her without causing drama. Alice is still effectively costing the employer 100, it just doesn't all go to her. Alice should be rationally paid at most the amount 100-3x at which the satisfaction of the other 3 employees with their pay being 50+x instead of 50 balances out their dissatisfaction with Alice being paid more at 100-3x. Alice is basically causing the cost of other employees to grow and has to pay for this. As long as the company is paying Alice 85, the cost of a 50-employee is raised to 55, making Alice effectively cost 100 with 3 other employees.
In reality, 85 might be 90 and 55 might be 60 because the additional information the employees now have gives them a stronger overall negotiating position, so the average salary level would likely go up. But I believe Alice would still end up "subsidizing" Bob, Fob and Gob. It would be dishonest to claim that the effect I wrote in italics does not exist.
I believe the effect of public salaries, all else equal, would be to move the average a bit up, but also greatly lower the variance.
And just so that this isn't purely hypothetical: at my first job, they refused to pay me more than a certain amount because some employees who had been there much longer were being paid that amount. I was literally told this, and my boss even acted like I was somehow being a dick for not agreeing to that number and quitting over this. They had no problems giving me that number but let me quit rather than go over that number. So in reality, an even worse case happens than the one described above, because they either didn't consider the option of giving me less than I was worth and distributing the difference or they thought they couldn't afford me long-term anyway, and if they did what I described above they would just end up stuck with those raises they gave to others (these people were "lifers") after I eventually left.
So in effect, to have any chance of being paid more in line with what I was worth, I had to quit and move to a different company, even though the first company did realize my value, it is just that because of the effect I described, the cost of paying me what I was worth would have been much higher than just the amount of my salary. They acted rationally in insisting on underpaying me.
This issue doesn't exist with secret salaries.
> If you've worked in development you likely know that difference in value of developers can be massive, but the ones with less value usually don't perceive themselves as being THAT much less valuable and would have a problem with someone they consider a peer being paid 2x their salary, that's just how things are.
This is a great comment. Pro sports is an example where knowing salaries is fine because there are a lot of objective measures of talent. People generally know where they fall in the order.
This is a great comment. Pro sports is an example where knowing salaries is fine because there are a lot of objective measures of talent. People generally know where they fall in the order.
> Pro sports is an example where knowing salaries is fine because there are a lot of objective measures of talent.
I would argue that although recent advances have made this possible, it is generally not the dominant mechanism.
Simply I think even with the hard data showing exactly what each team member did, it is still a long leap to valuation. Contribution is still hard to identify in any team sport, even if you know what everyone actually did.
When it does come to valuation, there's a major problem. New entrants have some data to support their value, but they have not been tried in the same pool as veterans. This will most likely lead to the new entrants coming at a discount, as managers will be risk-averse. Or call it model-conservative, since they objectively don't have the data.
I would argue that although recent advances have made this possible, it is generally not the dominant mechanism.
Simply I think even with the hard data showing exactly what each team member did, it is still a long leap to valuation. Contribution is still hard to identify in any team sport, even if you know what everyone actually did.
When it does come to valuation, there's a major problem. New entrants have some data to support their value, but they have not been tried in the same pool as veterans. This will most likely lead to the new entrants coming at a discount, as managers will be risk-averse. Or call it model-conservative, since they objectively don't have the data.
Good points. I guess I was thinking along the lines of a Kerr and Jordan. In no world would Kerr argue that Jordan should not have been paid more than he does. Jordan is clearly the player who carries the team.
But, I could see it become more challenging at the mid-level or when on teams with a 1a, 1b type of dynamic.
But, I could see it become more challenging at the mid-level or when on teams with a 1a, 1b type of dynamic.
So I moved to a development hub, coming from a low paying country, and because of that I received a 0.5 X salary, where X is what I believe my value to be.
Naturally, I was highly unsatisfied, so I started looking around. Eventually I passed a couple of interviews and requested 0.7 X, hoping to gradually get to my true valuation.
But in a big surprise, a very well known company actually gave me 1.0 X, even if I only requested 0.7 X, them saying that they have this internal system where they try to match salaries based on their perceived value, and not on you negotiating position.
Let us not forget that most developers are very bad at negotiating salaries.
Secret salaries are highly asymmetric, because they are only secret to one party. So as all asymmetric information, it will be exploited for benefit.
Naturally, I was highly unsatisfied, so I started looking around. Eventually I passed a couple of interviews and requested 0.7 X, hoping to gradually get to my true valuation.
But in a big surprise, a very well known company actually gave me 1.0 X, even if I only requested 0.7 X, them saying that they have this internal system where they try to match salaries based on their perceived value, and not on you negotiating position.
Let us not forget that most developers are very bad at negotiating salaries.
Secret salaries are highly asymmetric, because they are only secret to one party. So as all asymmetric information, it will be exploited for benefit.
I don't see how this is related to public salaries.
If the first company you mentioned doesn't make their salaries public, while the second one does, if this is even the case (can't really tell from your story), that sounds more like a coincidence than anything else.
I'd even expect a company that pays people exactly what they believe them to be worth to be less likely to make salaries public, because then seeing you are paid less than someone else would directly tell you you are valued less.
If the first company you mentioned doesn't make their salaries public, while the second one does, if this is even the case (can't really tell from your story), that sounds more like a coincidence than anything else.
I'd even expect a company that pays people exactly what they believe them to be worth to be less likely to make salaries public, because then seeing you are paid less than someone else would directly tell you you are valued less.
It is related to your personal anecdote, that you couldn't get a bigger salary because it would have surpassed the salaries of other employees of the same perceived value as you.
With my personal anecdote I was showing that this can also work in your favor, and under some reasonable assumptions this will increase the average salary and decrease the variance as you suggested. The only losers are good negotiators or persons with good pedigree, because they win at the expense of others.
BTW, the second company I mentioned doesn't actually have public salaries, just matched salaries for similar perceived value. So I still don't know what people above/below me or on different tracks make.
With my personal anecdote I was showing that this can also work in your favor, and under some reasonable assumptions this will increase the average salary and decrease the variance as you suggested. The only losers are good negotiators or persons with good pedigree, because they win at the expense of others.
BTW, the second company I mentioned doesn't actually have public salaries, just matched salaries for similar perceived value. So I still don't know what people above/below me or on different tracks make.
Public salaries make it much easier for bad negotiators to attain a good salary. You just look at your future co-workers, and ballpark around that.
Without that, people without industry contacts or knowledge can get utterly screwed.
Without that, people without industry contacts or knowledge can get utterly screwed.
That is entirely true and I wrote so myself in my first comment in this thread. But this comment was about something completely unrelated (specifically, about public salaries potentially screwing over people who are able to negotiate a high salary)
> I believe the effect of public salaries, all else equal, would be to move the average a bit up, but also greatly lower the variance.
It might, and that doesn't seem to be problematic, to me. The arguments about individual negotiation and proven value and all that don't change when salaries are public. In fact, the "savvy individual negotiator" argument might even be more applicable in that case: if Alice's market value is really 2x Bob, Fob or Gob then she should be able to demonstrate that quantitatively and be able to use that data to negotiate her appropriate value.
The argument about developers' ability : value relationship is also a bit specious. I'm not convinced there actually is a good way to measure that, and even if there were it's very likely to be context-specific (e.g. some developers are going to exceed at systems programming or low level library development but might be marginal at best when tasked with design and implementation of systems that rise outside of that scope).
It might, and that doesn't seem to be problematic, to me. The arguments about individual negotiation and proven value and all that don't change when salaries are public. In fact, the "savvy individual negotiator" argument might even be more applicable in that case: if Alice's market value is really 2x Bob, Fob or Gob then she should be able to demonstrate that quantitatively and be able to use that data to negotiate her appropriate value.
The argument about developers' ability : value relationship is also a bit specious. I'm not convinced there actually is a good way to measure that, and even if there were it's very likely to be context-specific (e.g. some developers are going to exceed at systems programming or low level library development but might be marginal at best when tasked with design and implementation of systems that rise outside of that scope).
I don't think it's Alice's responsibility to demonstrate her worth to her co-workers. If the company really thinks Alice is that much more valuable, they should easily be able to demonstrate that to Bob, Fob, and Gob. E.g. Alice should have more responsibility. If the company can't explain to Bob, Fob, and Gob why Alice is better, I think that's the company's problem and Bob, Fob, and Gob are right to be upset.
Yes, it's as much the company's responsibility to be able to justify their valuations of employees as it is the employees' to demonstrate their value.
Management needs to be honest with everyone and explain why Alice is so valuable. Maybe then they would get more of what Alice brings to the company. And they need to pay her the maximum they think they can; because everyone knows her salary she is constantly being offered more money by competitors and recruitment firms to move. This makes her yearly salary negotiation with her boss easier, not harder. YMMV.
I understand all very well that and I even believe that what you say is (simplified and idealized [see below] but) true. I'm not arguing on facts (not now), I'm arguing on political opinion about what is best for society: I prefer people cooperating together (e.g., to build a decent social security system) than competing against each other (like in your examples).
> It would be dishonest to claim that the effect I wrote in italics does not exist.
We totally agree on that, except this is one of the reason why I'm in favor of public salaries :).
A question that might be worth asking is: why do one would need so much more money than others have?
If it is because life is expensive and you need this much money to live decently, eat sane food, have your kids educated, pay for your own health care, and put money aside for your retirement, then what do we do as a society for those who can't have this much money? Alice may be twice as productive as Bob, Fob, and Gob, but are her life and the lives of her children twice as important that those of the Xobs and their children? I think this is actually the point of disagreement in our discussion.
In practice, if people cooperate, they can collectively (I'm talking nation-wide, not company by company) obtain good social security, free education, good and affordable health care, good retirement plan, good public infrastructures, etc. All this would be paid for by social contributions, which could lower people's direct salaries, but those social contributions are nothing else but indirect (and collectivized) salaries.
In such a society, what is the point for Alice to be paid twice as much as the Xobs?
Now from the discussion I know that the counter argument to my point would be that if Alice is not paid twice as much then why should she bother being twice as productive? My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy. If she doesn't like her job, then she's better of working less. And an additional Xobs can find a job doing what Alice isn't doing anymore because she neither needs nor wants to.
---
[] Now I'm getting back at why your example is idealized: secret salaries and the necessity to individually negotiate for your salary is known to have undesirable effects, such as women being paid less. Studies show that in our cultures and societies women are undervalued and have a tendency to underestimate themselves, while men have the opposite tendency. So in practice it may not be Alice who is paid more than the Xobs, even thought she's twice as productive.
> It would be dishonest to claim that the effect I wrote in italics does not exist.
We totally agree on that, except this is one of the reason why I'm in favor of public salaries :).
A question that might be worth asking is: why do one would need so much more money than others have?
If it is because life is expensive and you need this much money to live decently, eat sane food, have your kids educated, pay for your own health care, and put money aside for your retirement, then what do we do as a society for those who can't have this much money? Alice may be twice as productive as Bob, Fob, and Gob, but are her life and the lives of her children twice as important that those of the Xobs and their children? I think this is actually the point of disagreement in our discussion.
In practice, if people cooperate, they can collectively (I'm talking nation-wide, not company by company) obtain good social security, free education, good and affordable health care, good retirement plan, good public infrastructures, etc. All this would be paid for by social contributions, which could lower people's direct salaries, but those social contributions are nothing else but indirect (and collectivized) salaries.
In such a society, what is the point for Alice to be paid twice as much as the Xobs?
Now from the discussion I know that the counter argument to my point would be that if Alice is not paid twice as much then why should she bother being twice as productive? My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy. If she doesn't like her job, then she's better of working less. And an additional Xobs can find a job doing what Alice isn't doing anymore because she neither needs nor wants to.
---
[] Now I'm getting back at why your example is idealized: secret salaries and the necessity to individually negotiate for your salary is known to have undesirable effects, such as women being paid less. Studies show that in our cultures and societies women are undervalued and have a tendency to underestimate themselves, while men have the opposite tendency. So in practice it may not be Alice who is paid more than the Xobs, even thought she's twice as productive.
> My answer is: good for her! If she really likes her job then she doesn't need money as an incentive to do it as working is what makes her happy.
Maybe she's just good at something, but doesn't actually like her job? More money now means less work later on. Or she could achieve the same results as bob, fob and gob, in half the time, thus work 2.5 days a week.
Why are people so focused on equality? All people are equal, but their ability isn't. Some people are better at sports, others are better at intellectual pursuits. Some have better social skills, etc.
I'm good at building stuff, but not so good at playing sports. I would expect to earn much more building stuff than I do playing sports.
Aside from the material discussion (I don't really care about that), having more money in the bank means 1) having more leverage in negotiations, and 2) more freedom. And past a certain point, it means independence. You'd be surprised how many people make 100K+ a year from investment, just living a full life (e.g. seeing their kids grow up) and doing what they love.
Work can be fun, but it's still work. To me at least, half the fun went away when I had to start doing it for money and because of this I reorganised my life to account for that.
Maybe she's just good at something, but doesn't actually like her job? More money now means less work later on. Or she could achieve the same results as bob, fob and gob, in half the time, thus work 2.5 days a week.
Why are people so focused on equality? All people are equal, but their ability isn't. Some people are better at sports, others are better at intellectual pursuits. Some have better social skills, etc.
I'm good at building stuff, but not so good at playing sports. I would expect to earn much more building stuff than I do playing sports.
Aside from the material discussion (I don't really care about that), having more money in the bank means 1) having more leverage in negotiations, and 2) more freedom. And past a certain point, it means independence. You'd be surprised how many people make 100K+ a year from investment, just living a full life (e.g. seeing their kids grow up) and doing what they love.
Work can be fun, but it's still work. To me at least, half the fun went away when I had to start doing it for money and because of this I reorganised my life to account for that.
My opinion is that income solidarity should be achieved through the tax system. This way it can be fine-tuned to the wishes and needs of the society and everything is "clean". Additional sources of "hidden" solidarity like my example with Alice are in my opinion unnecessary and counterproductive. Companies should be left to pay people exactly how much they value them to ensure maximum efficiency, then taxes can reduce these differences to the extent the society desires.
Politics aside, even in a system where every company must have public salaries to avoid disadvantaging those who do, the system would still be inefficient. A company that hires only "Alice-level" developers can pay Alice 100 as they pay everyone roughly that amount. They don't suffer from this effect. A company that hires Bobs finds it hard to hire and keep some Alices (exactly what happened at my first job, I wasn't the first nor the last young guy in that position to quit quickly when I realized what the deal was) as long as it mostly hires Bobs. And Bobs also need to work somewhere. This basically gives companies a strong economic incentive to stick to a similar level of talent when hiring, which is a market inefficiency, and to developers of similar skill level to accumulate in the same companies. So with time, Alice ends up working at a company with other Alices and they are being paid 100, while Bob is working with Fob and Gob and being paid 50.
This is actually an aspect of another, more general problem with salary solidarity: if you overpay your lower-value employees, and underpay your high-value employees, this gives the lower-value employees the incentive to take the job and stay forever, and the higher-value employees the incentive to not even accept the job or eventually leave for a job that doesn't underpay them. Over time, you're accumulating lower-value overpaid employees. Government jobs are an extreme example of this problem (in my country at least) as there is a high level of salary solidarity there. Paying people what they're worth in gross salary, and then achieving solidarity through taxes at least solves this problem within 1 country. It still doesn't solve it internationally (as the highly productive people still have the option to jump ship to countries with less solidarity, but this is not as bad as people are not as quick to emigrate as they are to switch jobs).
Politics aside, even in a system where every company must have public salaries to avoid disadvantaging those who do, the system would still be inefficient. A company that hires only "Alice-level" developers can pay Alice 100 as they pay everyone roughly that amount. They don't suffer from this effect. A company that hires Bobs finds it hard to hire and keep some Alices (exactly what happened at my first job, I wasn't the first nor the last young guy in that position to quit quickly when I realized what the deal was) as long as it mostly hires Bobs. And Bobs also need to work somewhere. This basically gives companies a strong economic incentive to stick to a similar level of talent when hiring, which is a market inefficiency, and to developers of similar skill level to accumulate in the same companies. So with time, Alice ends up working at a company with other Alices and they are being paid 100, while Bob is working with Fob and Gob and being paid 50.
This is actually an aspect of another, more general problem with salary solidarity: if you overpay your lower-value employees, and underpay your high-value employees, this gives the lower-value employees the incentive to take the job and stay forever, and the higher-value employees the incentive to not even accept the job or eventually leave for a job that doesn't underpay them. Over time, you're accumulating lower-value overpaid employees. Government jobs are an extreme example of this problem (in my country at least) as there is a high level of salary solidarity there. Paying people what they're worth in gross salary, and then achieving solidarity through taxes at least solves this problem within 1 country. It still doesn't solve it internationally (as the highly productive people still have the option to jump ship to countries with less solidarity, but this is not as bad as people are not as quick to emigrate as they are to switch jobs).
Spot on.
The reward is getting to spend time with your loved ones or hobbies because over there people work to live instead of living to work.
No.
Norway has extremely high salaries, and income tax that is pretty much equivalent to California (about 1/3 of your gross salary after deductions), in fact Norway is one of the easiest countries to become rich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU
You could argue that radical financial transparency is what causes this.
Norway has extremely high salaries, and income tax that is pretty much equivalent to California (about 1/3 of your gross salary after deductions), in fact Norway is one of the easiest countries to become rich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU
You could argue that radical financial transparency is what causes this.
Income tax about what it is in CA? I'll take your word for it. What about all the other taxes? Car tax, VAT, etc?
From what I've seen purchasing power is much lower in Norway. $50K would go much further in US, Canada, UK than Norway.
From what I've seen purchasing power is much lower in Norway. $50K would go much further in US, Canada, UK than Norway.
Summarizing the most important Norwegian taxes, which are in aggregate higher than California's:
* 25% VAT on everything except food, which is 12%. Electric vehicles currently exempt
* 40% income tax on average including 8% public pension contribution. Highest marginal tax on income is 47%, which applies to incomes greater than $116k.
* Employer has to pay 14% of your salary as employment tax. Company profits are taxed at 24% (this is separate from the capital gains tax). Stock-based compensation is taxed as income, so no possibility of weaseling around the employment tax. You won't get stock-based compensation unless you're in a startup or a C-class executive at a (big) private company. The wealth tax does weird things to the valuation of stock options; they'll almost always be worthless unless your company is sold or goes public.
* Net assets above ~$175k are taxed at 0.85% p.a, primary residence contributes only 25% of its market value to net assets
* 29% capital gains tax, primary residence is exempt as is most tax income from renting out primary residence. Sell your home with $1 million profit? No tax.
* On average ~$10k tax on all new motor vehicles, electric vehicles currently exempt
* A tax of approximately 30% (~5 NOK per liter) is applied to gasoline, in addition to the 25% VAT. Annual tax of ~$1000 on all motor vehicles, increasing with how good the vehicle is. Electric vehicles currently exempt.
* Various taxes on alcohol, tobacco, air travel. Some municipalities have a property tax on the order of ~$500 p.a. for an average residence.
I've eyeballed most of the currency conversions.
* 25% VAT on everything except food, which is 12%. Electric vehicles currently exempt
* 40% income tax on average including 8% public pension contribution. Highest marginal tax on income is 47%, which applies to incomes greater than $116k.
* Employer has to pay 14% of your salary as employment tax. Company profits are taxed at 24% (this is separate from the capital gains tax). Stock-based compensation is taxed as income, so no possibility of weaseling around the employment tax. You won't get stock-based compensation unless you're in a startup or a C-class executive at a (big) private company. The wealth tax does weird things to the valuation of stock options; they'll almost always be worthless unless your company is sold or goes public.
* Net assets above ~$175k are taxed at 0.85% p.a, primary residence contributes only 25% of its market value to net assets
* 29% capital gains tax, primary residence is exempt as is most tax income from renting out primary residence. Sell your home with $1 million profit? No tax.
* On average ~$10k tax on all new motor vehicles, electric vehicles currently exempt
* A tax of approximately 30% (~5 NOK per liter) is applied to gasoline, in addition to the 25% VAT. Annual tax of ~$1000 on all motor vehicles, increasing with how good the vehicle is. Electric vehicles currently exempt.
* Various taxes on alcohol, tobacco, air travel. Some municipalities have a property tax on the order of ~$500 p.a. for an average residence.
I've eyeballed most of the currency conversions.
Yes, cars, alcohol and food are _much_ more expensive in Norway, mostly due to taxation, and to a lesser degree the high cost of labour.
Norwegian income tax is subject to a lot of deductions, so in practice people will never pay the full whack. In fact the average income tax has been estimated to be under 30% http://www.smartepenger.no/skatt/653-skatteprosenter-pa-lonn... (Norwegian language article)
Norwegian income tax is subject to a lot of deductions, so in practice people will never pay the full whack. In fact the average income tax has been estimated to be under 30% http://www.smartepenger.no/skatt/653-skatteprosenter-pa-lonn... (Norwegian language article)
> High tax. Where's the reward?
The reward is being top of the budget per capita: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_... The goverment has $48K to spend per capita, as opposed to e.g the UK which has $18K. Off course that means little if the gov does not spend it well. But from my experience, it was though not perfect.
> I don't see how one could ever be an entrepreneur there.
High salaries is an issue, as well as few VCs, especially angel investors. But one can also take risks with the safety net of a well funded wellfare to fall back on.
> Even if you win, you eventually lose (wealth tax), unless you move away.
Capital tax is far from losing, just an annoyance, that I wish they could forgo.
The reward is being top of the budget per capita: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_... The goverment has $48K to spend per capita, as opposed to e.g the UK which has $18K. Off course that means little if the gov does not spend it well. But from my experience, it was though not perfect.
> I don't see how one could ever be an entrepreneur there.
High salaries is an issue, as well as few VCs, especially angel investors. But one can also take risks with the safety net of a well funded wellfare to fall back on.
> Even if you win, you eventually lose (wealth tax), unless you move away.
Capital tax is far from losing, just an annoyance, that I wish they could forgo.
Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
If any future employer or recruiter could see how much I'm currently paid (as in Norway) then that would place significant downward pressure on my salary over the long term.
Thinking longer term again, I think public record salaries combined with dynamic pricing, facial recognition and a cashless society is a combination of things most people should be worried about.
If any future employer or recruiter could see how much I'm currently paid (as in Norway) then that would place significant downward pressure on my salary over the long term.
Thinking longer term again, I think public record salaries combined with dynamic pricing, facial recognition and a cashless society is a combination of things most people should be worried about.
And unfortunately the tabloid press would use this to attack people why they don't like or disagree with - Norway does not have a nasty tabloid press like some other countries.
It could also be used by criminals scoping out targets for burglary
It could also be used by criminals scoping out targets for burglary
Finland has the same system as Norway, and Finnish tabloids are full of the incomes & taxes of the rich and famous every year once the tax records come out. Last year, one of them published the tax records of all Finns earning over 120k EUR/year:
http://www.iltalehti.fi/verot-2016/tiedot/
http://www.iltalehti.fi/verot-2016/tiedot/top-kaikki.shtml (the top 2000)
http://www.iltalehti.fi/verot-2016/tiedot/
http://www.iltalehti.fi/verot-2016/tiedot/top-kaikki.shtml (the top 2000)
But there doesn't seem to be any nefarious agenda to that, simply that it sells papers.
and you think the ends justify the means for news papers no matter what the human cost ?
What human cost?
Lives destroyed dead girls phones hacked forced suicides take your pic
Not sure what that has to do specifically with publishing the incomes of rich people. Also, in general, Finnish yellow press is really damn tame compared to "real" tabloids like those in the UK.
Celebs and the so called metropolitan elites or judges who might take issue with Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dace and the Barclay Brothers and thus put themselves in the presses firing lines
What?
If I were scoping targets for burglary, I'd perhaps look for signs of assets worth stealing instead, but maybe just a sign of my inexperience
Not necessarily. Being able to see what everybody else at the future company earns could put upward pressure on your salary in the long term.
Can you elaborate on why do you think that it "would place significant downward pressure on my salary" ?
I agree that in a particular single negotiation if it just so happens that they have this information then it could be a significant impact one way or the other (depending on what that history is) - especially since there's an information asymmetry since they know what you're making but you don't know what their other employees or the other applicants are making.
However, if it's a policy so that this information is available for both sides in every negotiation for everyone then it doesn't seem that this should fundamentally change the average pay in any industry. The core supply/demand factors are the same, and for every instance that might lower the wage there's are many cases that would have an upward pressure, i.e., the underpaid people can now objectively see which other companies pay better, and such employers can't simply rely that long-term loyal employees will be ignorant about the market rates as they do now.
I agree that in a particular single negotiation if it just so happens that they have this information then it could be a significant impact one way or the other (depending on what that history is) - especially since there's an information asymmetry since they know what you're making but you don't know what their other employees or the other applicants are making.
However, if it's a policy so that this information is available for both sides in every negotiation for everyone then it doesn't seem that this should fundamentally change the average pay in any industry. The core supply/demand factors are the same, and for every instance that might lower the wage there's are many cases that would have an upward pressure, i.e., the underpaid people can now objectively see which other companies pay better, and such employers can't simply rely that long-term loyal employees will be ignorant about the market rates as they do now.
"it seems" "should"
The world doesn't work like that.
> The underpaid people can now objectively see which other companies pay better
You mean, the ignorant people who don't care about pay, can now demand more? If you are being underpaid, it is because you don't care enough to 1) figure out what market rate is and/or 2) negotiate better. Salaries being public or not. No one deserves anything in life and you often get what you negotiate -- there are plenty of people who don't understand this.
Just because other companies (publicly) pay more, doesn't mean they will get the same pay as the other people are making.
The world doesn't work like that.
> The underpaid people can now objectively see which other companies pay better
You mean, the ignorant people who don't care about pay, can now demand more? If you are being underpaid, it is because you don't care enough to 1) figure out what market rate is and/or 2) negotiate better. Salaries being public or not. No one deserves anything in life and you often get what you negotiate -- there are plenty of people who don't understand this.
Just because other companies (publicly) pay more, doesn't mean they will get the same pay as the other people are making.
How on Earth do I, personally, "figure out the market rate" for my job? The market gives me either no information or false information (at the very least unverifiable and untrustworthy information). I can ask my coworkers their salary I have no idea if they are being truthful if they answer (which they won't). I don't live in San Fransisco and I don't have any personal friends in the industry (and friends lie too). Software engineering jobs don't come up often here and when they do a salary range for the position isn't posted. If I am offered a new job my position in the salary negotiation is reduced since I still don't have any information about typical salaries, so we are at a catch 22. Additionally, I wouldn't want to actually negotiate salary for a job I'm not interested in because I'd like to not be known as the person who is constantly getting job offers then rejecting them, the market I small here.
> Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
The right to privacy? The right for two consenting adults to contract privately without interference from the State?
The right to privacy? The right for two consenting adults to contract privately without interference from the State?
Upvote...I don't see why that should be public. It ruins the incentive to work harder as I bet companies are far more likely to pay everyone the same [no sources on that].
there is one real life example why your argument is as wrong as possible.
professors in the UC system have public salaries, like any other public employee, and it isn't a linear communist apocalypse for salaries like you think. prof still work hard to move and create departments, etc. and the salaries vary wildly, not just with seniority.
...on the other hand, senate and congress does prove your point. ironically with people elected spewing the same liberal pipe dreams against the very way they get paid and accumulate retirements.
professors in the UC system have public salaries, like any other public employee, and it isn't a linear communist apocalypse for salaries like you think. prof still work hard to move and create departments, etc. and the salaries vary wildly, not just with seniority.
...on the other hand, senate and congress does prove your point. ironically with people elected spewing the same liberal pipe dreams against the very way they get paid and accumulate retirements.
> professors in the UC system have public salaries
Professors have public salaries because their salaries are paid by the public. I don't think anyone here is arguing against being able to know how much your employees make, that's kind of a given.
Professors have public salaries because their salaries are paid by the public. I don't think anyone here is arguing against being able to know how much your employees make, that's kind of a given.
If you own a business, you don't think you should be able to pay each employee whatever you want as long as above minimum wage? Besides taxes, I'm not sure how that's anyone's business besides the employer & employee.
It actually increases the incentive to work harder - http://www.businessinsider.com/why-companies-have-open-salar...
More likely to ruin the incentive to work harder as you realise you already get paid more than the lazy idiots that have been there for 20 years but are easier for manglement to ignore
You pay taxes to the government on those imaginary private deals, right? I think mostly the salary thing is about feeling awkward rather than it being about privacy.
Why does your salary deserve to be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If salaries are open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about money.
Finally in almost every company I have worked in everyone tries to work out what everyone else is on to better negotiate their own salaries, it just makes it difficult to mention...
Why does your salary deserve to be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If salaries are open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about money.
Finally in almost every company I have worked in everyone tries to work out what everyone else is on to better negotiate their own salaries, it just makes it difficult to mention...
I can see scenarios where you have someone in your extended family/friends who constantly attempts to leech money off you because they know you have it. This is something people who win the lottery often face which is why (in the UK) they can choose not to make their win public.
More fundamentally, you pay taxes on your private deal with your employer but the government is just a third party involved in that transaction, the same as your bank. Neither the government nor your bank makes the amounts of tax you pay or what you earn public, them knowing doesn't really impact your privacy in any meaningful way. I don't quite understand how you've got from "well the government knows what you earn so everyone should!".
I don't consider that something being a "societal good" automatically overrides peoples right to privacy, different people will consider different things to be private, many would consider that my personal medical data would be better off open to the public in fine detail as it would help medical research but this is generally not the case (in the UK at least) and neither should it be.
More fundamentally, you pay taxes on your private deal with your employer but the government is just a third party involved in that transaction, the same as your bank. Neither the government nor your bank makes the amounts of tax you pay or what you earn public, them knowing doesn't really impact your privacy in any meaningful way. I don't quite understand how you've got from "well the government knows what you earn so everyone should!".
I don't consider that something being a "societal good" automatically overrides peoples right to privacy, different people will consider different things to be private, many would consider that my personal medical data would be better off open to the public in fine detail as it would help medical research but this is generally not the case (in the UK at least) and neither should it be.
Why should how many times you have intercourse per week be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If how many times you have intercourse per week is open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about their sex life.
See how it goes? You could literally use the same argument for any privacy concern ever.
See how it goes? You could literally use the same argument for any privacy concern ever.
It's about 4 on average.
However, this isn't the same thing and there is no benefits for other people knowing that I can think of; there may be lots of benefits for knowing everyone's salary.
However, this isn't the same thing and there is no benefits for other people knowing that I can think of; there may be lots of benefits for knowing everyone's salary.
> there is no benefit for knowing
I just gave you a benefit, people being more open about their sex life could be a good thing for society. Should we force people to tell how many time they have intercourse then based on your logic?
I just gave you a benefit, people being more open about their sex life could be a good thing for society. Should we force people to tell how many time they have intercourse then based on your logic?
Ok, so all benefits are equal, and all drawbacks are equal? We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone?
I posit that a few things are not that harmful to make public, except in some cases that varies for each individual (like being in a witness protection program) if someone already has the means to identify you as you (such as a full name). Some of those things would be your address, what vehicles you own, wether or not you have stock in corporations, wether or not you're married, your age, your level of education and some other things. I don't see how the knowledge about these things can be used to blackmail you through social stigma, unless you did something illegal. I have the same feeling towards pay checks.
The discussion is wether or not pay checks are too private to disclose publicly, not if it's ok to release everything about everyone.
I posit that a few things are not that harmful to make public, except in some cases that varies for each individual (like being in a witness protection program) if someone already has the means to identify you as you (such as a full name). Some of those things would be your address, what vehicles you own, wether or not you have stock in corporations, wether or not you're married, your age, your level of education and some other things. I don't see how the knowledge about these things can be used to blackmail you through social stigma, unless you did something illegal. I have the same feeling towards pay checks.
The discussion is wether or not pay checks are too private to disclose publicly, not if it's ok to release everything about everyone.
> We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone?
Are you aware that laws are enforced by government force? That is to say, if you don't obey to a law, cops will be sent to your house and if you resist they will point guns at you and shoot. This is a non-controversial fact that both leftists and right-wing economists, politicians and philosophers agree upon.
Now, with that in mind, I don't like guns and I think they should only be used in extreme situations. I don't consider knowing people's paycheck to be one of these situations where gun violence should be used and therefor I'm opposed to this law forcing people to publish their income as I think gun violence would not make sense in this case. If people do not want to publish this private information, then let them be. That's just my opinion though, if you believe it is worse it to kill people who resist giving up the amount of their paycheck (because that's how every law is enforced if one resists), then you're right, this law is great.
Are you aware that laws are enforced by government force? That is to say, if you don't obey to a law, cops will be sent to your house and if you resist they will point guns at you and shoot. This is a non-controversial fact that both leftists and right-wing economists, politicians and philosophers agree upon.
Now, with that in mind, I don't like guns and I think they should only be used in extreme situations. I don't consider knowing people's paycheck to be one of these situations where gun violence should be used and therefor I'm opposed to this law forcing people to publish their income as I think gun violence would not make sense in this case. If people do not want to publish this private information, then let them be. That's just my opinion though, if you believe it is worse it to kill people who resist giving up the amount of their paycheck (because that's how every law is enforced if one resists), then you're right, this law is great.
Not true, you could make it a tort instead of a law, where employees can sue for punitive damages if secret negotiations have occurred. No guns necessary.
> No guns necessary.
Really? A tort will get you a fine, refuse to pay it and they will send you to jail, resist your arrest and they will use their guns. No way around that.
Really? A tort will get you a fine, refuse to pay it and they will send you to jail, resist your arrest and they will use their guns. No way around that.
Not every attempt at "resisting" the force of law results in being shot.
You're stretching the concept of the monopoly on violence and the "men with guns" metaphor to absurdity, when the "violence" in that context involves all compulsory interactions with the state, including mere arrest and detainment, or even having to buy postage stamps to send a letter.
You're stretching the concept of the monopoly on violence and the "men with guns" metaphor to absurdity, when the "violence" in that context involves all compulsory interactions with the state, including mere arrest and detainment, or even having to buy postage stamps to send a letter.
This isn't really how it works, we don't have debtors prisons. If you don't pay a civil judgement against you then the debtholder gets permission to garnish your wages and bank accounts or seizure your assets. If you have no wages, bank accounts, or assets the judgement doesn't get paid.
What if I say "No, you can't seize my assets and I refuse to go to jail"?
It could be argued that income inequality is a much greater source of problems for society.
Not really. Wealth inequality is a problem. Income inequality not so much. Whether someone makes $100k a year, or $500k, or even $5M a year is irrelevant. In the grand scheme of things, even $500m is pocket change.
The problem is with major wealth holders, e.g. people or families with assets in excess of say $1bn, who generate disproportionate gains when held to the effort they put in.
Making $50m a year with $1bn isn't hard. I can do that. But those people don't spend that $50m in extra gains. It accumulates. And you get a massive snowball effect.
Compound interest is great and a pillar of capitalism, but past a certain point it can get problematic.
The problem is with major wealth holders, e.g. people or families with assets in excess of say $1bn, who generate disproportionate gains when held to the effort they put in.
Making $50m a year with $1bn isn't hard. I can do that. But those people don't spend that $50m in extra gains. It accumulates. And you get a massive snowball effect.
Compound interest is great and a pillar of capitalism, but past a certain point it can get problematic.
In Norway and the rest of Scandinavia (Swedish here) you get data on all the income, even capital gains. Even some benefits that you have to pay taxes on is included here.
The capital gains can be offshored, so it won't be in Scandinavia and the ones benefiting wouldn't pay taxes there but rather small change in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands. People with lots of wealth are used to this or they can definitely afford to pay someone who is.
[deleted]
Relevant parts of the government also know what my healthcare status is, but that doesn't mean I'm particularly keen to make it readily discoverable and benchmarkable by anyone and everyone that might wish to profit from this information.
Hacker News might just be the only place where you can see howls with rage at the thought of recruiters and HR asking them their salary in their current job with the obvious intention of not offering much more than that and arguments that this information should be accessible to everyone without question in nice little searchable databases anyway...
Hacker News might just be the only place where you can see howls with rage at the thought of recruiters and HR asking them their salary in their current job with the obvious intention of not offering much more than that and arguments that this information should be accessible to everyone without question in nice little searchable databases anyway...
because of the disparity, not the information itself. if you (and everyone else applying for the job) give that info to a recruiter, the recruiter has and can act on all the info, but everyone else only has their one bit.
What use is the additional information when the employer offers you your existing salary plus 10% when they were willing to pay more?
Looks completely out of context. Undisclosed income is black money. You pay taxes on salary/income (most of which is deducted at source). The state does and will almost always know your salary/income, period.
Even the most determined defenders of taxes usually concede that they have downsides. It's entirely reasonable to propose limits on what the State should do with tax information. As a hyperbolic (but real) example, the State also usually has access to single transactions from your friendly neighborhood sex shop.
But that does not address why the government should then broadcast that information. Obviously an income tax requires the government to know your salary, but why should it become a public record?
Because free flow of information makes free markets operate better.
The State knows as thats how they calculate your taxes.
That's not a bad argument. I still think that its more beneficial to make transactions as public as possible, though.
Think about real estate. I think it is immensely helpful for the public to have access to the sale price of houses. Imagine if the only people who had this information were a handful of real estate agencies. An individual buyer would have to go by a few scattered, probably inaccurate, whispered anecdotes. People who aren't part of an inside crowd would be at a terrible disadvantage in negotiations.
Unfortunately, that's pretty much how it goes for salary negotiations.
Also - the two consenting adults who contract privately you've mentioned, where do they turn if the deal goes south? If they feel one side has broken the contract, perhaps tortiously? Certainly, enforcement of contracts, to an extent, is within the realm of the state. I'd avoid too much tinkering, but a few ground rules to ensure an open, competitive, and, yes, transparent market, seems very reasonable to me, and very consistent with the concept of lightweight government.
In fact, I think transparency might take care of a lot of things the government tries to manage at a more granular level downstream.
Think about real estate. I think it is immensely helpful for the public to have access to the sale price of houses. Imagine if the only people who had this information were a handful of real estate agencies. An individual buyer would have to go by a few scattered, probably inaccurate, whispered anecdotes. People who aren't part of an inside crowd would be at a terrible disadvantage in negotiations.
Unfortunately, that's pretty much how it goes for salary negotiations.
Also - the two consenting adults who contract privately you've mentioned, where do they turn if the deal goes south? If they feel one side has broken the contract, perhaps tortiously? Certainly, enforcement of contracts, to an extent, is within the realm of the state. I'd avoid too much tinkering, but a few ground rules to ensure an open, competitive, and, yes, transparent market, seems very reasonable to me, and very consistent with the concept of lightweight government.
In fact, I think transparency might take care of a lot of things the government tries to manage at a more granular level downstream.
In real estate, the public are the buyers.
In job hunting, the employers are the buyers.
In job hunting, the employers are the buyers.
One reason against open salaries is that people would do a poor job in valuing other people's jobs and the whole idea of fair wages would be extremely subjective.
It's not uncommon the case where an employee is frustrated with his manager earning X times more than them while doing 2h lunch meetings every day. The manager might bring tremendous business value though.
It's not uncommon the case where an employee is frustrated with his manager earning X times more than them while doing 2h lunch meetings every day. The manager might bring tremendous business value though.
yes its I am poorly paid you got lucky and they are vastly overpaid, of course the person you think is over paid may well think the same about you.
[deleted]
> This also helps when in most societies women are paid substantially and illegally less than men for the same job.
Any sources to back up this claim? I've seen it a few times, but whenever I dig into the source, it's usually poorly done or playing with numbers. I'll admit I've only dug into the topic a little, and most of the reading I've done has been focused on the US.
I remember reading a while back how some Google employees started sharing their salary, and I think they found there was potentially some degree of discrimination of women. I never dug deeply into it though, and I don't know the ultimate outcome. I don't deny that it could be accurate, I just haven't seen enough information to be convinced.
FWIW, I think you should be able to abstain for providing any of this information, if you want. It should be up to the person to make the choice. Personally, I'd probably be fine with sharing my salary for my workplace, but not my full taxes, which might include other sources of income. One good reason to not want to share this information is that you might not want others to know that you're engaging in other activities. To give an example which I've seen affect others, I've read of women that have been harassed and ultimately fired upon finding out that they're "camwhores" outside of work; although I'll note that I can't verify the veracity of such claims, and I haven't read of it happening in the US.
Ultimately, it comes down to being in control of the information being shared, and with whom. Ideally, I want as little information as possible to be publicly available, unless I choose otherwise. For example, I don't mind telling someone my height or weight, but I'd object to having it be publicly available. Whenever some piece of information of mine is publicly available, it's used in a way which I dislike. For example, credit card companies require you to fucking opt-out from their spam. The audacity of that is absurd.
I think information should be controlled by a trusted party (i.e. government), and people should have to information to share it freely by opting in to different programs. I fundamentally disagree with anything that requires me to opt-out (maybe with a few minor exceptions, regarding certain communications coming from the government).
Any sources to back up this claim? I've seen it a few times, but whenever I dig into the source, it's usually poorly done or playing with numbers. I'll admit I've only dug into the topic a little, and most of the reading I've done has been focused on the US.
I remember reading a while back how some Google employees started sharing their salary, and I think they found there was potentially some degree of discrimination of women. I never dug deeply into it though, and I don't know the ultimate outcome. I don't deny that it could be accurate, I just haven't seen enough information to be convinced.
FWIW, I think you should be able to abstain for providing any of this information, if you want. It should be up to the person to make the choice. Personally, I'd probably be fine with sharing my salary for my workplace, but not my full taxes, which might include other sources of income. One good reason to not want to share this information is that you might not want others to know that you're engaging in other activities. To give an example which I've seen affect others, I've read of women that have been harassed and ultimately fired upon finding out that they're "camwhores" outside of work; although I'll note that I can't verify the veracity of such claims, and I haven't read of it happening in the US.
Ultimately, it comes down to being in control of the information being shared, and with whom. Ideally, I want as little information as possible to be publicly available, unless I choose otherwise. For example, I don't mind telling someone my height or weight, but I'd object to having it be publicly available. Whenever some piece of information of mine is publicly available, it's used in a way which I dislike. For example, credit card companies require you to fucking opt-out from their spam. The audacity of that is absurd.
I think information should be controlled by a trusted party (i.e. government), and people should have to information to share it freely by opting in to different programs. I fundamentally disagree with anything that requires me to opt-out (maybe with a few minor exceptions, regarding certain communications coming from the government).
Women do get paid less after birth leave, mostly because skill rot, networking going down the drain etc. The ones that stick to their career and don't have kids are paid pretty much the same amount as men. The birth leave thing skews the statistics, as for the majority of women, children are more important than pay. It's not fair, especially for single mothers.
No source whatsoever but I've read in an article linked from HN.
No source whatsoever but I've read in an article linked from HN.
> Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
Well, I have a reason. My company (a mid-size publicly traded U.S. corporation) would be ashamed, if my salary was public (they don't actually pay that bad, but I guess it could be better). You see, my company is quite emotional, and I kinda like it, so I don't want to get it embarrassed. But I do fully support the right to count your own money in public, yes.
Edit: I am just playing with framing here. You should have, at least, the right to publish your own salary (and perhaps start a movement of people who do that). And perhaps companies don't want you to have that right because it would make them look bad; although if it wouldn't, why the hell not?
Well, I have a reason. My company (a mid-size publicly traded U.S. corporation) would be ashamed, if my salary was public (they don't actually pay that bad, but I guess it could be better). You see, my company is quite emotional, and I kinda like it, so I don't want to get it embarrassed. But I do fully support the right to count your own money in public, yes.
Edit: I am just playing with framing here. You should have, at least, the right to publish your own salary (and perhaps start a movement of people who do that). And perhaps companies don't want you to have that right because it would make them look bad; although if it wouldn't, why the hell not?
Reason not to have open salary?
Disclaimer: I do think too, that eschewing to talk about their salaries hurts all of us most of the time. But...
When I saw that at a job a real bully-like dickhead got consistently underpaid the last thing any of us well paid people would have done is to tell him our numbers. The only reason he told us his salary was to make us jealous...
Disclaimer: I do think too, that eschewing to talk about their salaries hurts all of us most of the time. But...
When I saw that at a job a real bully-like dickhead got consistently underpaid the last thing any of us well paid people would have done is to tell him our numbers. The only reason he told us his salary was to make us jealous...
I think the problem is that people value themselves in different ways (and often the criteria is skewed to be more favorable for themselves). For example, I tend to extremely highly value people to whom I go for advice/help. These usually end up being people who are extremely smart and have a both wide and deep technical knowledge. They have almost always been programming for a long time and have a huge interest in the field, and have written all kinds of applications in various technologies.
At the same time, you have a lot of developers who started programming in college, read online about how to become a good developer, decided on technologies whey want to work with, read the staple books for that, wrote a bunch of applications in them, read some books on software architecture, on development process, etc, then got a job at a company which uses some of the technologies they are familiar with. Compared to group #1, they have a huge "knowledge debt" that will never disappear because they're focusing on learning things that are the most relevant to their current work. But this knowledge debt doesn't apply to everything that needs to get done at a company.
People from group #2 often consider themselves just as good as group #1 because they believe a huge part of knowledge group #1 has and they don't is irrelevant for the job. And in some ways, they're right. But they're also wrong, because group #1 adds business value by being able to solve the hardest problems and being the guys you go to for help when you get stuck.
At the same time, the people from group #1 often consider themselves much better than group #2. Which again, in a way might be right, but also wrong because group #2 might still do just fine in practice in most situations.
Of course these are not distinct groups, in reality most people are somewhere in between, being better in some areas and weaker in others, and this makes it even harder to compare 2 individuals in such a way that both of them will agree with the result.
Secret salaries allow the management to decide how much business value someone adds without having to explain themselves to 2 people who likely have skewed (each in their own favor) perspectives. It also prevents negative feelings between employees themselves. It is also good for the salaries of those that the company is willing to pay a lot, they don't have to worry about what others will say. It solves the "if I give it to you I have to give it to everyone" problem.
The downsides are that 1) salaries are likely a bit lower overall due to information imbalance and 2) people who are bad at negotiating get unfairly screwed.
At the same time, you have a lot of developers who started programming in college, read online about how to become a good developer, decided on technologies whey want to work with, read the staple books for that, wrote a bunch of applications in them, read some books on software architecture, on development process, etc, then got a job at a company which uses some of the technologies they are familiar with. Compared to group #1, they have a huge "knowledge debt" that will never disappear because they're focusing on learning things that are the most relevant to their current work. But this knowledge debt doesn't apply to everything that needs to get done at a company.
People from group #2 often consider themselves just as good as group #1 because they believe a huge part of knowledge group #1 has and they don't is irrelevant for the job. And in some ways, they're right. But they're also wrong, because group #1 adds business value by being able to solve the hardest problems and being the guys you go to for help when you get stuck.
At the same time, the people from group #1 often consider themselves much better than group #2. Which again, in a way might be right, but also wrong because group #2 might still do just fine in practice in most situations.
Of course these are not distinct groups, in reality most people are somewhere in between, being better in some areas and weaker in others, and this makes it even harder to compare 2 individuals in such a way that both of them will agree with the result.
Secret salaries allow the management to decide how much business value someone adds without having to explain themselves to 2 people who likely have skewed (each in their own favor) perspectives. It also prevents negative feelings between employees themselves. It is also good for the salaries of those that the company is willing to pay a lot, they don't have to worry about what others will say. It solves the "if I give it to you I have to give it to everyone" problem.
The downsides are that 1) salaries are likely a bit lower overall due to information imbalance and 2) people who are bad at negotiating get unfairly screwed.
> 2) people who are bad at negotiating get unfairly screwed.
I am bad at negotiating, but I always felt like this is a skill like any other.
I feel that saying people who are bad at negotiating get paid less it is like saying people who are not as good at their job get paid less. Well, yes...
Why would it be wrong if you are good negotiator and good worker to be paid more then if you are bad negotiator and good worker, or good negotiator and bad worker, or bad negotiator and bad worker... To me this seems perfectly fair.
I don't go asking for raises as my negotiation skills are awful, I get them offered to me cos I work as much as I can with highest quality I can attain.
Otherwise I totally agree with your comment.
I am bad at negotiating, but I always felt like this is a skill like any other.
I feel that saying people who are bad at negotiating get paid less it is like saying people who are not as good at their job get paid less. Well, yes...
Why would it be wrong if you are good negotiator and good worker to be paid more then if you are bad negotiator and good worker, or good negotiator and bad worker, or bad negotiator and bad worker... To me this seems perfectly fair.
I don't go asking for raises as my negotiation skills are awful, I get them offered to me cos I work as much as I can with highest quality I can attain.
Otherwise I totally agree with your comment.
Even if you think it's fair, people being paid based on negotiating skill is a market inefficiency so it is still undesirable.
I mean, bench pressing a lot of weight or playing the flute are also skills like any other, but we don't want software developers to be paid based on that. We want software developers to be paid based on software development skills, or other skills that actually relate to doing the job.
I mean, bench pressing a lot of weight or playing the flute are also skills like any other, but we don't want software developers to be paid based on that. We want software developers to be paid based on software development skills, or other skills that actually relate to doing the job.
But those are not related to the software development, while negotiation is related to work in general.
Someone who lifts weights is also responsible to negotiate a contract with his manager.
I guess the question is then how do we decide which skills should be artificially governed based on how good they are for people?
And lets take another point of view. Sales, for example, is based on negotiating skill. Do we say that is also market inefficiency and should we somehow subsidies sales person with bad negotiating skill cos that would be better for their salary?
I don't know, I still feel like having the opportunity to negotiate is what counts (meaning no discrimination based on sex, race etc to actually be in position to negotiate) while the outcome is completely dependant on person.
And if we really stretch the argument about which skills should be based for salary, we could say that it is not a software developer fault if he is not good at his job and somehow deserves to paid as the one who is dependant, for example, on years of experience.
I think people should be thought how to negotiate rather then making some artificial rules that there should be no negotiation at all cos someone is not as good at it.
Someone who lifts weights is also responsible to negotiate a contract with his manager.
I guess the question is then how do we decide which skills should be artificially governed based on how good they are for people?
And lets take another point of view. Sales, for example, is based on negotiating skill. Do we say that is also market inefficiency and should we somehow subsidies sales person with bad negotiating skill cos that would be better for their salary?
I don't know, I still feel like having the opportunity to negotiate is what counts (meaning no discrimination based on sex, race etc to actually be in position to negotiate) while the outcome is completely dependant on person.
And if we really stretch the argument about which skills should be based for salary, we could say that it is not a software developer fault if he is not good at his job and somehow deserves to paid as the one who is dependant, for example, on years of experience.
I think people should be thought how to negotiate rather then making some artificial rules that there should be no negotiation at all cos someone is not as good at it.
I don't understand where you got the idea that I suggest enforcing any kind of artificial rules on anyone. I am in fact for nearly zero labor regulation. I just said it's a negative effect, which it is.
Ideally the proportion in which a skill affects your salary is exactly the same at the proportion in which it affects job performance. Anything else is a market inefficiency.
Whether we should try to regulate it away is a completely different story.
Ideally the proportion in which a skill affects your salary is exactly the same at the proportion in which it affects job performance. Anything else is a market inefficiency.
Whether we should try to regulate it away is a completely different story.
Being bad at negotiation is one case.
But there are others: being black, female, old...
Imagine that you are a 50 year old developer applying at some software company. You know that you don't have a lot of opportunities (this comes up frequently on HN), so you'll underbid yourself.
And a company which would be happy to hire you, and would be happy to pay you your actual value, will still accept your underbid, because they also know that you don't have many alternatives.
But there are others: being black, female, old...
Imagine that you are a 50 year old developer applying at some software company. You know that you don't have a lot of opportunities (this comes up frequently on HN), so you'll underbid yourself.
And a company which would be happy to hire you, and would be happy to pay you your actual value, will still accept your underbid, because they also know that you don't have many alternatives.
Ultimately people guess and judge each other based on what they think each other's salaries are even if they don't know.
Hiding information only creates confusion and prevents markets from operating efficiently.
There is no legitimate economic justification for salaries being secret. Only tradition and superstition.
Hiding information only creates confusion and prevents markets from operating efficiently.
There is no legitimate economic justification for salaries being secret. Only tradition and superstition.
The problem is the notion of same pay for "the same job". In order to judge if to people deserve the same pay you have to know if they are really doing the same job, have the same knowledge, and produce an equal economic output for the company. This might be easy if you are making widgets and the only important outputs are units produced and defect rates but near impossible with more complicated work that is highly variable or more cognitive in nature.
Simply knowing pay and job title is not enough.
Simply knowing pay and job title is not enough.
> most societies women are paid substantially and illegally
> less than men for the same job
Okay, well let's take the BBC as a microcosm shall we? One of the most liberal places you can possibly work and overwhelmingly all the top jobs go to men (2/3 men) and men are paid more for similar value of work.
Here's a link: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383
The idea you could possibly be arguing other organisations than the BBC are fairer is absurd - they are most likely far worse!
Here's a link: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383
The idea you could possibly be arguing other organisations than the BBC are fairer is absurd - they are most likely far worse!
> and men are paid more for similar value of work
That's the thing. These different people don't bring similar value. When you work as a tv show star the value of your work isn't what you do but how many people will listen to you. You're not paid based on your "Senior TV Show Performer" role (or whatever title is being used in this industry) but based on your personality, your past and current successes, your potential awards, your negotiations skills, etc. If you can make the company feels that you will reach a large audience and that they will get a good return on investment, your market value will go higher.
That's the thing. These different people don't bring similar value. When you work as a tv show star the value of your work isn't what you do but how many people will listen to you. You're not paid based on your "Senior TV Show Performer" role (or whatever title is being used in this industry) but based on your personality, your past and current successes, your potential awards, your negotiations skills, etc. If you can make the company feels that you will reach a large audience and that they will get a good return on investment, your market value will go higher.
There are loads of examples within the dataset that give examples of direct comparisons (news readers for example). There is not a single female newsreader who earns anything like what the male equivalents do. I call wilful ignorance.
time in service accounts for some - but then again male newsreaders have longer careers
I would say that, while the BBC salary thing is obviously concerning, it’s also a bad example for the general case.
It’s a datapoint clearly demonstrating that women aren’t paid the same as men for the same work. I’m not sure you couldn’t dismiss every example so trivially.
The entertainment industry is one of the worst possible places to look to try and define "same work". You can easily have two people sat next to eachother where the audience wouldn't care if one was replaced but would leave if the other was. It's like saying musicians should all be paid the same.
I'm left wing and feminist as they come but this gender pay gap narrative is so consistently misrepresented it drives me mad. We're slipping into a society where all professions have quotas because everyone is terrified of a false narrative.
I'm left wing and feminist as they come but this gender pay gap narrative is so consistently misrepresented it drives me mad. We're slipping into a society where all professions have quotas because everyone is terrified of a false narrative.
Are you sure about that? I couldn't find any information showing that men and women were paid differently for the same work.
You probably don't know what each of the people does; someone like Emily Maitlis who earns < £150k - her co-host who does the exact same job earns up to £299k. My guess the man here doing identical jobs earns about twice as much. There are many examples of this in the released information.
But most organisations aren't in showbiz where say George Clooney gest more than say a lead in a tv show.
Also BBC presenters may work on several shows and your paid per show as I understand it.
Also BBC presenters may work on several shows and your paid per show as I understand it.
>> "When you pay that much you have to know that everyone else is doing it, and you have to know that the money goes to something reasonable," he says.
That's an interesting justification. It's like the Norwegian government wants people to focus on making sure their neighbors are getting just as hosed as they are instead of asking why they have to pay a 40% income tax.
Also, how does making everyone's salary public prove to taxpayers that their money is going to something reasonable? That doesn't follow at all.
That's an interesting justification. It's like the Norwegian government wants people to focus on making sure their neighbors are getting just as hosed as they are instead of asking why they have to pay a 40% income tax.
Also, how does making everyone's salary public prove to taxpayers that their money is going to something reasonable? That doesn't follow at all.
This is a nudge, they're using the power of social norms. It's ok that my tax bill is this high, because that's just how it is. The default assumption is that the money is going to something good because countries like Norway have high social trust.
Does Norway also have a VAT? The top marginal rate on wages in California is 51.9% according to taxfoundation.org [1]
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-t...
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-t...
Yes, generally 25%, 15% for food stuff and 10% for cultural stuff.
Income is taxed with 25% up to 164K NOK (about 20K USD), maximum income tax is 39,25% for everyone earning more than about 950K NOK (about 119K USD). But there's lots of deductions, so it's not too bad.
Income is taxed with 25% up to 164K NOK (about 20K USD), maximum income tax is 39,25% for everyone earning more than about 950K NOK (about 119K USD). But there's lots of deductions, so it's not too bad.
Do employers pay taxes on their labor as well?
Yes, between 0 and 14% depeding on sector and where in the country you are. This tax is going into the national insurance system called "folketrygden" which is what finance most of the welfare state (the parts that pays out money directly at at least).
Not just wages -- IIUIC, CA doesn't distinguish wage vs other kinds of income.
As opposed to those other developed countries that manage to give high quality of life to almost everyone without high taxes, such as
Switzerland!
We have it in Sweden, too. I think you pay 50 kr (6 dollars) to look up somebody's declared income - anonymously.
There's a website for this: www.kollainkomst.se (check incomes)
If someone makes a request for your personal income and tax information in Sweden, you'll always get a letter with the name of who requested your information and a copy of the information that was supplied to them.
If a 3rd party requests on your behalf, though. Just asking...
Presumably that is the raison d'etre for third-party companies offering anonymous lookups (of what is essentially freely available information) for a fee - whoever gets looked up receives notification that Leeches-R-Us, Inc. looked up their details.
It says that the notice is only sent if the details were looked up by a private person.
> Hotet resulterade i att branschen ingick ett avtal om att alltid skicka en kreditupplysningskopia om förfrågan beställts av en privatperson.
> Hotet resulterade i att branschen ingick ett avtal om att alltid skicka en kreditupplysningskopia om förfrågan beställts av en privatperson.
Finland also. You can check people's tax rate and then quite easily make an accurate estimate of their salary based off that. I'm not aware of anywhere to look it up for free (offhand) but it's no more than 10e last time I heard.
We have the same thing in Finland. Only you can't access the info easily online, you have to go to the tax office and use their terminal. But there you can stalk your neighbors and friends anonymously.
Although newspapers publish lists of all people earning 150k/year and make a big thing about the income of celebrities.
What I haven't understood is if tax records are public why aren't social security payments etc. also public? So you could see who possibly "games" the system in benefits?
I mean if the point of public tax data is to be "open" (=have everybody snitching for the government).
Although newspapers publish lists of all people earning 150k/year and make a big thing about the income of celebrities.
What I haven't understood is if tax records are public why aren't social security payments etc. also public? So you could see who possibly "games" the system in benefits?
I mean if the point of public tax data is to be "open" (=have everybody snitching for the government).
Because there might be social stigma around your medical condition, the fact that you've ever been homeless, that you don't have custody over your children and aren't receiving benefits or any number of things.
You earn your pay check, receiving one means that you're valued. Maybe not as valued as someone else, but valued none the less. Benefits are received because you need them, sometimes because you've been through hardships.
I have no problem with finding people who game the system, but I don't think the public are the ones who should do that job.
You earn your pay check, receiving one means that you're valued. Maybe not as valued as someone else, but valued none the less. Benefits are received because you need them, sometimes because you've been through hardships.
I have no problem with finding people who game the system, but I don't think the public are the ones who should do that job.
There could easily be stigma about people who earn a lot of money too though, particularly if they're not in a visible traditional job.
Well just publish a lump sum. Taxes paid: x €, benefits received: y €. Where's the problem with that? Medical costs could be excluded (medical care is practically "free" here ie. paid by taxes).
I wasn't talking about medical costs, I'm talking about benefits received while you're sick. This article is about Norway, and just like in every other Scandinavian country, after a while the state pays for their medical leave. That's a benefit, wether or not the actual cost of treatment was paid by the state or not.
The problem with doing that is, again, the social stigma. Why did you receive 3 times the normal average of benefits for a period? Were you a fuck up? It's comparable to the mug-shot websites in the US; if an employer sees you on that site, they don't care if you were ever indicted, what the crime was, if the officer was found to be acting incorrectly; you just had the bar raised for you, and this sucks if you were innocent because then there really is no reason. I can see the same thing happening if someone can see your unusual benefits, regardless of wether you deserved them or not.
The problem with doing that is, again, the social stigma. Why did you receive 3 times the normal average of benefits for a period? Were you a fuck up? It's comparable to the mug-shot websites in the US; if an employer sees you on that site, they don't care if you were ever indicted, what the crime was, if the officer was found to be acting incorrectly; you just had the bar raised for you, and this sucks if you were innocent because then there really is no reason. I can see the same thing happening if someone can see your unusual benefits, regardless of wether you deserved them or not.
That's how it was in Norway previously. The newspapers used to get the top of the local list and publish across several pages when they were made available. When online news became popular in the early 2000s they just got the whole dataset and published a searchable version online. This was banned a few years ago, and search is only available on the government website where it will notify whoever you search for that you have searched for them ...
In other words, newspapers, in their hunger for clicks, ruined a working system...
As far as I know, you pay taxes on social benefits, so it would be listed (as part of the sum) of income/taxes in Norway.
What's the "terminal" of which you speak? Last time I asked about this (years ago) there was an online service and you could pay about 10e to find out.
This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret!
Accessing the info in a terminal makes sense. However, why is it anonymous? I would like to know, also, who has been reading my info, and when.
Accessing the info in a terminal makes sense. However, why is it anonymous? I would like to know, also, who has been reading my info, and when.
So that you can snitch (anonymously, on the net, there is a website for this).
https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/contact-us/efil/reporting-su...
But agreed, the model in norway is better, so that you can see who has accessed your info.
But agreed, the model in norway is better, so that you can see who has accessed your info.
Edit: if you are going to downvote could you please tell me which part of my comment is factually incorrect? Genuinely curious. How do you think laws are enforced? This is not a controversial fact, it is admitted by both leftists and right-wing politicians, economists and philosophers. Thanks :)
> This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret!
Why? Do you realize that laws are enforced by the use of government force and sending cops with guns to your house if you don't comply? What this does is basically pointing guns at people and ordering them "tell me your salary or I will shoot you". How is that in any way a moral thing to do?
> This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret!
Why? Do you realize that laws are enforced by the use of government force and sending cops with guns to your house if you don't comply? What this does is basically pointing guns at people and ordering them "tell me your salary or I will shoot you". How is that in any way a moral thing to do?
[deleted]
Just for the record, I actually upvoted you (after seeing so many downvotes) because you provided a reasonable argument.
It is sad that you cannot often use colorful language on HN because people vote you down.
It is sad that you cannot often use colorful language on HN because people vote you down.
Thanks! While my language may be colorful, I don't think I used any insults or shown aggressiveness in my comment.
[deleted]
Not sure about publishing income and assets, but publishing everyone's tax bills could help stigmatise aggressive tax avoidance.
Or incentivize. A website and forum would swiftly spring up publishing the best-optimizing taxpayers/tax-avoiders, perhaps ranking by (normal tax rate for the taxpayers' income) / (actual tax rate). People would compete to get the top spot on the ranking, and 11.5 months of the year the forum would be striving to find clever hacks to optimize.
Well if we assume users are malicious that sounds ripe for a waterhole attack, so please, go ahead! On the other hand if it becomes a standard place for tax-related information to the general public it could be a good thing.
This doesn't seem likely. Anyone who cares that much will already be paying an accountant to avoid as much tax as possible.
This definitely blocks divide and conquer from working for employers.
A system like this encourages others to compare salaries and make judgements about oneself related to how well one is doing compared to someone else. This creates unhappyness because some feel they work harder and shouldn't be paid a quarter less. The person getting the extra amount feels they are more successful than there peers. All this does is distract you from the fact that both of you are making only a few dollars above minimum wage. If you only look at total pay in relation to your needs you will accept and be proud of your wage.
I have seen people who love there job find out someone they feel does not measure up to them make more money. This causes them to start hating the role they once loved and in some cases they left for the same salary elsewhere.
I have seen people who love there job find out someone they feel does not measure up to them make more money. This causes them to start hating the role they once loved and in some cases they left for the same salary elsewhere.
Which hurts the original company such that they start making better salary decisions. Transparency seems like a good thing here but it does create chaos during periods of correction.
Salary comparisons happen anyway, with the same effect, although you typically have to do it in secret because in many company's, sharing salary information is against company policy.
In my anecdotal experience, the angst doesn't last long, unless you are actually severely underpaid. And that's a problem regardless of salary disclosure.
In my opinion, I like the idea of open salary information because I suck at negotiating, and this would help. Why penalize people that haven't specialized in salesmanship? I became a developer to concentrate on solving problems, not trying to outwit and out-politic my co-workers, managers, and potential hiring managers.
In my anecdotal experience, the angst doesn't last long, unless you are actually severely underpaid. And that's a problem regardless of salary disclosure.
In my opinion, I like the idea of open salary information because I suck at negotiating, and this would help. Why penalize people that haven't specialized in salesmanship? I became a developer to concentrate on solving problems, not trying to outwit and out-politic my co-workers, managers, and potential hiring managers.
You are describing one possible reaction and the implication is that people should try to remain blissfully ignorant to avoid having to experience this type of envy or reduced self-esteem. There are people that have this reaction and do try to avoid it all costs but it's certainly not the only way. I, for one, relish this kind of gritty reality feedback from the world and try to use it to guide my choices. If you get to peek at salaries and find they are unfair, well now you can feel empowered to negotiate from a position where you can revoke an employer's BS of "we need to keep everyone's salary on an even (read: artificially capped) playing field and therefore we can't go making exceptions for you". On the other hand, sometimes you peek and are presently surprised that you landed somewhere actually walking the meritocratic walk. Does it sting to see that some bozo makes more than you? Of course. But now you know and can take steps to rectify the situation. I'm definitely biased toward the growth mindset school of things; I'd say "peeking" is overall net positive in most cases, whether we are talking salaries or any other sensitive information. Now that I think about it, It would be awesome to see everyone's performance reviews. Who's getting a free a pass and who's getting a raw deal and such.
The result of this and other policies in Scandinavia is that everyone makes just about the same amount of money in a given line of work. Raises are based almost exclusively on age and seniority, not on performance. What a depressing and demotivating system.
Transparency is enormous factor in the quality of life of all of us, and I think real transparency is not about public information, but public knowledge.
Another problem with this is that it stigmatises (and in the long term will prevent) those with no wealth and a high income. I think it's madness but a more fair trade would at least be to also publish everyone's existing wealth. I make an ok income for the minute but am not going to inherit millions in property like most people I know.
Wealth is a much bigger problem than income for society.
Wealth is a much bigger problem than income for society.
My company, GrantTree, has completely transparent salaries since day 1, almost 7 years ago. We are about 35 people now. #ama
Have people left because of this? Was it a loss or a gain for the companies culture if these people left?
One person left because he wanted to be paid significantly more than his work was worth at the time (according to me, my cofounder, and the 5 people we put in charge of a "pay team" to resolve this). He left, and it was better for him - he took a year off, decided actually the problem was he wanted to be doing charitable work and the money was a way to make up for that gap. He's now working at a charity.
I see it as a loss, but I'm not sure it was an avoidable loss.
Nobody else left because of pay transparency. Before we got our feedback in order, some people left because of feedback about their work, which only came after a round of pay changes, which made it clear to them that they were not doing work that was valued by the company. In those cases it would have been much better for everyone if we had delivered that feedback much more quickly! We're better at this now.
I see it as a loss, but I'm not sure it was an avoidable loss.
Nobody else left because of pay transparency. Before we got our feedback in order, some people left because of feedback about their work, which only came after a round of pay changes, which made it clear to them that they were not doing work that was valued by the company. In those cases it would have been much better for everyone if we had delivered that feedback much more quickly! We're better at this now.
Do you pay on par with Google, etc? Do potential employees sees salaries before negotiations?
I'm not sure how to answer the first question... we pay good salaries, but we don't have primarily developers so I'm not sure how to compare us to google.
Potential employees get walked through the system we used to come up with what we think their pay should be, and get to see what everyone else's pay is, as a prelude to a chat about what their pay should be. Most are happy to go with our number. Some need more for some reason, and we're flexible about this.
We make the effort to be the first one to quote a number on the basis that typically, in salary negotiations, "the first person to name a number loses". So we deliberately lose upfront to create a situation of trust instead of an opaque, win/lose negotiation where each side is trying to squeeze the other. We haven't encountered a situation where the candidate behaved in a way we considered aggressive or dishonest after we opened the salary conversation in this way. Worth noting that the expected salary range is always advertised upfront with the job.
Potential employees get walked through the system we used to come up with what we think their pay should be, and get to see what everyone else's pay is, as a prelude to a chat about what their pay should be. Most are happy to go with our number. Some need more for some reason, and we're flexible about this.
We make the effort to be the first one to quote a number on the basis that typically, in salary negotiations, "the first person to name a number loses". So we deliberately lose upfront to create a situation of trust instead of an opaque, win/lose negotiation where each side is trying to squeeze the other. We haven't encountered a situation where the candidate behaved in a way we considered aggressive or dishonest after we opened the salary conversation in this way. Worth noting that the expected salary range is always advertised upfront with the job.
This doesn't change much, I guess.
I mean, if you see marked rate for a JavaScript dev is too low, just don't sell yourself as one. Be a "mobile app dev" or a "solution engineer" etc. pp.
In the end you do the same work and get paid more, because people stop judging you by skill A bit skill B.
I mean, if you see marked rate for a JavaScript dev is too low, just don't sell yourself as one. Be a "mobile app dev" or a "solution engineer" etc. pp.
In the end you do the same work and get paid more, because people stop judging you by skill A bit skill B.
Not so much salaries, as declared gross incomes and wealth.
Salaries are dealt with via bi-yearly negotiations between unions and business representatives.
Note btw that there is no minimum wage legislation in Norway. Instead the agreement formed during negotiations apply not just to union members but to the business sector as a whole.
Salaries are dealt with via bi-yearly negotiations between unions and business representatives.
Note btw that there is no minimum wage legislation in Norway. Instead the agreement formed during negotiations apply not just to union members but to the business sector as a whole.
It's not true that tariffs apply to everyone. The only law that apply to everyone is is Arbeidsmiljøloven. Some tariffs are generalised and is a de-facto minimum wage in that sector.
There seem to be a lot of commenters in favour of open salaries here - how does this work for self-employed people? If I've been freelancing and working my tail off do you also believe I ought to be publicly disclosing that, or is it limited to employees of companies?
If you're self-employed, you still have a tax return. If you make a company to hold things in, it has a tax return.
Possible due to social mobility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.pn...
This is amazing for small advertisers. Anyone's salary can be found online, for free, and it's easy to target high earners with ads or even direct sales teams.
It's not so great for the high earners, though...
It's not so great for the high earners, though...
I think janteloven also plays a part here, although I am not sure which part....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
A question for all the people who use the word "fair":
Do you mean fair as paid
- by productivity,
- by necessity,
- paid equally, or
- something else?
Do you mean fair as paid
- by productivity,
- by necessity,
- paid equally, or
- something else?
Ah Norway, home of the Teslas. I remember the tax lists were always public in Norway, however before the Internet became commonplace actual physical effort was required - you had to go to the city council to look through the books.
The change to publish the lists online was creepy. I'm glad I left before my own numbers were made public (IIRC).
In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do.
This is just this Norwegian expat's personal experience; YMMV.
(Edit: I see from other comments here that the information has been ID-locked. That's a good thing, if but a bit late - after at least a decade fully open).
The change to publish the lists online was creepy. I'm glad I left before my own numbers were made public (IIRC).
In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do.
This is just this Norwegian expat's personal experience; YMMV.
(Edit: I see from other comments here that the information has been ID-locked. That's a good thing, if but a bit late - after at least a decade fully open).
Slightly off the main topic:
In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do.
Oddly, this is basically what I think of Norway after moving from the US.
In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do.
Oddly, this is basically what I think of Norway after moving from the US.
Well, I assume this only considers base salary. But for some occupations commissions, bonuses, etc. can be a significant part of their paycheck.
No, it is not your salary per say, but your taxable income that is available for everyone to see. All income, including base salary, bonuses, and perks are taxed the same and included in this number.
Just a tiny nitpick. It's per se, latin for "by itself", not per say. Just like should have is not should of.
It's about the taxed income.
Funny how some people stopped searching once you could no longer do it anonymously.
So, where is the graph of distribution of incomes?
The taxation-lookup site doesn't offer any aggregated data, however you can find some statistics at the national statistics bureau's website: https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk (link to page in English)
Wow, surprised I'd never heard of this.
Does anyone have a link to the search tool?
This is the current search tool, but it requires a Norwegian national ID (SSN) to log in: http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-settlement/Search-i...
If you google "skattelister" (tax lists) you will find various other tools:
- This one is based on the 2008 taxes and is therefore completely searchable on name and gives you income/assets/taxes + municipality/age: http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt
- This one is based on the latest 2015 taxes: https://www.dn.no/skattelister/. This means that they've used the official tool to search for specific celebrities and published it (together with some general distributions/stats).
If you google "skattelister" (tax lists) you will find various other tools:
- This one is based on the 2008 taxes and is therefore completely searchable on name and gives you income/assets/taxes + municipality/age: http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt
- This one is based on the latest 2015 taxes: https://www.dn.no/skattelister/. This means that they've used the official tool to search for specific celebrities and published it (together with some general distributions/stats).
[deleted]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
...specifically, 'the penal code of Jante...'
...specifically, 'the penal code of Jante...'
Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays. The fashionable idea that nobody else should get it because it doesn't suit you is pretty ugly. It used to be quite an admirable thing to be wealthy and have nobody know you were.