So basically — if you're getting exploited, ignorance is bliss?

If you're happy with what you're getting, are you being exploited?

Personally: I've reached the point where I don't want to know what my colleagues make. I know many of them make significantly more, but that's fine. In some cases I'm outright happy for them.

Exploitation is a tax that your boss (and their boss) is hiding from you. Literally just taking right out of your pocket before you ever even see it, just like a gangster would do.

“If you're happy with what you're getting, are you being exploited?”

Yes you are exploited if you don’t know what would be possible.

No, just that a sense of happiness is a relative measure. Do you think you'd be happier earning 50K when everyone else is earning 25K, or 100K where everyone else is earning 200K? Everyone believes he is the latter, but in reality, over time, the former group people probably are happier, I wager.

It’s not really about the dollar amounts. It’s the fact that my employer is using an information asymmetry to arbitrage my labor.

Here’s an analogy. Say I wait tables at a restaurant. If I discover my boss has been skimming off my tips, I’m going to be upset — even if I was perfectly happy with my pay before I learned that.

Not comparable. That's outright wage theft, not informational asymmetry.

What do you think wage theft is? If you’re getting paid half as much as someone else doing the same job, I’d call that “outright wage theft” too.

That's a negotiation you were disadvantaged in: not something you can literally be sued for in court, and possibly even face criminal charges for.

That's not really germane to the discussion though. The only reason you can be sued or charged for skimming tips is that we decided to make a law against it. It has nothing to do with whether they're comparable in a moral sense.

The more information you have the better a position you'll be in - always. If you have an extremely stressful event in your life then making sure that finances isn't also a stressor is important for your mental health and, by extension, your physical health. A perfectly valid way to react to being underpaid is to say "the job security is worth this difference in salary while I sort out this other problem in my life" - but in that case it's you that's making the choice that the difference is acceptable. Everyone staying mum on salary only causes companies to be able to get away with exploiting introverts and people with low self-confidence.

If salaries are public it isn't a super rare case where friendly coworkers will help to build you up to asking for that promotion.

> The more information you have the better a position you'll be in - always.

I agree with this 90%. More information is very useful most of the time, as long as it is high quality.

However, given that we humans do not have infinite processing power or infinite emotional capacity, there are obviously limits to the amount of information we want to have at any point in time. And these limits will change depending on the situation and our own internal state.

This is why I don't discuss pay with anyone. I don't want them to feel bad, and I certainly don't want to feel bad myself.

And this is how companies keep you in the dark, and maintain the information asymmetry that gives them the upper hand in negotiations.

Don't tie your self-worth to your income.