> Pay transparency detrimental to you, as an individual. To live a happy life, you must figure out your own purpose and use your mind to achieve it. Happiness is not the result of income, nor is money required to be happy. Your happiness is a function of the achievement of the values you have defined for yourself.

Perhaps someday I'll be less cynical, but I'll go ahead and say it: money might not be happiness, but it sure goes a long way to helping. If you need to work 80 hours / week just to keep food on the table and a roof over your head, leaving no time for you to express you own desires and wishes (and no money to do so), how are you supposed to be happy?

Money isn't directly happiness, but it helps in that you can acquire things that make you happy. For example, if my dream is to become a great guitar player, money towards instruments, lessons, etc. greatly helps. What if I want to see the world? That will cost money and time, which is often even more valuable than money.

> If you allow the income of others to influence your decision making, you are only hurting yourself.

If I find out that I'm getting screwed by my employer, and that I should ask for $20k/year more (which I can only know if I know the salary distribution for people of my trade, in my location), I fail to see how that can harm me. By the very definition, I'm being harmed every day I remain ignorant.

(Certainly, there are individuals who will chase the number, and let their hubris get ahead of them. They're not the people I think such initiatives are attempting to benefit. And I think the argument is that while such initiatives might not be perfect, they do more good than harm.)

>Pay transparency detrimental to you, as an individual. To live a happy life, you must figure out your own purpose and use your mind to achieve it. Happiness is not the result of income, nor is money required to be happy. Your happiness is a function of the achievement of the values you have defined for yourself. If you allow the income of others to influence your decision making, you are only hurting yourself. You should not leave a job that is satisfying in its essentials - that is, it fits with your purpose, you do meaningful work - merely because you discover someone else makes more; that would only hurt you. You don't know - can't know - their purpose, their value, their preferences, that lead to their income and work environment.

How about we let people judge that themselves? It's everyones job not to hurt themselves, so how about we make sure everyone has as much information as the most powerful in the room. Otherwise, let's make the top 1% "happier" and impose a 100% tax on all income more than 3 standard deviations from the median eh?

//edit: I saw in another comment, you talked about pay transparency not making the wages rise. It might now. But then it will cause people to quit jobs where they are not valued, increasing their happiness.

//edit2: also, you sidestepped the question. Humans are not as unique as random numbers, amazon goods are not all the same. If there are 5 brands of battery, we don't say it is immoral to share the prices and compare because "each brand carries its unique and special history". It's a battery, 5V, X watt, Y $. Likewise, if I get hired to design a product, they don't care about my extensive research in japanese mud ball culture. I'm a project designer, education X, working hours Y, pay Z, expected outcome for the company Z*(1+some positive number).

I've known only one other person to share that view; a toxic as fuck manager. What he (and I can be very confident you) are saying is "fuck you got mine". Income opens a lot of doors and letting a company (and those leading it) ride high off of your work just because the employee should be "living a happy life with what they have" is fucking bullshit.

If you're paying your employees porportional to the value they bring to the company (and both of you agree on this) there are no downsides to having transparent salaries. The system breaks down when the employees find out that the managers telling them "you don't need income to be happy" are making 5-10x everyone else while complaining that budgets are tight.