
In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video] - open-source-ux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bO8zEaSuWg
======
intothemild
Here in Oslo I was in a startup where we had a British CEO. He argued about me
keeping my pay rise secret. I said there's no such thing. We all know what we
earn. It's public.

He was shocked. Then next day decided to tell everyone it was a fireable
offence to disclose your salary.

Which we then said. That the action of making it a fireable offence is
actually illegal and a fireable offence.

(He quit a number of months later)

~~~
reitanqild
Norway is crazy but sweet.

Edit: In fact salaries used to be even more public, printed out and left in
public for review.

~~~
danso
What is it now? I'm guessing it's not on the web, which would be vastly more
public than in printed form?

~~~
reitanqild
Yep, but now whoever you check will receive a notice about who checked their
salary.

So basically nobody does anymore which is a shame in some ways.

OTOH: Keeping everything wide open with no audit in the time of Internet and
free access for East European criminals maybe wasn't the right way either.
(E.g. you could plan a raid on rich old people based on electronically
searchable archives.)

~~~
danso
Ha. That just reminded me of how I'm on a Texas gov page titled "Sex Offender
Registry Export" because I once requested their sex offender database for
academic research:
[https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/App...](https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/Application/Export/History.aspx)

I don't mind since my name is so common, but I emailed the Texas agency that
they should put a noindex tag to prevent the page from being used against
people with less common names (you can register for the registry via what
appears to be a system lacking verification).

------
hkjgkjy
It works like that here in Sweden as well.

Fun story: in my teenage years, when dating my high school sweetheart, I went
to visit her grandparents house for the first time.

Arriving at their house, the grandmother quickly pulls out her
Taxeringskalender (taxation calendar - a paperback where a company has
collected all this public information, and they sell it as a handy book). She
begins to look up my surname and tells me how much my parents earn.

After having lived abroad (Japan, Germany and the UK) I've realized the
Scandinavian system is weird at times, but they (or we) do their thing and
everyone is kind of aiming at the same goal in society. Extreme transparency,
and many striving for equality above all.

~~~
charlesdm
This doesn't sound like a fun story at all, actually. I honestly don't see
what kind of good could come from disclosing tax returns publicly..

~~~
jellicle
Reduces gender discrimination; reduces race discrimination; reduces income
inequality; allows employees to make sure they are being paid fairly for their
skills; reduces tax evasion; increases trust in the system.

No doubt there are more that don't come to mind immediately.

~~~
dmoy
I'm not sure it reduces race discrimination in Sweden. It's not as blatantly
in your face, but it still affects people greatly.

~~~
jellicle
Reduces, not eliminates.

Presumably it is quite easy for employees to establish, for example, that all
black employees at a company are poorly-paid compared to similar white
employees. This makes redress possible. In the U.S. it is quite difficult to
establish that, even if one has a strong suspicion that it is true, and so
redress is rare.

------
deanclatworthy
It's the same in Finland. Tax rates are fairly easy to discover for anyone.
And based off that you can get a very good idea of their earnings.

In practice I've never met or spoken to anyone who has gone out their way to
do this. It's normally just the tabloids outing the salaries of politicians
and celebrities once a year.

~~~
whack
If I had access to such information, I would immediately try to figure out how
much my colleagues and peers in other groups/companies are making. Knowing how
much other people are making for similar job functions, gives you huge
negotiating power in managing your career. It's a net win for all workers in
society.

~~~
Tharkun
Have you considered the alternative approach of talking to people? A lot less
creepy than cyber stalking their tax reports.

~~~
PunchTornado
not reliable. a lot of my friends were saying they were earning much more than
were really making. made me depressed for quit a while.

then I got a wonderful job as a data admin for an intelligence institution and
for a few days when certain maintenance was due I had unlimited access to
everyone's earning in my country. THE LIES!

I always have issues negotiating my wage so knowing what other people are
earning would imprive my bargaining power.

~~~
ajmurmann
Wow, THAT is creepy! Did you get fired?

~~~
PunchTornado
nope, I faked them as tests and anyway there was no pressure about it. it was
relaxed, never got a question about it.

my point is that for people with poor negotiating skills, like me, knowing how
much other people make would have helped me when I was younger.

------
maffeis
Italy did the same in 2008, publishing a list with 2005 tax returns info,
causing public uproars. The list was then removed (and never been published
again) after the Italian Data Protection Authority ruled it infringed
citizens' privacy.

Needless to say, the data is still available through P2P networks:
[https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005](https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005)

------
protomyth
I'm sure that would be just peachy when the company you work for runs all its
employees and notices that you reported more income than they are paying you.
It was bad enough when I worked under a government grant so my salary was
public. I prefer privacy.

~~~
ginko
When would that be the case? When you have another job on the side? How is
that your employer's business?

~~~
lettergram
Personally, (I'm less than 25) I make about 75% of my income from the company
I work at, the other 25% doing odd jobs, websites, etc. That latter percentage
is probably increasing every month too.

I can't imagine the company I work at being super excited I'm (for example)
doing code reviews; or running a website. Technically, I don't have a clause
in my contract forbidding me from doing external work, so long as I give the
company 40 hours a week.

I know I am not alone. I know one co-worker makes about a half a million a
year in an external business selling car parts. He just works at the company
for fun essentially, since he is allowed to play with the entire companies
system architecture.

~~~
danso
Why do you feel justified in assuming what your company would think? And how
do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate moral code
that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the employment
contract?

There are plenty of scenarios in which an employer believes that they deserve
to know how their employee conducts themselves outside of work, including
other jobs, and in those scenarios, this should be specified in the contract.
In the news business, working for someone who might intersect with your beat,
e.g. making phone calls for the local chapter of Democrats if you're covering
politics, will often result in a severe reprimand if not firing. If you want
to be a schoolteacher, you can be fired for having worked in porn, even if
those days are over. [0]

[0] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif-
teacher...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif-teacher-with-
porn-past-loses-appeal/)

~~~
manarth
> _" how do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate
> moral code that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the
> employment contract"_

I've worked for a few organisations where the contract has included clauses on
exclusivity and IP assignment.

Each time I've asked for those clauses to be removed before joining them, and
each time they've agreed.

------
RodericDay
I really wish that someone who is really opposed to salary-transparency would
do a comprehensive pro- vs con- analysis of the issue, displaying that they
truly understand all the arguments for. A lot of the opposition seems so glib
and content with the status quo, showing very little charity to the idea,
often based on very contrived scenarios, or on the failure of isolated one-off
efforts (one factory switched, this happened...).

Yes, it's true, you lose some privacy and there's weird stalking scenarios
that could occur. However, on a social level, the positive mass externalities
seem huge:

\- Fundamentally hardcore pro-market: More information makes for better
economic agents. Full stop.

\- Undermine the status arms-race to display wealth.

\- Immediate career education for all kids everywhere. No more "wow I didn't
know x job paid y", it's all out there in the open.

\- Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because
you have similar info to them (which they pay for).

\- Less race/sex/etc based discrimination.

\- Bosses cannot ask workers to tighten their belts without also tightening
their own.

\- Allow people to tie vague concepts ("how are teachers valued by society?")
to real, meaningful personal experiences ("George is a great teacher and
making a pittance compared to Greg the salesman!")

I don't know. I'm totally into the idea. It seems like a thing that both
hardcore free-market libertarians and left-wing people pining for the
proletariat or w/e could both readily agree upon and promote together. The
bulk of the opposition seems to be a fear of what could be done with the
information, but the information is basically all out there already, in the
hands of the people who already have a lot of power. Your boss drives a nicer
car than you, and his boss an even nicer one. This would just let you actually
do math with the numbers and calculate whether you want to shop around for
jobs, rather than stay stuck with a vague impression.

~~~
jomamaxx
" Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because
you have similar info to them (which they pay for)."

This if upside down - in fact - it will reinforce class.

Do you know why your employer may ask in an interview: 'How much did you earn
before'? Because they know if they offer you a little bit more than before,
you'll probably take it - even if it's 'under market wages'.

Someone who earns very little can be held to that lower income, and there's
also a social stigma to it: if you're a low-income earner - you will be judged
as less valuable than high income earners.

People will judge the value of people by how much they earn - making it very
difficult for working class people or students to move up.

Also - it's a deep transgression of human rights. Your finances are your
private information, nobody should have the right to see them unless there is
a case for 'public good' i.e. public officials etc.

Also - your idea of libertarian in this case is a little upside down - this is
the _opposite_ of classical liberalism. It's massive government overreach.
Classical liberals would be very weary of having the government interfere in
one's private life.

By your logic - your bank account, your investments, land holdings etc. etc.
could feasibly be public knowledge.

All of those supposed 'good things' are intangible - there's no evidence they
will happen (or are good). It's classic socialist folly: a 'do gooder idea
that really is just more state control.

I have no doubt that in some cases, income could be public information - for
example, state officials should have to publish certain kinds of information -
especially stock ownership and business contracts so that we can ward off
corruption.

But in general, we should be deferring to privacy.

------
widforss
You guys might be intererested in the Swedish site lexbase.se. They asked the
courts for five years of records, cross-ran them with the population
registration and presented the data using a search prompt taking a name or
address as search terms.

This is normally illegal as it violates some integrity laws, but it is ok
under current legislation if you have a "utgivningsbevis", something you need
to register for to use your freedom of speech in published writing.

The site was poorly built and their full database was leaked nearly instantly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexbase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexbase)

------
lervag
I think it is important to note that you can only see the amount of tax payed,
not the actual income. This obviously correlates with strongly with income,
but there are a lot of factors that affect the amount of tax payed. Person A
and B with the same income might pay a very different amount of taxes.

As others have also noted, if I wanted to learn the income of a fellow
Norwegian, he would be notified that I had requested this info. This prevents
a lot of snooping. I would suspect newspapers and magazines to be among those
who request income information the most, and then typically they request
information about the wealthiest and most powerful.

------
klausjensen
When I lived in Norway, I found this to be a pointless violation of my
privacy. Still do.

~~~
Svenskunganka
Well, it's a different culture here in Scandinavia. Personally, I couldn't
care less if anyone wanted to look up my salary - whether it is a recruiter or
someone else. I have my own valuation of my time and skills and if a potential
employer can't meet that, there's someone else who will.

Having this mindset will help sift out companies that you probably wouldn't
want to work for in the first place.

~~~
walshemj
But it reduces your ability to negotiate its also acts to keep the lower
orders in their place as an atypical candidate my have started out at a lower
salary and so be les likely to progress to the same level as some one born
with a silver spoon in their mouth

~~~
Svenskunganka
It's easy to say that without looking at the countries we're talking about
here. The nordic countries are the closest places on earth to "everyone born
equally". We all have access to the same education and healthcare, whether our
parents have money or not (since it is fully government-funded through taxes).

~~~
kalleboo
Not to mention the strength of unions and collective bargaining (maybe not in
tech in particular though)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
In a way, that goes both ways. In Norway, management is as likely to have a
union as the employee. The factory my spouse works at, negotiations are
usually done between the unions. A little over half the employees have a
union, and from what I understand folks can choose their union. You might have
a different work contract than the person standing next to you because of
different unions or one having a lack of a union.

------
aukaost
Same thing in Iceland. There's a magazine published every year with salaries
of notable persons divided by sector.

------
fowlerpower
This is even more interesting when companies do it. There are many startups
these days that are pushing radical transparency and you actually know what
everyone makes in the company.

I think this builds trust and frees people up from the anxiety of not knowing
if they are getting screwed. The other thing is all high performing
individuals in society, athletes, actors what have you, their salaries are
know.

This isn't as radical as you might think and I think it has benefits for
society.

~~~
walshemj
Such as ?

~~~
henrijuntunen
Buffer: [https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-
buffer-...](https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-
including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/)

------
Zitrax
Coming from Sweden and being used to public tax records I was nevertheless a
bit surprised at the transparency in Norway when anyone could look up anyone
online anonymously. It made it extremely simple to for example create list of
everyone at work or on your street (or use the data for any purpose). They
later changed it in 2011 (?) such that the other person will get notified
about who looked him/her up. I don't know if any other Nordic country went as
far as Norway did during those years ?

There was an estimate that Norwegians spent around 250.000 work hours per year
looking up each other in the tax databases.

There were also mobile apps being made when the databases were public that
could for example show the richest people nearby.

~~~
digi_owl
It used to be that each year the reported income and paid tax was printed and
placed in a public location (local post office etc). Then some braniac thought
they could save some money by just putting it all online. End result was that
scrapers were set up etc.

------
Animats
That used to be the case in the Washington, DC area, back when almost
everybody was a GS-graded government employee. There was a wallet card with
the GS levels and number of years in grade, showing the salary levels. That
told you what someone made.

------
anovikov
I'd say it's a bad thing: a lot of consumption is a result of people's desire
to show off. When everyone knows who makes what anyway, trying to show off
will be stupid, so that activity will stop - severely hitting consumption,
business revenues, profits, and the economy in general, probably resulting in
a vicious cycle as people's incomes will be hit by bad business.

Scandinavia may be exception from that because showing off isn't in their
mentality anyway, so benefits (main of which is that more and more reliable
information makes things better for economic agents) outweigh disadvantages.
Not going to work well for most other countries.

------
Kiro
I must be naive but I thought this was public information in most countries.

~~~
manarth
Would you mind saying which country you live in?

I'm from the UK, where income/tax is private, and my understanding is that
this is the same in the USA, and most European countries.

It's interesting that what's "normal" to me is so alien and unexpected to
other people.

~~~
hkjgkjy
I think it's common in Scandinavia, and when moving out of the peninsula for
the first time I was chocked that it wasn't like that for everyone. Now I feel
queasy about having that data public.

~~~
ACS_Solver
I have the opposite experience, I moved to Scandinavia (Sweden), and this is
still one of the weirder things to me. I like the ideas of transparency in
general that are prevalent, but I don't see how publishing the tax returns of
individual citizens working in the private sector contributes to transparency.

~~~
Kiro
The transparency goes a long way in Sweden. You can call the tax office and
say "I want this person and all his relatives' social security numbers, income
statements, address history etc etc". They can't question it and you don't
need any reason.

~~~
ACS_Solver
I still don't see how this is a boost to transparency. I tend to think of
transparency in terms of the government being transparent, not me being able
to get information on random people. How does society as a whole benefit when
I can check my neighbor's income?

I'm also slightly uneasy with services like hitta.se, though I am not as
paranoid as I used to be. It's possible to see the average income in some
residential area as well. So if someone checks that, then checks the people
living there individually, and notices that my income is significantly above
average for the area, then my place is more attractive as a break-in target.

It would seem more sensible to me if that information were available given a
legitimate need, such as planning to make a deal with some person.

~~~
Kiro
Not saying anything about that. When I say "transparency" I mean it's public.
Not putting any other value in the word.

------
xlance
They recently made a small change to this. Now you can see a list of people
who have checked your income.

A lot of people stopped snooping after this change.

------
fert46
Farmer's subsidies are also public knowledge in the EU and are routinely
printed in papers. That lets you know appropriately their gross income. I
can't see that happening for other sectors of society who benefit from
government support.

------
keiferski
_The Law of Jante is the description of a pattern of group behaviour towards
individuals within Scandinavian communities that negatively portrays and
criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate.
The Jante Law as a concept was created by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel
Sandemose who, in his novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning
krysser sitt spor, 1933, English translation published in the USA in 1936),
identified the Law of Jante as ten rules. Sandemose 's novel portrays the
small Danish town Jante (modelled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors as it was
at the beginning of the 20th century, but typical of all small towns and
communities), where nobody is anonymous._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

------
widforss
What? You cannot do this in every democratic country?

The government should be transparent, therefore everything the government
bodies do that does not obviously need to be protected should be public.

~~~
johannes1234321
For the government being transparent you have to know what the government
collects. But for that it doesn't matter what a single person earns and pays.

This might be more relevant with corporate taxes (where authorities make deals
to keep a company in one location), subsidiaries or donations to political
parties (which aim for influence)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I think all public, private and corporate financial transactions, including
cash transactions, should be public, with absolutely no expectation of privacy
or avoidance through clever financial engineering or creative accounting.

Every single transaction. Ever. In the whole world. Recorded permanently.

It would be the fastest way to end political corruption. It would also shine
some light on who the world's richest people really are, and how they make and
spend their money.

~~~
johannes1234321
This would also be the fastest way to end all privacy. What I read, what I eat
and with who and also which medicine I take.

Transparency for political decisions is important as is privacy.

------
bfuller
Salaries for non profit workers are public in the USA

------
kajjffkk
Less laws please.

------
jkot
Norway has zero transparency when it comes to children rights. Some
governments (Slovak, Czech, Romania) recommend not to travel there with
children.

EDIT: Some explanations.

\- In Norway social services (Barnevernet) can take children from family
without any explanation.

\- Parents are under gag order, and can not talk about their case. Talking to
press means you loose parental rights.

\- There is no appeal, proof, or any oversight.

\- Barnevernet does not release ANY details about cases. It is to protect
children.

\- No details are released even if child is already dead (suicide) and does
not need protection.

\- Bernevernet has zero oversight, it does not even allow foreign social
workers to look into their materials.

\- People who work for Bernevernet can also work for private companies which
provide child care (unique in Europe). So person who decides on child removal
may have direct financial benefit from doing so.

\- Siblings are often split and placed far apart (8 hours drive).

\- Removed children must speak Norwegian, mother tongue is suppressed
(siblings are split). Foster parents often do not have common language with
children.

\- Relatives of children (grandparents, aunties, divorced parents) have zero
chance to get custody.

\- Anonymous surveys (parents are under gag order) indicate there are
thousands of such cases (Norway is very small country). Mostly immigrants.

~~~
maaaats
Is this comment based on the single, recent case that has been severely
misrepresented in religious circles?

~~~
jkot
There are a few thousands such cases, mostly in east-european countries. It is
recommended not to bring your family to Norway, if you find job there.

~~~
msh
What is this referring to?

~~~
jkot
Barnevernet, social services, child abduction.

~~~
msh
That's not really helpful. For anyone to make sense of it you need to put in
more details or references.

------
jomamaxx
This is a serious transgression of privacy and human rights.

There is utterly no reason why most people should not most other people's
income.

Unless they are public reps, or have government dealings - or there is some
kind of 'public good' \- than this is basically an abuse of human rights.

Why not make people's bank account statements or health records public?

~~~
Numberwang
I don't see human rights coming down either side of the argument here. It's
about what type of society you want to live in. Scandinavia tend to want to
identify as a more social culture whereas others will want an individual based
society.

I think the one word someone from the outside should take with them about
Scandinavia is "relax". Most things like these matter less than you think.

~~~
jomamaxx
Why don't you tell Chinese citizens who have government control their online
behaviour 'for the purposes of social betterment' to 'relax'?

"Scandinavia tend to want to identify as a more social culture whereas others
will want an individual based society."

Why do you speak for 100% of Scandinavians? How about the large portion of
those who want nothing to do with this law? Shouldn't they be able to opt out?
Let those who want to 'be social' (as you say it) publish their information
online. The rest can have their basic rights to privacy protected.

While I agree that it's probably not a huge deal overall - it is definitely a
issue of rights and privacy, and a fairly serious one.

~~~
Numberwang
We have something called democracy going on up north. We decide our laws by
vote. So those that are on the losing side of an issue will just have to live
with it until laws change. Similarly to how various restrictions apply to
drugs in the US.

