"A new study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University suggests that if all of our salaries were made known tomorrow, half of us would be made miserable and the other half would be made no happier."
-Smart Money Magazine, "Why Companies Keep Pay a Secret"

The implication is that we're all better off not knowing the truth.

This, however, is only the employer's half of the story. This information is indeed of negative value to the organization...but it is of positive value to the workers.

Information, in a free market, causes prices to equalize. However, salaries within…