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Re:Britain to make salary disclosure in job ads mandatory by disgruntledphd2 on Friday November 06, 2026 @10:32AM (#50393580)
> For highly paid employees (high impact, high competence, whatever the reason), reducing inequality goes against their direct financial interests. Inequality gets reduced by dragging their compensation down, not increasing everyone else's.

Speaking as someone who's been a super high performer in some roles, and a terrible performer in others, I definitely want to reduce inequality.

Like, it's entirely unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others. If you want to pay someone outside of band, give them a different title.

If someone performs unexpectedly well, give them a bonus/promotion etc.

It's deeply sad (but unsurprising) that so many people can only focus on their particular benefit (especially when the vast majority of that benefit is context dependent).

Like, if you hired John Carmack or Fabrice Bellard and just told them to take tickets, they'd probably be an average performer at best. If you told them never to take initiative, they'd perform badly. So lots of performance is dependent on context, there are very few "good" employees in a vacuum.

Re:Britain to make salary disclosure in job ads mandatory by anonym29 on Friday November 06, 2026 @10:40AM (#50393691)
>Speaking as someone who's been a super high performer in some roles, and a terrible performer in others, I definitely want to reduce inequality. Like, it's entirely unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others.

Then give your money to people who don't negotiate as well. In practice, you don't: your revealed preference speaks louder than your stated preference does.

Re:Britain to make salary disclosure in job ads mandatory by disgruntledphd2 on Friday November 06, 2026 @10:48AM (#50393833)
Wanting to live in a better society should not preclude me from doing better in this one.

And the transaction costs on such an approach would be too large, as I'm sure that you know.

M I note that you don't address the notion of context dependent high performance.

Re:Britain to make salary disclosure in job ads mandatory by pembrook on Friday November 06, 2026 @11:46AM (#50394788)
> it's unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others

No its not. This is a skill that is useful when exchanging value with other entities (the basis of the economy). You're being compensated for having that skill.

Would you hire a salesperson or head of procurement or media buyer with bad negotiation skills? How about a developer who can't properly negotiate with teams demanding their time to properly allocate themselves where needed?

> Speaking as someone who's been a super high performer

This might be true, or it could be your subjective view tainted by the need to protect your ego.