Bound by transparency

There is a discussion arising in Finland on pay transparency within workplaces being raised for legislation, even though there is actually no law preventing a workplace from having transparency, as long as it is clear to employees at the recruitment phase. A small poll run by a state owned news service (only 1500 respondents) found that there were clear differences between sexes, with more women favoring transparency, as well as earnings, with higher earners les likely to want transparency. I think this is as expected.

However, what I did find interesting is that while this is being researched and a proposal for legislation will be submitted in March, even the higher female percentage in favor didn't quite reach the 50% mark. This is quite interesting really, considering that while there is there are plenty of complaints about earning inequalities, even women on average want their earnings to be made public within the organization.

Finland is kind of weird in this regard already, because Finland publishes people's earnings anyway, based on their tax returns. At the end of 2020 for example, several of my colleagues made the list of highest earners in the region, which sounds impressive, but many, many people were printed. This was searchable on the internet, something I don't do.

For me personally, I am far less concerned than I once was about talking money publicly, something that is still culturally tabooed to the detriment of anyone who is not in the top 10 percent of earners. Not having transparency means to reduce discussion, which reduces the potential to learn. However, I think that the greatest change to my own intuition on this has come through Hive, where my own wallet and the wallet of all others is already public.

Does it cause problems?

Yes.

It does cause some problems, as unfortunately, we live in a society that tends to have a lot of grass is greener on the other side mentality, making many green with envy. There are other problems as well of course, with larger accounts being targeted in various ways and getting undue attention in both the positive and the negative. But all in all, I think that it has been more positive than negative thus far, although that might change once there are many accounts worth millions, as they may be targeted.

However, Hive aside, what I have found in Finland is that people use the tax records to gain payraises, as they can say "person X earns more than me and we do the same thing" but no one considers that while the job might be the same, the work done might vary. Doing the "same job" doesn't mean that the same volume or quality of work is being done, which means the next year, the one who was earning more the year earlier before the leveling will say, "We are earning the same, but I do far more and better work" and they will want a payrise too.

This creates an inflation of workplace pays where salary can be negotiated, but it is going to outperform the rate of rates set by legislation and unions. This means that it will lead to pay inequality on a different level between those who can negotiate and those who can't, which is generally the low-income workers.

However, regardless of problems caused, I would tend to err on the side of transparency, as there is so much hidden from the majority of us as it is. But, I would prefer the transparency to reach into all kinds of areas, not just salaries. Personally, I think that all government spending should be transparent and auditable, preferably on a blockchain, in order to create trust and accountability. I find it ridiculous that this spending transparency only works in one direction, especially since a government is financed by the people.

I actually think that this is where the transparency should start, if the government wants to call themselves leaders, they should lead by example. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if there was government spending transparency, as I believe it would change fundamental process. I think that a lot of how we govern ourselves could be far better organized now, but we are still using legacy systems, something most blockchain people would likely agree with.

Heading back to pay transparency though, I am trying to test my feelings on it, by imagining how I would feel if my earnings were known at different levels. I don't think I would feel ashamed as a low to mid income earner, as that is where I have openly spent the majority of my life, but my intuition fails a little at the high end of the bracket, as currently I will not forward that information in areas where I might be considered there. On Hive, it is public of course and I am okay with that as I know what I have put in to get to where I am , but for example, when a colleague asks "how much crypto do you have" I almost invariably say, a little bit.

I have a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I can confidently say that I have more crypto than 99% of people, since the majority have none and many of those that do, likely not that much. What is a lot and a little is of course going to depend on personal circumstances and local conditions, so giving numbers is kind of useless, as it would be considered very high to some, very low to others.

But even though I might not be willing to publicize if I was a high earner now, I think that I would quickly get comfortable with it being open if it was introduced. Also, this would likely change a lot of the risks associated with publicity anyway, since new cultural norms would form, changing society's behaviors around money - which could be a very good thing considering that currently, we tend to have a very bad "love and hate" relationship with it, which is unhealthy.

Whatever happens in Finland, I do think that in the coming years, transparency in many areas of life is going to be increasingly in the public discourse, especially around the ownership of our data and what is collected on us. This will impact on other areas like wealth transparency and then, all of the different advantages that some have over the others, like access to financial tools. This will in turn drive more innovation in the growing finance sectors, with a focus on more equitable distribution, especially since the technologies could increasingly capture, translate and compare real activities and bind them to values.

What I currently see in the world, is disruption on many levels and, this is nothing new to our species. However, what is new, is our advanced ability to communicate globally and for the first in history, to organize ourselves at the global level from the ground up, without having to rely on the "leaders" to make decisions for us. Every action comes at a cost and there is no perfect decision to be made, it is a continual process of drafting, applying, reviewing and then going back to the drawing board to draft the next iteration to improve upon the last. It is a workflow that cycles forever into all that we do, where we innovate and in doing so, make obsolete what is no longer relevant.

But, perhaps I have got off track and gone in many directions, as I tend to do - so, I will end with the obvious questions.