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The Unfreeing of American Workers

dovdovdov 9y ago
America could do with some more socialism, yes it costs money, but payed holiday, proper maternity leave, pension contribution and such help employees feel like a human being, instead of an exploitable company asset.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  > instead of an exploitable company asset. ... you understand how socialism is paid for, right?
  - cirgue 9y ago
    I would rather a larger portion of the value I create go to social programs than to shareholders. If I am going to be an exploitable asset, I would prefer to be exploited for reasons that do some good in the world.
    - pc86 9y ago
      Given those options I'd rather be a shareholder.
      - karmajunkie 9y ago
        That's nice for those who can afford to be shareholders. Most Americans can't.
        justavoice 9y ago
        All it takes is giving up a latte a day. Or cable. It's all about choices.
      - ageofwant 9y ago
        You are a shareholder. You are a tax paying citizen of a organization nominally called a 'state' or a 'country'. You invest into this organization by your labor. You benefit by the services it provides. Should you prefer, you may go and invest elsewhere, assuming the other collective would have you. If non of this suits you, you can move to a truly free place, like Somalia, and build your own medical, justice and defense systems, where you can compete with the other warlords that have done the same.
        duncan_bayne 9y ago
        "If you don't like it, leave" has been used as a reply to accusations of rights violations since time immemorial. Perhaps the black Americans sick of Police brutality should leave for Africa? Jews targeted by anti-semitism could always leave for Israel. I don't know what they stick around and complain for. /s Leaving that part of your argument aside: the rest is a false dichotomy. You present two examples of rights violating societies - mixed-market socialism, and barbarism (feuding warlords) - while ignoring a solution that respects human rights: https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition
        thephyber 9y ago
        You seem to be conflating "stakeholder" with "shareholder".
    - duncan_bayne 9y ago
      How about not being an exploited asset at all? That's a better option to strive for as a culture, surely?
- geebee 9y ago
  You know, I don't think this is necessarily about socialism. It may just be about capitalism, with rules. I personally do believe that some measure of antitrust regulation is necessary to preserve a market economy. Similarly, other measures may be necessary to insure that a competitive marketplace prevails. Non-competes, for instance, are largely unenforceable in California, and it would be hard to argue that it has hurt the tech economy out here. In fact, the absence of non-competes may be so important that California can make a muck of almost everything else and still beat out other states that enforce non-competes. Beyond that, I do agree that factors that limit the mobility of the workforce probably do harm the economy. Interestingly, the issues can move from the political left to the political right - mortgages that are underwater, health care, occupational licensing that makes it difficult to move from state to state, visa restrictions that make it difficult to change employers (or, perhaps more importantly, change fields), no-hire collusions like the one between Jobs and Brin, it runs the gamut. I think that because large corporations and wealthy individuals are often such beneficiaries of capitalism and market economies, people sometimes think of them as being innately "pro-market". The truth is a lot more murky. Wealthy people and corporations will absolutely undermine free markets if it suits their interests, and because they are powerful, they often succeed. Keep in mind, skilled immigration may be something we should expand in the US, but the approach pushed by US tech companies essentially puts their HR departments in charge of who gets to live in the US, and the conditions under which they are allowed to remain. The no-hire collusion between apple, google, and so forth was an unusually brazen and galling abuse of free labor markets. I'm ok with a fairly activist government where it comes to making sure large corporations can't use their power, especially where it comes to collusion, to undermining labor markets. This is a moral issue to me, but it's an economic one as well - a more free and open labor market will absolutely generate more economic growth. The thing to me is, it's not a left vs right issue - some of the issues that free workers up appeal tremendously to the left (job protections, health care), others tremendously to the right (at will employment). The problem is that you get strange contradictions (someone who argues that employment should be at-will where it comes to firing people without notice or severance, but that the employee should not be free to change employers to get a higher salary).
  - thephyber 9y ago
- jasim 9y ago
  I find Socialism quite a broad name and depending on which shade we look at it through, it can mean collectivism, absence of a free market, centralized decision making, bureaucracy, and the potential for an authoritarian administration. A Welfare State on the other hand covers the things you mentioned, and has fewer negative connotations. I'm saying this here because the state providing a minimum welfare guarantee to its citizens should be an unquestionably accepted idea, but the confusion with socialism often undermines it. A related read - http://quillette.com/2016/01/21/socialism-is-worse-than-capitalism-you-want-a-welfare-state/ http://quillette.com/2016/01/21/socialism-is-worse-than-capi...
  - somecallitblues 9y ago
    Op probably referred to the good kind most Western Europe is enjoying.
    - dovdovdov 9y ago
      I meant everywhere where there are proper social services. I only went with the word 'socialism' because it triggers many. ^^'
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    In the US, the terms socialism, welfare, and welfare state have been tarred with a brush for quite some time now... I only feel like the last election has started a fresh re-evaluation of all of them, but socialism in particular.
fivestar 9y ago
The whole article starts off with bs: First, non-competes are rarely so airtight that a person can't work in their field for another employer. Second, the whole FUD about healthcare is total bs as well--the ACA is screwed up and Americans badly need any replacement that might control costs better. The whole "pre-existing" condition FUD is crap, too, since the new healthcare bill doesn't do away with that "protection". I should add that I don't think it is fair that un-insurable people push their problems onto the rest of us because all that does is bring everyone down! It's nice to think we can look out for our nation's most vulnerable people, but what if we can't do that and maintain viable economic growth? What then? I didn't even read the rest--the NY Times needs to go out of business if they can't do honest journalism without injecting their anti-Trump agenda into Every. Single. Article.
- Jgrubb 9y ago
  > I should add that I don't think it is fair that un-insurable people push their problems onto the rest of us because all that does is bring everyone down! May you and your extended family continue to enjoy the perfect health with which you have all been blessed. > It's nice to think we can look out for our nation's most vulnerable people, but what if we can't do that and maintain viable economic growth? What then? I dunno, take down the statue of liberty I guess?
- yzz 9y ago
  When you talk about un-insured people pushing their problems onto the rest of us, well that would happen without the laws anyway. Those problems generally reverberate throughout a society, so why not just treat them with laws? Also, non-competes may not be airtight, but how many people do you expect to even attempt to legally challenge the non-compete clauses enforced by these multi-billion dollar corporations?
- cr1895 9y ago
  >honest journalism It's quite clearly an opinion piece.
  - fivestar 9y ago
golergka 9y ago
If you use your freedom to voluntarily give away your freedom, can you be called "unfree"?
- anonnyj 9y ago
  Imagine a situation where people can be reliably psychologically manipulated into "voluntarily" giving away their freedom.
  - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
    Imagine?
  - golergka 9y ago
    Can you please provide a clear distinction between 'psychological manipulation' and the usual poor decision making?
    - anonnyj 9y ago
      Manipulation, as in intentional leading of someone's behavior. "The usual poor decision making" is more erratic. Mix up poor education, poor info, weird ideas about causality, etc., and you'll get all sorts of different behavior. Well planned disinformation, strong persuasive ads, policy that leads to desperation + overly obvious option to get out... These sorts of things would create a lot more focused of a result.
      - golergka 9y ago
        > intentional leading of someone's behavior That definition encompasses almost any human interaction. When I politely ask you to pass the salt, I sure hope to lead your behavior. Is this manipulation?
- qntty 9y ago
  Serfs chose to be serfs too. Better than starving.
dforrestwilson1 9y ago
Sorry but Paul Krugman is biased trash. Requiring employers to shop for and provide health insurance is only going to complicate the already complex system and lead to crappier less competitive outcomes.
corbet 9y ago
He seems to have missed the health care portability act signed during the Clinton administration. That fixed the "health insurance ties you to a single job" problem. As I understand it, even the current crowd isn't trying to mess with that particular protection.
georgeecollins 9y ago
In the US the rhetoric is "free market". But in political practice this means responding to large corporations who often want laws that make if difficult for others to compete with them. Telecoms want to be able to coalesce into an anti-competitive oligopoly. IP holders want to control their rights for longer and longer. Commodity producers like farmers want state subsidies. Americans love capitalism because it is the best system known to distribute resources. But we need to separate the idea of being pro-capitalism from the idea of being pro-corporate lobbying. They are not always the same.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Americans love capitalism because it is the best system known to distribute resources. Well, as far as "distributing resources" goes, Swiss or Nordic capitalism (which Americans would call "socialism") is far better.
  - somecallitblues 9y ago
    Spot on! But American exceptionalism will not ackgnowledge that. Freedom!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - fivestar 9y ago
    Yes, entrepreneurs are flocking there to take advantage of their low, low taxes and non-stagnant economies.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      I don't care what "entrepreneurs" do. Their citizenry doesn't have large swaths living like third world workers / peasants at the mercy of their corporate overlords and sudden illness and such, and that's enough for me.
    - zuminator 9y ago
      Why the smugness? In particular, Norway's GDP per capita is notably higher than that of the US in both PPP and nominal measures. And both countries outrank the US in terms of the so-called "quality of life" or "where-to-be-born" index.
nickez 9y ago
"Her employment contract might very well include a clause preventing her from leaving a few months later for a job with a rival pest-control firm, since she could be taking crucial in-house information with her. And that’s perfectly reasonable." What.. How can that be completely reasonable? It might be reasonable if the company isn't allowed to fire her, but as far as I understand it is quite easy to get fired in the US to..
- walshemj 9y ago
  Its only reasonable if its limited duration and does not stop you plying your trade and she is paid for it
  - geebee 9y ago
    The problem is that our legal system almost certainly won't reach that decision quickly and at low cost. Even if she wins, she loses.
    - pmiller2 9y ago
      That, and people aren't typically paid for the time covered by non-competes.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  How easy or not it is to be fired varies by state. Right to Work states are the easiest to be dismissed in (fired or laid off, not all dismissals are firings). More union friendly states (NY, CA, WA), it's harder to be dismissed. In almost all states, government jobs are hard to be dismissed from after your initial probationary period (typically 1-3 years). Though sometimes getting to an extreme in cities like NYC where it can be so hard to dismiss a teacher, they just box them up in a teacher version of in-school suspension.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    you can still be fired easily for cause or via redundancy one would assume
LanceH 9y ago
How did non-competes suddenly become big news? Has there been some recent change to laws surrounding the non-compete? I'm seeing articles everywhere about it. Some of them are politically slanted against the current administration, but I can't recall any party doing anything about it for some time. If I look at California and Texas (blue & red), in one it is legally unenforceable and the other it is practically unenforceable. None of articles about non competes seem to have any details either. It all seems to be a hypothetical. They seem forced and driven by something else (or are they just copying each other). Just me?
- walshemj 9y ago
  or HR have been applying NC to a wider range of jobs for which they are not intended for ie blue collar semi skilled jobs
- theparanoid 9y ago
  Probably a PR firm or similar. Much of the news is manufactured. Like "the suit is back" [0]. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- VLM 9y ago
  When combined with stories about the average american having roughly zero savings and negative net worth, the strategy is very SLAPP in that very few americans can financially afford to respond to a letter from a lawyer or a lawsuit even if a win is guaranteed. There is also synergy where even a miracle free lawyer none the less requires time off from work. "I need time off on Monday for court, previous employer problem" "Oh OK you're fired take all the time you want". Finally like many legal agreements they're primarily CYA.
- hodgesrm 9y ago
  If you follow the link from Krugman's column to the NY Times series [0] you'll find a wealth of details with specific examples of harm to employees. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/noncompete-clauses.html?mcubz=2&_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/noncompete-claus...
cubano 9y ago
My personal life experiences tell my that, nowadays in the US at least, most people couldn't care less about the idea of "freedom" and on a daily basis happily trade it for faux-security and financial gain. In fact, most are scared by the idea of it and actively try to limit the meme. This explains why the US has basically become a prison state and has roughly 4% of the world's population and 33% of the incarcerated inmates, with no serious efforts at reform seeing the light of day. I suppose given our evolutionary biology, these attitudes aren't surprising, and really represents just another form of tribalism where the ingroup works safe "corporate-drone" jobs and the outgroup don't.
- somecallitblues 9y ago
  That incarceration rate is there to keep the blacks off of streets and away in prisons. It's the modern form of slavery and one in three black males will be put in prison once in their lifetime. Not sure that it has anything to do with evolutionary biology and all with a fear of a black person.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    I think its a positive feedback loop. We criminalize blacks, which makes life "harder", which makes crime more attractive, which leads to more crime, which criminalizes blacks... But there could be a chicken or the egg argument as to which step occurred first in the loop (crime vs criminalization), because blacks didn't make up such a large percentage of prisons until the last few decades.
    - tcfunk 9y ago
      I believe the egg was once called slavery
      - devmunchies 9y ago
        I think that's lazy thinking. Blacks didn't make up such a large percentage just a few decades ago, so its a recent problem. Fatherless homes, for example, are much more common than before.
atemerev 9y ago
So -- insurance-based healthcare with barriers of entry for newcomers, revolving doors, overcharging for everything and regulated to hell is now free market? Noncompete agreements, preventing free competition of labour -- those are free market? And the answer to these problems is somehow _more_ regulation, and more lock-in arrangements with fixed payments to benefit the usual suspects? Whoa. Free market _does_ solve many problems. Healthy competition and low barriers of entry is the only way to make things more affordable. However, free market is not a natural state of affairs -- ironically, we need government help to promote it, to create competitive playing field. Unfortunately, this is also not natural, and corruption prevails. Socialism equals inefficiency. Revolving door crony "capitalism" is indistinguishable from oligarchic socialism. Only competition brings efficiency to complex systems.
- ensiferum 9y ago
  "... we need government help to promote it, to create competitive playing field." Level playing field. but in the us the playing field is never level. Big money companies lobby rigorously to rig the game for their advantage.
  - atemerev 9y ago
    Lobbying is fine, when it is open, transparent and competitive (there are always stale laws that need to be corrected). The alternative (lobbying is officially prohibited and everything happens behind closed doors) is worse. Direct democracy (like we have in Switzerland), where most of laws are initiated by the public and voted in (or rejected) on referendums also helps. But it only works with fast enough iterations, where poorly thought laws can be easily repented. However, representative democracy is worse in any way.
    - ensiferum 9y ago
      "Lobbying is fine, when it is open, transparent and competitive (there are always stale laws that need to be corrected). The alternative (lobbying is officially prohibited and everything happens behind closed doors) is worse." It seems that what happens now is the combination of those two. Politicians take money (and campaign donations etc.) more or less in secrecy from private organizations/corporations. I don't think there's any way for them to represent the people anymore in an unbiased fashion. They just represent the companies where they get their money from. But is the goverment for the people or for the businesses? In the US for the latter.
leroy_masochist 9y ago
No mention of any of the state laws that make noncompetes unenforceable (e.g. California, Florida) or place massive restrictions on them (Texas, Colorado, etc). Would be interesting to see how Krugman's "one in five" stat would hold up if state law were taken into account.
pvnick 9y ago
> American conservatives love to talk about freedom [but here's why they are hypocrites] > ... if the Freedom Caucus gets its way, [bad thing] > ... few expect the Trump administration to [good thing] > the Trump administration is [bad thing] Even in an article about non-competes Krugman can't help but slather on the bias. It amazes me that people still take this man seriously and that his books are so widely used in economics classrooms. Krugman has long since abandoned any hint of objectivity, and thus his conclusions should be considered with a heaping scoop of skepticism.
- justavoice 9y ago
  Many people are blind to his bias because they share it. :/
- antientropic 9y ago
  It's an opinion piece on the opinion pages of the NYTimes. It's not a paper in a scientific journal. It's not required or expected to be "unbiased" or "objective".
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    You are correct, yet even though I agree substantively with Krugman even I find his hectoring tone and use of loaded language discomfiting.
bediger4000 9y ago
Enforceable non-competes are just part of the whole trend towards keeping things the same. We have "Intellectual Property" laws so that someone owns ideas, we have regulations to keep oligopolies and regional monopolies in place (and favor incumbents) and we have treaties like ACTA, TPP, TIPP which in effect lock down labor, and to and extents criminalise activism. To back it all up, we've got dragnet surveillance. It seems like the US and western Europe as a whole just wants to keep things as they are.
nicholasjarnold 9y ago
So the article's premise is that ~30 million Americans are tied to their current employer with a legal agreement that prohibits them from seeking employment at another firm that may offer them a better position. I agree that in principle this is a problem that should be addressed, however in practice in my personal experience it's never actually a problem. I've not been CEO/CTO of any company, but I have been team lead and/or considered a 'senior' member of the engineering team. I also have friends who've held those types of positions. Both myself and the aforementioned friends have never had one problem transitioning to a better deal elsewhere despite having signed these non-compete agreement, even in the same industry. Do others have different (bad) experiences with non-competes in practice? My assertion is that while these agreements might be sometimes enforced/pursued when talent flees, it seems exceedingly unlikely unless the person fleeing under agreement is at the very top of the ladder (meaning that way less than 30M are actually affected/limited, in practice). edit: Clarified that I DO AGREE that it's a problem in principal.
falcolas 9y ago
Non-compete agreements are bad, but can be avoided or nullified in court. A lot of companies who have realized this are instead starting to use really nasty and broad copyright assignment agreements in their place. My current place of employ has you sign a copyright assignment that lasts one year post-termination, and it's not the first place I've seen these in place. I wasn't in a position to turn down the offer at the time, so now I have to figure out a way around it (which probably just consists of "keep my head low and don't be a target"). It bothers me, but with the at-will employment laws, the employers effectively have all the power in the relationship. Working for myself as a contractor has its own set of problems (and doesn't exempt you from problematic copyright assignment clauses). What's an employee to do?
- pmiller2 9y ago
  How can a copyright assignment that lasts a year after you're terminated be enforceable? That has to be considered unconscionable.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I'm sure it's enforceable in the same way that non-compete agreements are: the bigger lawyer fund wins. It's not unconscionable until you take it to court.
    - pmiller2 9y ago
      Yeah, but, on the face of it, it seems so restrictive that you could just show up and have your lawyer ask the judge to throw it out, and they would. I suppose the company could drag you through appeals, but how do you work for the year following leaving the company? I guess this is making my head explode too much to think sanely about it. :/
surge 9y ago
Non compete clauses are unenforceable (especially if the state has a right to work) and I simply do not sign them. For me, it's a deal breaker. If you have a right to fire me for any reason, I have a right to leave and go work for someone else, including a competitor in a the same industry in which my skill set lies for any reason (especially if that reason is higher pay).
- devopsproject 9y ago
  Some terms are absolutely enforceable. The cost and time to defend yourself from lawsuits is also not free.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

America could do with some more socialism, yes it costs money, but payed holiday, proper maternity leave, pension contribution and such help employees feel like a human being, instead of an exploitable company asset.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
duncan_bayne 9y ago
> instead of an exploitable company asset. ... you understand how socialism is paid for, right?
- cirgue 9y ago
  I would rather a larger portion of the value I create go to social programs than to shareholders. If I am going to be an exploitable asset, I would prefer to be exploited for reasons that do some good in the world.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Given those options I'd rather be a shareholder.
    - karmajunkie 9y ago
      That's nice for those who can afford to be shareholders. Most Americans can't.
      - justavoice 9y ago
        All it takes is giving up a latte a day. Or cable. It's all about choices.
    - ageofwant 9y ago
      You are a shareholder. You are a tax paying citizen of a organization nominally called a 'state' or a 'country'. You invest into this organization by your labor. You benefit by the services it provides. Should you prefer, you may go and invest elsewhere, assuming the other collective would have you. If non of this suits you, you can move to a truly free place, like Somalia, and build your own medical, justice and defense systems, where you can compete with the other warlords that have done the same.
      - duncan_bayne 9y ago
        "If you don't like it, leave" has been used as a reply to accusations of rights violations since time immemorial. Perhaps the black Americans sick of Police brutality should leave for Africa? Jews targeted by anti-semitism could always leave for Israel. I don't know what they stick around and complain for. /s Leaving that part of your argument aside: the rest is a false dichotomy. You present two examples of rights violating societies - mixed-market socialism, and barbarism (feuding warlords) - while ignoring a solution that respects human rights: https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition
      - thephyber 9y ago
        You seem to be conflating "stakeholder" with "shareholder".
  - duncan_bayne 9y ago
    How about not being an exploited asset at all? That's a better option to strive for as a culture, surely?
geebee 9y ago
You know, I don't think this is necessarily about socialism. It may just be about capitalism, with rules. I personally do believe that some measure of antitrust regulation is necessary to preserve a market economy. Similarly, other measures may be necessary to insure that a competitive marketplace prevails. Non-competes, for instance, are largely unenforceable in California, and it would be hard to argue that it has hurt the tech economy out here. In fact, the absence of non-competes may be so important that California can make a muck of almost everything else and still beat out other states that enforce non-competes. Beyond that, I do agree that factors that limit the mobility of the workforce probably do harm the economy. Interestingly, the issues can move from the political left to the political right - mortgages that are underwater, health care, occupational licensing that makes it difficult to move from state to state, visa restrictions that make it difficult to change employers (or, perhaps more importantly, change fields), no-hire collusions like the one between Jobs and Brin, it runs the gamut. I think that because large corporations and wealthy individuals are often such beneficiaries of capitalism and market economies, people sometimes think of them as being innately "pro-market". The truth is a lot more murky. Wealthy people and corporations will absolutely undermine free markets if it suits their interests, and because they are powerful, they often succeed. Keep in mind, skilled immigration may be something we should expand in the US, but the approach pushed by US tech companies essentially puts their HR departments in charge of who gets to live in the US, and the conditions under which they are allowed to remain. The no-hire collusion between apple, google, and so forth was an unusually brazen and galling abuse of free labor markets. I'm ok with a fairly activist government where it comes to making sure large corporations can't use their power, especially where it comes to collusion, to undermining labor markets. This is a moral issue to me, but it's an economic one as well - a more free and open labor market will absolutely generate more economic growth. The thing to me is, it's not a left vs right issue - some of the issues that free workers up appeal tremendously to the left (job protections, health care), others tremendously to the right (at will employment). The problem is that you get strange contradictions (someone who argues that employment should be at-will where it comes to firing people without notice or severance, but that the employee should not be free to change employers to get a higher salary).
- thephyber 9y ago
jasim 9y ago
I find Socialism quite a broad name and depending on which shade we look at it through, it can mean collectivism, absence of a free market, centralized decision making, bureaucracy, and the potential for an authoritarian administration. A Welfare State on the other hand covers the things you mentioned, and has fewer negative connotations. I'm saying this here because the state providing a minimum welfare guarantee to its citizens should be an unquestionably accepted idea, but the confusion with socialism often undermines it. A related read - http://quillette.com/2016/01/21/socialism-is-worse-than-capitalism-you-want-a-welfare-state/ http://quillette.com/2016/01/21/socialism-is-worse-than-capi...
- somecallitblues 9y ago
  Op probably referred to the good kind most Western Europe is enjoying.
  - dovdovdov 9y ago
    I meant everywhere where there are proper social services. I only went with the word 'socialism' because it triggers many. ^^'
- dv_dt 9y ago
  In the US, the terms socialism, welfare, and welfare state have been tarred with a brush for quite some time now... I only feel like the last election has started a fresh re-evaluation of all of them, but socialism in particular.

fivestar 9y ago

The whole article starts off with bs: First, non-competes are rarely so airtight that a person can't work in their field for another employer. Second, the whole FUD about healthcare is total bs as well--the ACA is screwed up and Americans badly need any replacement that might control costs better. The whole "pre-existing" condition FUD is crap, too, since the new healthcare bill doesn't do away with that "protection". I should add that I don't think it is fair that un-insurable people push their problems onto the rest of us because all that does is bring everyone down! It's nice to think we can look out for our nation's most vulnerable people, but what if we can't do that and maintain viable economic growth? What then? I didn't even read the rest--the NY Times needs to go out of business if they can't do honest journalism without injecting their anti-Trump agenda into Every. Single. Article.

Jgrubb 9y ago
> I should add that I don't think it is fair that un-insurable people push their problems onto the rest of us because all that does is bring everyone down! May you and your extended family continue to enjoy the perfect health with which you have all been blessed. > It's nice to think we can look out for our nation's most vulnerable people, but what if we can't do that and maintain viable economic growth? What then? I dunno, take down the statue of liberty I guess?
yzz 9y ago
When you talk about un-insured people pushing their problems onto the rest of us, well that would happen without the laws anyway. Those problems generally reverberate throughout a society, so why not just treat them with laws? Also, non-competes may not be airtight, but how many people do you expect to even attempt to legally challenge the non-compete clauses enforced by these multi-billion dollar corporations?
cr1895 9y ago
>honest journalism It's quite clearly an opinion piece.
- fivestar 9y ago

golergka 9y ago

If you use your freedom to voluntarily give away your freedom, can you be called "unfree"?

anonnyj 9y ago
Imagine a situation where people can be reliably psychologically manipulated into "voluntarily" giving away their freedom.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  Imagine?
- golergka 9y ago
  Can you please provide a clear distinction between 'psychological manipulation' and the usual poor decision making?
  - anonnyj 9y ago
    Manipulation, as in intentional leading of someone's behavior. "The usual poor decision making" is more erratic. Mix up poor education, poor info, weird ideas about causality, etc., and you'll get all sorts of different behavior. Well planned disinformation, strong persuasive ads, policy that leads to desperation + overly obvious option to get out... These sorts of things would create a lot more focused of a result.
    - golergka 9y ago
      > intentional leading of someone's behavior That definition encompasses almost any human interaction. When I politely ask you to pass the salt, I sure hope to lead your behavior. Is this manipulation?
qntty 9y ago
Serfs chose to be serfs too. Better than starving.

dforrestwilson1 9y ago

Sorry but Paul Krugman is biased trash. Requiring employers to shop for and provide health insurance is only going to complicate the already complex system and lead to crappier less competitive outcomes.

corbet 9y ago

He seems to have missed the health care portability act signed during the Clinton administration. That fixed the "health insurance ties you to a single job" problem. As I understand it, even the current crowd isn't trying to mess with that particular protection.

georgeecollins 9y ago

In the US the rhetoric is "free market". But in political practice this means responding to large corporations who often want laws that make if difficult for others to compete with them. Telecoms want to be able to coalesce into an anti-competitive oligopoly. IP holders want to control their rights for longer and longer. Commodity producers like farmers want state subsidies. Americans love capitalism because it is the best system known to distribute resources. But we need to separate the idea of being pro-capitalism from the idea of being pro-corporate lobbying. They are not always the same.

coldtea 9y ago
>Americans love capitalism because it is the best system known to distribute resources. Well, as far as "distributing resources" goes, Swiss or Nordic capitalism (which Americans would call "socialism") is far better.
- somecallitblues 9y ago
  Spot on! But American exceptionalism will not ackgnowledge that. Freedom!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fivestar 9y ago
  Yes, entrepreneurs are flocking there to take advantage of their low, low taxes and non-stagnant economies.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    I don't care what "entrepreneurs" do. Their citizenry doesn't have large swaths living like third world workers / peasants at the mercy of their corporate overlords and sudden illness and such, and that's enough for me.
  - zuminator 9y ago
    Why the smugness? In particular, Norway's GDP per capita is notably higher than that of the US in both PPP and nominal measures. And both countries outrank the US in terms of the so-called "quality of life" or "where-to-be-born" index.

nickez 9y ago

"Her employment contract might very well include a clause preventing her from leaving a few months later for a job with a rival pest-control firm, since she could be taking crucial in-house information with her. And that’s perfectly reasonable." What.. How can that be completely reasonable? It might be reasonable if the company isn't allowed to fire her, but as far as I understand it is quite easy to get fired in the US to..

walshemj 9y ago
Its only reasonable if its limited duration and does not stop you plying your trade and she is paid for it
- geebee 9y ago
  The problem is that our legal system almost certainly won't reach that decision quickly and at low cost. Even if she wins, she loses.
  - pmiller2 9y ago
    That, and people aren't typically paid for the time covered by non-competes.
Jtsummers 9y ago
How easy or not it is to be fired varies by state. Right to Work states are the easiest to be dismissed in (fired or laid off, not all dismissals are firings). More union friendly states (NY, CA, WA), it's harder to be dismissed. In almost all states, government jobs are hard to be dismissed from after your initial probationary period (typically 1-3 years). Though sometimes getting to an extreme in cities like NYC where it can be so hard to dismiss a teacher, they just box them up in a teacher version of in-school suspension.
- walshemj 9y ago
  you can still be fired easily for cause or via redundancy one would assume

LanceH 9y ago

How did non-competes suddenly become big news? Has there been some recent change to laws surrounding the non-compete? I'm seeing articles everywhere about it. Some of them are politically slanted against the current administration, but I can't recall any party doing anything about it for some time. If I look at California and Texas (blue & red), in one it is legally unenforceable and the other it is practically unenforceable. None of articles about non competes seem to have any details either. It all seems to be a hypothetical. They seem forced and driven by something else (or are they just copying each other). Just me?

walshemj 9y ago
or HR have been applying NC to a wider range of jobs for which they are not intended for ie blue collar semi skilled jobs
theparanoid 9y ago
Probably a PR firm or similar. Much of the news is manufactured. Like "the suit is back" [0]. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
VLM 9y ago
When combined with stories about the average american having roughly zero savings and negative net worth, the strategy is very SLAPP in that very few americans can financially afford to respond to a letter from a lawyer or a lawsuit even if a win is guaranteed. There is also synergy where even a miracle free lawyer none the less requires time off from work. "I need time off on Monday for court, previous employer problem" "Oh OK you're fired take all the time you want". Finally like many legal agreements they're primarily CYA.
hodgesrm 9y ago
If you follow the link from Krugman's column to the NY Times series [0] you'll find a wealth of details with specific examples of harm to employees. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/noncompete-clauses.html?mcubz=2&_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/noncompete-claus...

cubano 9y ago

My personal life experiences tell my that, nowadays in the US at least, most people couldn't care less about the idea of "freedom" and on a daily basis happily trade it for faux-security and financial gain. In fact, most are scared by the idea of it and actively try to limit the meme. This explains why the US has basically become a prison state and has roughly 4% of the world's population and 33% of the incarcerated inmates, with no serious efforts at reform seeing the light of day. I suppose given our evolutionary biology, these attitudes aren't surprising, and really represents just another form of tribalism where the ingroup works safe "corporate-drone" jobs and the outgroup don't.

somecallitblues 9y ago
That incarceration rate is there to keep the blacks off of streets and away in prisons. It's the modern form of slavery and one in three black males will be put in prison once in their lifetime. Not sure that it has anything to do with evolutionary biology and all with a fear of a black person.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  I think its a positive feedback loop. We criminalize blacks, which makes life "harder", which makes crime more attractive, which leads to more crime, which criminalizes blacks... But there could be a chicken or the egg argument as to which step occurred first in the loop (crime vs criminalization), because blacks didn't make up such a large percentage of prisons until the last few decades.
  - tcfunk 9y ago
    I believe the egg was once called slavery
    - devmunchies 9y ago
      I think that's lazy thinking. Blacks didn't make up such a large percentage just a few decades ago, so its a recent problem. Fatherless homes, for example, are much more common than before.

atemerev 9y ago

So -- insurance-based healthcare with barriers of entry for newcomers, revolving doors, overcharging for everything and regulated to hell is now free market? Noncompete agreements, preventing free competition of labour -- those are free market? And the answer to these problems is somehow _more_ regulation, and more lock-in arrangements with fixed payments to benefit the usual suspects? Whoa. Free market _does_ solve many problems. Healthy competition and low barriers of entry is the only way to make things more affordable. However, free market is not a natural state of affairs -- ironically, we need government help to promote it, to create competitive playing field. Unfortunately, this is also not natural, and corruption prevails. Socialism equals inefficiency. Revolving door crony "capitalism" is indistinguishable from oligarchic socialism. Only competition brings efficiency to complex systems.

ensiferum 9y ago
"... we need government help to promote it, to create competitive playing field." Level playing field. but in the us the playing field is never level. Big money companies lobby rigorously to rig the game for their advantage.
- atemerev 9y ago
  Lobbying is fine, when it is open, transparent and competitive (there are always stale laws that need to be corrected). The alternative (lobbying is officially prohibited and everything happens behind closed doors) is worse. Direct democracy (like we have in Switzerland), where most of laws are initiated by the public and voted in (or rejected) on referendums also helps. But it only works with fast enough iterations, where poorly thought laws can be easily repented. However, representative democracy is worse in any way.
  - ensiferum 9y ago
    "Lobbying is fine, when it is open, transparent and competitive (there are always stale laws that need to be corrected). The alternative (lobbying is officially prohibited and everything happens behind closed doors) is worse." It seems that what happens now is the combination of those two. Politicians take money (and campaign donations etc.) more or less in secrecy from private organizations/corporations. I don't think there's any way for them to represent the people anymore in an unbiased fashion. They just represent the companies where they get their money from. But is the goverment for the people or for the businesses? In the US for the latter.

leroy_masochist 9y ago

No mention of any of the state laws that make noncompetes unenforceable (e.g. California, Florida) or place massive restrictions on them (Texas, Colorado, etc). Would be interesting to see how Krugman's "one in five" stat would hold up if state law were taken into account.

pvnick 9y ago

> American conservatives love to talk about freedom [but here's why they are hypocrites] > ... if the Freedom Caucus gets its way, [bad thing] > ... few expect the Trump administration to [good thing] > the Trump administration is [bad thing] Even in an article about non-competes Krugman can't help but slather on the bias. It amazes me that people still take this man seriously and that his books are so widely used in economics classrooms. Krugman has long since abandoned any hint of objectivity, and thus his conclusions should be considered with a heaping scoop of skepticism.

justavoice 9y ago
Many people are blind to his bias because they share it. :/
antientropic 9y ago
It's an opinion piece on the opinion pages of the NYTimes. It's not a paper in a scientific journal. It's not required or expected to be "unbiased" or "objective".
- tanderson92 9y ago
  You are correct, yet even though I agree substantively with Krugman even I find his hectoring tone and use of loaded language discomfiting.

bediger4000 9y ago

Enforceable non-competes are just part of the whole trend towards keeping things the same. We have "Intellectual Property" laws so that someone owns ideas, we have regulations to keep oligopolies and regional monopolies in place (and favor incumbents) and we have treaties like ACTA, TPP, TIPP which in effect lock down labor, and to and extents criminalise activism. To back it all up, we've got dragnet surveillance. It seems like the US and western Europe as a whole just wants to keep things as they are.

nicholasjarnold 9y ago

So the article's premise is that ~30 million Americans are tied to their current employer with a legal agreement that prohibits them from seeking employment at another firm that may offer them a better position. I agree that in principle this is a problem that should be addressed, however in practice in my personal experience it's never actually a problem. I've not been CEO/CTO of any company, but I have been team lead and/or considered a 'senior' member of the engineering team. I also have friends who've held those types of positions. Both myself and the aforementioned friends have never had one problem transitioning to a better deal elsewhere despite having signed these non-compete agreement, even in the same industry. Do others have different (bad) experiences with non-competes in practice? My assertion is that while these agreements might be sometimes enforced/pursued when talent flees, it seems exceedingly unlikely unless the person fleeing under agreement is at the very top of the ladder (meaning that way less than 30M are actually affected/limited, in practice). edit: Clarified that I DO AGREE that it's a problem in principal.

falcolas 9y ago

Non-compete agreements are bad, but can be avoided or nullified in court. A lot of companies who have realized this are instead starting to use really nasty and broad copyright assignment agreements in their place. My current place of employ has you sign a copyright assignment that lasts one year post-termination, and it's not the first place I've seen these in place. I wasn't in a position to turn down the offer at the time, so now I have to figure out a way around it (which probably just consists of "keep my head low and don't be a target"). It bothers me, but with the at-will employment laws, the employers effectively have all the power in the relationship. Working for myself as a contractor has its own set of problems (and doesn't exempt you from problematic copyright assignment clauses). What's an employee to do?

pmiller2 9y ago
How can a copyright assignment that lasts a year after you're terminated be enforceable? That has to be considered unconscionable.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I'm sure it's enforceable in the same way that non-compete agreements are: the bigger lawyer fund wins. It's not unconscionable until you take it to court.
  - pmiller2 9y ago
    Yeah, but, on the face of it, it seems so restrictive that you could just show up and have your lawyer ask the judge to throw it out, and they would. I suppose the company could drag you through appeals, but how do you work for the year following leaving the company? I guess this is making my head explode too much to think sanely about it. :/

surge 9y ago

Non compete clauses are unenforceable (especially if the state has a right to work) and I simply do not sign them. For me, it's a deal breaker. If you have a right to fire me for any reason, I have a right to leave and go work for someone else, including a competitor in a the same industry in which my skill set lies for any reason (especially if that reason is higher pay).

devopsproject 9y ago
Some terms are absolutely enforceable. The cost and time to defend yourself from lawsuits is also not free.
deleted 9y ago
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