Contrarian view: salary disclosure destroys value for people with negotiating skills, which are among the most valuable and useful skills of all. Disclosure advantages people who collude to apply political pressure (gang up) instead of appealing to principles or leveraging their skill and the value they bring. There is general social and economic harm to facilitating this behaviour. Disclosure lowers all boats in tha…
Skills at zero-sum negotiation, like street-fighting skills, are among the most valuable and useful skills of all to those who possess them and to their allies. But skills at zero-sum negotiation by definition provide no value to society; the value they provide to their possessors is merely expropriated from someone else. This is a significant improvement over street-fighting skills, which provide negative value to society when exercised; a society with more street fights thereby becomes poorer and less happy.
> Disclosure advantages people who collude to apply political pressure (gang up) instead of appealing to principles or leveraging their skill and the value they bring.
This seems unlikely. Disclosure of the market-clearing price generally just reduces information asymmetry.
> Disclosure absolves managers of the need to negotiate effectively, which means you get managers who can't negotiate, which is the worst possible outcome for a company, since what is their job again?
Managers whose special skill is zero-sum negotiation will destroy your company. Managers need to be able to build cooperation and trust, which is the opposite.