I gave some thought about this taboo when writing the post, and I originally had some language about being taught as a child not to ask people how much money th

I gave some thought about this taboo when writing the post, and I originally had some language about being taught as a child not to ask people how much money they make. I'm not sure if parents still stress this with their children, but I'm rarely asked what I make. In my line of work, I generally am required to ask everyone what they make, and some are more hesitant to tell me than others. Some companies are much more transparent about comp than others, but as a rule individual comp is regarded as something not to be shared with others at your company. The hypothetical discussion I allude to in the article could easily be between two people who do not work together, or that used to work together, making the sharing of salary information more of a private matter instead of a company matter. If employees had the rare ability to fairly critique their performance vs that of others, making salary transparent shouldn't be an issue. Imagine a baseball team that always paid their best player (highest average, value over replacement, some agreed upon statistic) the most money - it would be hard to argue with that. But in companies with multiple employees and no common metric for measurement, it's nearly impossible to expect Employee A to accurately assess his/her own performance related to Employees B, C, and D. Most would have a tendency to think they are a bit more qualified or a bit more productive than they are relative to their peers.