This may just be your personal feelings though. I know quite a few people who work for public schools and government entities throughout Florida who really really are uncomfortable with their salaries being public knowledge, and at least one has felt it has been used against them.
In some countries you can look up anyones salary, Nordic countries for example.
Do you feel their entire society is harmed and uncomfortable?
Your whole argue is basically it might make a few people uncomfortable for a generation. While completely ignoring any benefits for future generations.
Nordic countries also have a different culture and values than we do (not better, not worse, but different). This is normal that subjects that are taboo in one area are not taboo in another area, and things that work for one culture may not necessarily work out for our culture.
There's a very specific culture in the US that favors income opaqueness, and it's not necessarily employer based. My sister in law is very uncomfortable having us know that she makes 70k a year for whatever reason. I know real life stories of people who make 150k in low cost of living area and people around them treating them like they can afford to pay for their dinner when they hang out because they make so much more then them.
We live in a society that has MUCH more pay inequality than a lot of other 1st world countries and we are a society that heavily values income and wealth over other social signals, and because of that money has become a sore subject.
Then you add the job situations where if you make a lot more than other people (maybe you literally deserve it because of the value you bring to the company) it can be an uncomfortable situation if peers find out because now the company has to justify why person X is worth more than Y without insulting them, risking a lawsuit, or making them leave.
To be clear, I am vastly for pay transparency for many reasons (especially minority and gender equality) but let's not pretend like it can just be airlifted into America's culture just because it works in other countries.
The only reason people are uncomfortable sharing their salaries is because : A. wages in america are pathetic and their ashamed. B. Because it's been told to them that this is 'proper' and 'ethical', that to 'share' this information is a corporate 'sin' and just really poor manners.
People who work in most professions do as they're told. They've been told to do this since they were in school, which was actually setup the way they are to funnel kids into factory jobs where they will -you guessed it - do as they're told.
Total openness about wages is one big step towards conquering income inequality. You can see it play out in the news lately w/ the strikes, the rise of /r/antiwork, the growth of unions, etc...
This is often the case in lower per capita income area's where you have a public sector worker demanding a pay increase (i.e higher taxes) but are making 65-70K, where the tax payer they are wanting more money from is making 40-50K, the tax payer tends to not believe the appeals to poverty of said public sector employee
