HN also agrees that privacy is desirable in just about as many areas.

Are you arguing that the purpose of secret salaries isn't to keep employees from a better understanding of how much the company would be willing to pay them? We can have that discussion, but it would help if you made a coherent counterproposal. If you claim that open salaries cause significant friction between employees, for example, please cite comparisons to the countries and business where open salaries are common; there's enough of them that data should be available.

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - John Steinbeck (disputed)