17 ms·

Even janitors have noncompetes now

262 points by petethomas 8y ago

village-idiot 8y ago
At a certain point, this is about exercising all but the power of life and death over your employees. There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes, the only reason is to have power over your employees for the sake of power. I maintain that our system is trending in a neofeufal direction, with corporations replacing the lords of old. A noncompete which effectively leaves you unemployed should you quit is not quite serfdom, but it’s getting pretty close.
- jvagner 8y ago
  I'm a consultant, and recently terminated my services for an inventor-type. Already has made his money.. he's spinning up various new endeavors and trying to hit the brass bell again. While working on company #1, he wanted to bring me in on company #2. He told me the idea, which didn't interest me a whole lot, but there was a key issue with it, culturally speaking. I told him I wasn't sure how he would be able to scale up staff given that people may not want to spend their 40-45 hours/week working on "X". (I"m being purposefully ambiguous...) His response? "For a paycheck, they will..." Anyway, that defined his general management philosophy. It's pretty prevalent out there. This is a guy who can't keep talent for more than a few months at a time... hasn't slowed him down. I think that's what has impressed me most recently, in my consulting endeavors. The number of moneyed company owners who persist on a destructive chain of behavior in spite of how it hurts their own ambitions. And yet, in cases like this, if you can succeed just enough, there's nothing stopping you from clamping down because you want to.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    I am not seeing the problem with his philosphy. We go to work for money, not because we are in love with the companies goals. That sort of thing can come afterwards, but loyalty has to be earned.
    - jvagner 8y ago
      i've worked for a lot of different kinds of bosses/owners, and the "check-writer" philosophy, stated so unapologetically, has often been most closely aligned with the worst bosses, with the unhappiest employees. so yes, he can, and no, it's not, IMO, on the more effective end of the scale. saying that, in and of itself, is often a barometer of a shitty boss. the good bosses might have a bit of that in them, but they have other values ahead of that statement that lead them to be better bosses, and IME, more successful in their given organizations.
  - jackhack 8y ago
    that's the attitude of the videogame industry. "there's a long line of suckers on the sidewalk just waiting for you to burn out and quit..." I've heard the same thing in construction jobs, and retail, too. It's everywhere.
- monksy 8y ago
  For the business it is. At the moment, what we're being told, is that unemployment is extremely low and it's harder to find people. Thus businesses doing what comes normal to them are going to try to leverage themselves as much as possible. (People either are convinced they have no other choice, have no idea what these mean, or lack the leverage to fight these provisions)
- peeters 8y ago
  > There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes I would argue there's a rational economic reason (reducing competition for the labour pool so you can pay them less) but not a morally acceptable nor even free-market-compatible reason. It's major abuse, and it makes me furious that we're using Cushman & Wakefield for our property management. We need to make employment contracts non-severable so that employers can't get away with this shit. Oh, you want to put in a probably non-enforceable or illegal clause into your contract? Well then the entire thing goes down the toilet when it's found to be invalid. Otherwise employers will keep putting blanket stuff in that they know will probably fail in court to chill their employees.
- Balgair 8y ago
  > our system is trending in a neofeufal direction I agree, the direction seems that way in our new gilded age. However, I'm not bullish on it being able to survive/thrive. There is just too much change happening. Feudal systems thrive in static environments, not frothy ones. With the rise of Africa in the later half of this century, climate change really starting to swing, the maturation/stagnation of the digital/surveillance economy, and the coming pandora's box of CRISPR-CAS9, the social/economic environment that is giving rise to this Neo-gilded age of corporate feudalism cannot stand for much longer. Life is going to be too 'fun' for the stodgy lords/CEOs.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "power over your employees for the sake of power" Totally true. When I read about stuff like this, increasing surveillance of employees or all the stuff the TSA is planning with face recognition it looks like there is trend that the regular citizen will be under tight control while the ruling class will live behind walls in gated communities where they will be exempt from that control.
vpmpaul 8y ago
If there was ever absolute proof that non-competes are nothing but a way to exercise absolute power over someone weaker. Now we have it.
- Latteland 8y ago
  Yeah, they clearly aren't important for the software industry, with the success of California. Yet in Washington State all we hear is that they are really important, all big companies support them.
  - mrfredward 8y ago
    I'd go a step further and say that they hinder the software industry. Letting people jump ship and start companies or find better jobs is way better for an industry's productivity than having a bunch of miserable workers faking it because there are legal barriers to finding another job.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      It is good for established interests but bad for the industry. Banning all car makers except Ford would be good for them but bad for the automotive industry to give a deliberate extreme.
skh 8y ago
Perhaps the U.S. should go ahead and formalize the feudal system we seem to be implementing piecemeal.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  In a feudal system the money flows up and the protection flows down - look at Putin and his oligarchs. In the US it's only the money that flows upwards.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    What makes you think the feudal system wouldn't have preferred to have only money flow up and nothing flow down? The only reason feudal lords provided protection was because if they didn't, there would be no money flowing up to them.
    - seer 8y ago
      While that did happen from time to time, it was not especially stable, and I think there is a better name for it - (military) ocupation
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      In the Middle Ages the serfs always had the opportunity to run away, they could decamp to a city or a competing lord. Besides, the Church and later the rising merchant class provided a counterweight to the excesses of rural gentry. They may have preferred absolute power, but they couldn't have it. If you are an oligarch in Russia it seems you still have the opportunity to run off to London or Vancouver, so history repeats itself even now.
      - Anthony-G 8y ago
        Serfs were bound to the land and not much better off than slaves. Another lord would not have welcomed a runaway serf and escaping to a city would have been an extremely risky venture as serfs had little – if any – money (subsistence farming was the order of the day, when not working for the lord on his lands). Giving up their family and wider social support network to become an anonymous beggar in a city would not have been a good move. Even if one had a skill, the city guilds controlled the ability to use skills for commercial purposes. It’s possible that a few people (e.g., gifted musicians) may have been able to escape the bonds of serfdom. I also don’t know how easy it was for a serf to join a monastery or a convent – but otherwise, I imagine the proportion of serfs who could run away to the city is likely to have been equivalent to the proportion of modern-day Mancunian kids who escape the council estate by playing for Manchester United.
nimbius 8y ago
Ive seen a few articles like this on HN. Im a shop mechanic for a small chain of auto/truck repair stores in the midwest, and it got me thinking about the fine-print I signed when I hired on. Mostly taxes and sexual harassment stuff, but reading the details over a cup of coffee this morning It seems I did sign a non-compete. Worse yet, I asked my boss about the non-compete and she just shrugged and said she didnt know what it was for, but that HR must have put it there. I wandered over to HR and they confessed they did not know when this was added either but it must have been something the owner wanted. The owner and I have shared a few beers together, so I tapped on his door to ask about it. After calming him down and reassuring him he wasnt about to lose me, he admitted the "non compete" was something his attorneys told him to add. They mentioned Google and Uber as examples. After a few confused questions, he agreed to call a meeting with the managers and his attorneys and figure out if we really do need a non-compete, or if the lawyers are just making work.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Good job! Lawyers being the source of overly complex contracts sounds plausible.
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    Totally agreed, including in this case. But just as true is that lawyers often provide contract wording that is essential for smooth resolution of disputes when they do arrive. Lawyers should be persuaded by clients and peers to keep things as simple as fits the bill, not dropped entirely from the drafting of important contracts.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      I've always thought of lawyers like software developers in this case. If you give either of them carte blanche, they will tend to create overly complex and expensive systems. It's not even malicious or self-serving (at least I'd like to think it's not), but more that their jobs revolve around "edge cases", and without something to reel them back they will try their hardest to cover them all. I wonder if the software development adage of "good software is defined by what it does, great software is defined by what it doesn't do" applies to law?
paulie_a 8y ago
Outside of very special industries and knowledge you can blatantly ignore non competes without consequence. They are basically unenforceable for most circumstances and no attempt will be made.
- hellogoodbyeeee 8y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I think this highly depends on the state you are in. From my googling, judges in my Midwestern state are very reluctant to strike down any kind of contract made between two adults.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    I live in the Midwest and have dealt with a couple non-competes. They are toothless if you simply take a strong stance from the get go. No lawyer required.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      > They are toothless if you simply take a strong stance from the get go. By "get go" do you mean time of signing or when you're leaving? And if the latter, what does that look like at the time you're leaving?
      - paulie_a 8y ago
        Leaving, I've been threatened about legal action and basically said I didn't care, swore a few times and moved on. They won't spend the money to enforce it. Most noncompetes I've seen were written so terribly they wouldn't have a leg to stand on anyways.
        SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Yeah, that really requires calling their bluff. Ideally it's a bluff.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dec0dedab0de 8y ago
Noncompetes should only be for moon-lighting. For highly skilled employees, or executives I think an NDA for any trade secrets should be enough.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Non-competes shouldn't exist at all. There's no good reason for a maintenance, food service or custodial worker, or even most programmers (don't kid yourself about how novel the crap you work on is) couldn't work for two competing companies without a conflict of interests. If two competitors could both outsource the service provided by the employee to the same entity without a conflict of interests then it shouldn't be subject to a non-compete. NDAs for trade secrets and reasonable policies on use of company assets and time should be able to cover the edge cases.
  - dec0dedab0de 8y ago
    Sure there wouldn't be a conflict of interests, but if I had a business, and I found out one of my employees was working for a direct competitor, it would hurt my feelings. I think it's fair to fire someone who hurt my feelings. And maybe I'm just talking about a policy instead of a noncompete contract.
finaliteration 8y ago
This is part of why I’m happy I live in Oregon. We have pretty specific laws about when a noncompete can apply[0] and Oregon tends to be more employee-friendly in general. [0]https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/653.295 https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/653.295
- beardbound 8y ago
  Huh. I hadn't read the statute before so I only knew about the two week thing.thats great to know. Thanks for the link. (Another person living in Oregon).
revel 8y ago
It's time we took a serious look at getting rid of the unholy trinity of employment contract law: - Non-competes - Forced arbitration - Non-disparagement / NDAs If an offer includes a non-compete, it should also include appropriate restitution to the employee for the opportunity cost involved. This means paid garden leave and also extra compensation to help employees find their next job since their skills are likely to have degraded during the fallow period. Forced arbitration is used to rob employees of their constitutional rights and I can't believe that the practice is legal. Lastly, non-disparagement clauses and NDAs are overly broad. I'm not opposed to NDAs with limited scope but NDAs have become blanket weapons used to cover up evidence of illegal or immoral acts by employers. This is particularly problematic when combined with forced arbitration since it means that employees subject to wage theft (for instance) are unable to join a class action suit and verdicts rendered by the arbitration court can be kept secret.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Any clause that is valid after the termination of the contract (with the exceptions already in law, like IP) should have a compensatory counterpart
  - konschubert 8y ago
    In Germany it's like this.
    - kitten_mittens_ 8y ago
      Assuming you can read German. My German is horrid, but the German company I work for assured me contracts can only be in German.
      - distances 8y ago
        For international companies it's common to provide a version in both German and English, with the caveat that only the German version is binding.
yetihehe 8y ago
Noncompetes implemented smartly are good and not a power grab over employees. I signed noncompete, but employer is required by law to pay at least 25% of my salary if he wants to enforce it. That is minimum amount, I have negotiated 50%. If he doesn't want to pay this, he can't dictate where I can work, I could go to direct competitor then.
- anonymfus 8y ago
  So if these 50% will be less than a living wage (due to extreme inflation for example) you become slave? At least at Worryfree they were fed.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    Perhaps the 50% makes it such that a lesser-paying job is financially feasible. I think that provides a nice buffer.
  - yetihehe 8y ago
    I could receive that 50% and work somewhere else (still as a programmer, but not for direct competitor). But when extreme inflation hits, I will probably have other problems than my noncompete.
  - Thiez 8y ago
    Presumably they would still be allowed to work for a company that does not compete with the one they worked at previously, so they would get those 50% on top of the salary of their new job.
- ghaff 8y ago
  There are too many non-competes and many are over-broad but garden leave of probably at least 50% seems a reasonable compromise if a company feels strongly about having a non-compete for whatever reason. That should be enough that it forces a company to think about whether they really want to enforce this and, while perhaps not ideal for the employee, is likely not too onerous assuming the non-compete isn't draconian in other ways.
anilakar 8y ago
EU resident here. It's routine to make employees sign non-compete agreements even when they're known to be unenforceable. The employer is free to sue, but it's generally understood that only managerial level people would end up in trouble.
- ghaff 8y ago
  The problem is that smaller businesses in particular may well ask you if you have a non-compete and will simply pass if you do because they can't afford to get into litigation. I worked for a small consulting firm for a number of years and we basically wouldn't touch anyone who had a remotely applicable non-compete. It just wasn't worth the risk.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  In the US the "beauty" of unenforceable agreements is that the employee still has to be afraid of them because a lawsuit will be expensive. Not everyone has a few thousand dollars lying around for a lawyer and the time to pursue the case. This gives the company a huge advantage and an incentive to sneak in such clauses.
j-c-hewitt 8y ago
One of the issues with this is that bosses (or their lawyers) just google search for contracts, paste them into a document, and then have people sign them without considering whether or not they are enforceable. The proliferation of these kinds of contracts also makes them less enforceable. Noncompetes are supposed to be for executives and to prevent people from sales roles from just stealing their employer's customers and bringing them to their new job. It's not supposed to prevent the sandwich guy at Arby's from getting a job at Subway to earn an extra $2/hr. Were those kinds of contracts to be enforced consistently, it would bankrupt state courts and create a lot of confusion.
- chillydawg 8y ago
  I doubt many places really do that. In the UK, for example, it only costs a couple hundred quid for a boilerplate employment contract from a proper employment lawyer that you can fill the blanks in on and re use for a long time. Copying and pasting a Google search contract would be insane. Then again, I'm a sane business owner so maybe I'm not qualified to comment on dumbass ones.
  - j-c-hewitt 8y ago
    Nah, I know for a fact that many employers just C&P the contracts.
- smelendez 8y ago
  I applied for freelance work once for some sort of tech Q&A platform. It was basically answering people's one-off questions, like "how do I change my screen resolution on Windows 10" or whatever. They asked me to sign a contract with a clause saying that I'd assign them any inventions I came up with in the course of my work, sign anything reasonably related to them pursuing patents for these inventions and grant them power of attorney to do so on my behalf if I didn't do so promptly. (There was a separate copyright clause that was itself reasonable). I pointed out that the work wouldn't result in any inventions and that I couldn't possibly agree to sign future agreements or assign even limited power of attorney to them. They seemed genuinely confused at why I was objecting and wouldn't budge.
Teknoman117 8y ago
This one is of the fantastic things about living in California. Noncompetes are illegal here. It's not like we don't have a whole bunch of other problems, but at least this isn't one of them.
danschumann 8y ago
They used to use pensions to keep workers in a job.. now they use non-competes. I liked the carrot better.
- downrightmike 8y ago
  All it is now is stick stick stick.
_red 8y ago
Just as a footnote. The vast majority (90+%) of Non-Competes are basically boilerplate that are unenforceable in most circumstances. Most businesses include them as an "optical deterrent" to prevent employees from quitting and jumping ship, only a fraction of them are enforceable. Courts have routinely taken the position that "an employment contract cannot be used to deny a worker from his livelihood in the ordinary course of business". The NC which are enforceable are generally very specific and usually cover things like trade secrets or proprietary data (ie. secret formulas, customer list, etc). So you leaving your current job to work at another mechanic shop is entirely unenforceable, whereas you downloading the entire customer DB and shopping yourself around to other shops (with data in-hand) probably is enforceable.
- howard941 8y ago
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Some of this might be correct in _red's jurisdiction but every assertion is incorrect in my state. Who knows about your jurisdiction? IAAL but IANYL
  - _red 8y ago
    Yes, it does vary by state. Of course what I wrote shouldn't be taken as any sort of legal advice, it was water-cooler talk only. Here is a handy chart that describes each states approach to the issue (note: the majority match up with what I wrote) https://www.faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Noncompetes-50-State-Survey-Chart-20180805.pdf https://www.faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/0...
- skybrian 8y ago
  Doesn't this vary by state? I would be wary of giving what looks like legal advice.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    oh come on, nobody is going to mistake a comment on the internet for legal advice (or if they do, it'll be a learning experience). adding "IANAL" has gotten just as out of hand. the vast majority of the population are not lawyers and therefore the vast majority of people on the internet are also not lawyers. so why do you insist on calling this out? to draw an analogy here, it's like lawyers adding non-competes to contracts. maybe we can stop adding IANAL to comments first. enough with the ass covering.
vxNsr 8y ago
> One of the central contradictions of capitalism is that what makes it work — competition — is also what capitalists want to get rid of the most. The subtext of this, that capitalism is bad (and perhaps socialism is better) is pretty disingenuous. The only reason non-competes work is because we don't have pure capitalism (I'm not arguing for that, it'd be bad, but) the government is stepping in and saying you have to follow the rules of this contract which are not in your best interest.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  Au contraire: "pure capitalism" would permit two parties to sign any binding contract they wish, free from government regulations about which clauses are permissible.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    > the government is stepping in and saying you have to follow the rules of this contract which are not in your best interest. I think they may be arguing that pure capitalism would be like Mad Max - you just do what you want until the next powerful leather-clad CEO decides to change the rules and use you not as software engineer but as a blood bag.
    - vxNsr 8y ago
      I'm arguing that building a new social contract because the current one isn't perfect is foolish and naive in the extreme. The author kinda touches on it later in the article, but the only reason we have these contracts and they were deemed enforceable is because we wanted to avoid a breakdown where executives would steal all their company's secrets and then go to a competitor. Slightly amended regulation is necessary, not some sorta social uprising.
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        > Slightly amended regulation is necessary, not some sorta social uprising. And here I'd just broken out my leather chaps. In that case I totally agree with you. What was once a tool for a company to protect itself against someone with leverage is now a method to discourage and oppress those at a disadvantage.
Rizz 8y ago
How would an employer react if the roles were reversed, i.e. the employer can't hire another programmer for two years if you, a programmer, leave? Ridiculous of course, which shows why it is just as ridiculous for an employee to have to agree to a non-compete.
- ttmb 8y ago
  Something like this reversal is actually the law in some countries. An employer cannot hire someone else for your position for some period of time if they "lay you off", as distinct from firing you.
  - stefkors 8y ago
    Thats cool, what countries are that?
andyidsinga 8y ago
fwiw : faq re non-competes in Oregon : https://www.oregon.gov/boli/TA/Pages/ta_faq_noncompete.aspx https://www.oregon.gov/boli/TA/Pages/ta_faq_noncompete.aspx interestingly, this item: <snip snip> In order to be valid, noncompetition agreements must meet the following criteria pursuant to ORS 653.295: - The employee is exempt from minimum wage and overtime as a “white collar” employee (i.e., he or she fits into either the executive, administrative or professional exemption); - At termination, the employee’s annual salary and commissions exceed the median family income for a family of four as determined by the U.S. Census Bureau; - The employer has what is called a “protectable” interest. This means that the employee will have access to trade secrets or competitively sensitive confidential business or professional information, such as product development, product launch, marketing or sales plans and strategies; - The agreement is entered into at the beginning of employment (or bona fide advancement), and the employer has provided a written notice to the employee - at least two weeks before employment begins - that a noncompetition agreement will be required; and - The agreement is not effective for longer than 18 months from the date of the employee’s termination. </snip snip>
- JJMcJ 8y ago
  So 99% of the people who read HN will be subject to Oregon non-competes. As a comfort, at least the sandwich makers and delivery drivers aren't covered.
  - andyidsinga 8y ago
    yep
hx2a 8y ago
Even if a non-compete is legally unenforceable in court it can still be used to bully employees or those who attempt to hire them. I once worked at a consulting company (one of the big dot-com consulting companies) that put a clause in the contract that said no employee could leave to go work for any client of the company. That was fine when the company was small and had few clients, but when they became large it prevented us from leaving to go to any reasonably successful firm because almost all of them were clients. If anyone attempted this the company would reach out to the potential employer and warn them not to hire the person. The other company would then back down because they didn't want to jeopardize their business relationship with the consulting firm. As the dot-com bubble burst and the consulting firm became a sinking ship they continued to enforce it. We had to wait for layoffs to be exempt from that clause.
gumby 8y ago
Ironic that they chose to illustrate their article with a photo from SF where noncompetes are illegal.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Not illegal but generally unenforceable.
tombert 8y ago
I had a job in the past that snuck in a non-compete into the non-disclosure agreement, which I stupidly signed. Fortunately, the company went bankrupt before they had a chance, but they sent me an intimidation letter when I quit that any work I do is subject to their approval, with a photocopy of the NDA attached. It was horrifying.
subway 8y ago
Similar to noncompetes, forced arbitration agreements are infesting every employer/employee relationship. I recently had to pass on joining a really cool startup because their PEO insisted on an arbitration agreement. The startup offered to bring me on 1099 to work around the PEO, but I'm not really interested in the overhead of managing my own health insurance, etc right now. Somewhat amusingly, days after settling back in at my current employer I logged in to our PEO's interface and found myself staring at fresh employment agreement... with a nasty arbitration clause smack in the middle. Fortunately current employer was willing to stand up to their PEO and get it removed company wide. Fucking lawyers man.
- gwbas1c 8y ago
  I'm loosing count of the number of situations I've walked away from because the contract included boilerplate stuff like that; AND the person who wanted me to sign the contract had no clue about the BS in the contract. Right out of college, some guy wanted me to sign a NOLO contract that you'd use for hiring someone as a general contractor for your home. Walked away from that. I almost bought some land where the developer set up a boilerplate HOA that restricted things like boats in a town where everyone has a boat... And my direct neighbor wasn't part of the HOA!
microcolonel 8y ago
Don't sign it.
0x8BADF00D 8y ago
We have not had real capitalism in this country since the Gilded Age, when the dollar was backed by gold. Fiat currency and Keynesian economics sparked the mess that were are in today.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Probably for good reason: Unless you had capital, capitalism in the Gilded Age was awful to you.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > We have not had real capitalism in this country since the Gilded Age Yeah, capitalism globally fell to the mixed economy throughout the developed world, to the point that most modern references to “capitalism” refer to the mixed economy, not the original system named “capitalism”, because while people may not have been sold on the prescriptions of more radical alternatives like Communism, they broadly weren't satisfied with capitalism, either.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Noncompetes, especially ones that seek to limit what you can do after the employ of the company are pure evil, and give absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the employees. They should be unilaterally banned.
mti27 8y ago
For a janitor, a non-compete would be ridiculous! As a software developer, it's annoying but survivable by switching industries. What's worse IMHO is a non-solicitation agreement. I worked at a business that was shutting down operations locally, and a bunch of people were leaving at all levels. One of the departing top execs wanted to hire our development team and we wanted to go. But due to his non-solicitation, he was afraid to even talk to us about any plans he had for at least a year. And by that time we all had to find other jobs...
jwilk 8y ago
Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20181018173502/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/18/even-janitors-have-noncompetes-now-nobody-is-safe/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181018173502/https://www.washi...
013a 8y ago
> One of the central contradictions of capitalism is that what makes it work — competition No. Competition and Capitalism are literally antithetical. This is outlined better than I could ever explain in Zero To One by Peter Thiel, but in essence: Capitalism is all about, including in its very name, the access to and deployment of Capital. Competition destroys Capital. In its most basic form, think of the airline industry. It's highly competitive, which forces airlines to run razer-thin margins and drop prices. This kills R&D, and while its great for consumers in the short-run, it can actually hurt consumers in the long run because it doesn't even matter if Delta would love to invest more R&D into more efficient planes, allowing them to make them roomier and cheaper; they can't, because they don't have the capital to spend on it. In the worst case, companies abuse incumbent/monopolistic positions by sitting on their asses and doing nothing with the capital they bring in. That's why a market without competition gets a bad rep. But this isn't always the case, especially in the modern market where companies are deathly afraid of technological disruption. Competition is necessary, but that doesn't make it a great thing. And it certainly is not a core component of capitalism; it's a core, necessary component of Free Markets.
- a7776f88862 8y ago
  This is why antitrust legislation and enforcement is so important.
lordlimecat 8y ago
It would be a bit more compelling if the articles the author referenced to support his claim that non-competes are everywhere were not all written by him. It makes me wonder, are these common scenarios, or is the author on a crusade and has found some rare instances of it happening that he is blowing out of proportion?
wolco 8y ago
Changing your name could be the next trend.

262 points by petethomas 8y ago

At a certain point, this is about exercising all but the power of life and death over your employees. There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes, the only reason is to have power over your employees for the sake of power. I maintain that our system is trending in a neofeufal direction, with corporations replacing the lords of old. A noncompete which effectively leaves you unemployed should you quit is not quite serfdom, but it’s getting pretty close.

jvagner 8y ago
I'm a consultant, and recently terminated my services for an inventor-type. Already has made his money.. he's spinning up various new endeavors and trying to hit the brass bell again. While working on company #1, he wanted to bring me in on company #2. He told me the idea, which didn't interest me a whole lot, but there was a key issue with it, culturally speaking. I told him I wasn't sure how he would be able to scale up staff given that people may not want to spend their 40-45 hours/week working on "X". (I"m being purposefully ambiguous...) His response? "For a paycheck, they will..." Anyway, that defined his general management philosophy. It's pretty prevalent out there. This is a guy who can't keep talent for more than a few months at a time... hasn't slowed him down. I think that's what has impressed me most recently, in my consulting endeavors. The number of moneyed company owners who persist on a destructive chain of behavior in spite of how it hurts their own ambitions. And yet, in cases like this, if you can succeed just enough, there's nothing stopping you from clamping down because you want to.
- true_religion 8y ago
  I am not seeing the problem with his philosphy. We go to work for money, not because we are in love with the companies goals. That sort of thing can come afterwards, but loyalty has to be earned.
  - jvagner 8y ago
    i've worked for a lot of different kinds of bosses/owners, and the "check-writer" philosophy, stated so unapologetically, has often been most closely aligned with the worst bosses, with the unhappiest employees. so yes, he can, and no, it's not, IMO, on the more effective end of the scale. saying that, in and of itself, is often a barometer of a shitty boss. the good bosses might have a bit of that in them, but they have other values ahead of that statement that lead them to be better bosses, and IME, more successful in their given organizations.
- jackhack 8y ago
  that's the attitude of the videogame industry. "there's a long line of suckers on the sidewalk just waiting for you to burn out and quit..." I've heard the same thing in construction jobs, and retail, too. It's everywhere.
monksy 8y ago
For the business it is. At the moment, what we're being told, is that unemployment is extremely low and it's harder to find people. Thus businesses doing what comes normal to them are going to try to leverage themselves as much as possible. (People either are convinced they have no other choice, have no idea what these mean, or lack the leverage to fight these provisions)
peeters 8y ago
> There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes I would argue there's a rational economic reason (reducing competition for the labour pool so you can pay them less) but not a morally acceptable nor even free-market-compatible reason. It's major abuse, and it makes me furious that we're using Cushman & Wakefield for our property management. We need to make employment contracts non-severable so that employers can't get away with this shit. Oh, you want to put in a probably non-enforceable or illegal clause into your contract? Well then the entire thing goes down the toilet when it's found to be invalid. Otherwise employers will keep putting blanket stuff in that they know will probably fail in court to chill their employees.
Balgair 8y ago
> our system is trending in a neofeufal direction I agree, the direction seems that way in our new gilded age. However, I'm not bullish on it being able to survive/thrive. There is just too much change happening. Feudal systems thrive in static environments, not frothy ones. With the rise of Africa in the later half of this century, climate change really starting to swing, the maturation/stagnation of the digital/surveillance economy, and the coming pandora's box of CRISPR-CAS9, the social/economic environment that is giving rise to this Neo-gilded age of corporate feudalism cannot stand for much longer. Life is going to be too 'fun' for the stodgy lords/CEOs.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"power over your employees for the sake of power" Totally true. When I read about stuff like this, increasing surveillance of employees or all the stuff the TSA is planning with face recognition it looks like there is trend that the regular citizen will be under tight control while the ruling class will live behind walls in gated communities where they will be exempt from that control.

vpmpaul 8y ago

If there was ever absolute proof that non-competes are nothing but a way to exercise absolute power over someone weaker. Now we have it.

Latteland 8y ago
Yeah, they clearly aren't important for the software industry, with the success of California. Yet in Washington State all we hear is that they are really important, all big companies support them.
- mrfredward 8y ago
  I'd go a step further and say that they hinder the software industry. Letting people jump ship and start companies or find better jobs is way better for an industry's productivity than having a bunch of miserable workers faking it because there are legal barriers to finding another job.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    It is good for established interests but bad for the industry. Banning all car makers except Ford would be good for them but bad for the automotive industry to give a deliberate extreme.

skh 8y ago

Perhaps the U.S. should go ahead and formalize the feudal system we seem to be implementing piecemeal.

HarryHirsch 8y ago
In a feudal system the money flows up and the protection flows down - look at Putin and his oligarchs. In the US it's only the money that flows upwards.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  What makes you think the feudal system wouldn't have preferred to have only money flow up and nothing flow down? The only reason feudal lords provided protection was because if they didn't, there would be no money flowing up to them.
  - seer 8y ago
    While that did happen from time to time, it was not especially stable, and I think there is a better name for it - (military) ocupation
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    In the Middle Ages the serfs always had the opportunity to run away, they could decamp to a city or a competing lord. Besides, the Church and later the rising merchant class provided a counterweight to the excesses of rural gentry. They may have preferred absolute power, but they couldn't have it. If you are an oligarch in Russia it seems you still have the opportunity to run off to London or Vancouver, so history repeats itself even now.
    - Anthony-G 8y ago
      Serfs were bound to the land and not much better off than slaves. Another lord would not have welcomed a runaway serf and escaping to a city would have been an extremely risky venture as serfs had little – if any – money (subsistence farming was the order of the day, when not working for the lord on his lands). Giving up their family and wider social support network to become an anonymous beggar in a city would not have been a good move. Even if one had a skill, the city guilds controlled the ability to use skills for commercial purposes. It’s possible that a few people (e.g., gifted musicians) may have been able to escape the bonds of serfdom. I also don’t know how easy it was for a serf to join a monastery or a convent – but otherwise, I imagine the proportion of serfs who could run away to the city is likely to have been equivalent to the proportion of modern-day Mancunian kids who escape the council estate by playing for Manchester United.

nimbius 8y ago

Ive seen a few articles like this on HN. Im a shop mechanic for a small chain of auto/truck repair stores in the midwest, and it got me thinking about the fine-print I signed when I hired on. Mostly taxes and sexual harassment stuff, but reading the details over a cup of coffee this morning It seems I did sign a non-compete. Worse yet, I asked my boss about the non-compete and she just shrugged and said she didnt know what it was for, but that HR must have put it there. I wandered over to HR and they confessed they did not know when this was added either but it must have been something the owner wanted. The owner and I have shared a few beers together, so I tapped on his door to ask about it. After calming him down and reassuring him he wasnt about to lose me, he admitted the "non compete" was something his attorneys told him to add. They mentioned Google and Uber as examples. After a few confused questions, he agreed to call a meeting with the managers and his attorneys and figure out if we really do need a non-compete, or if the lawyers are just making work.

adrianN 8y ago
Good job! Lawyers being the source of overly complex contracts sounds plausible.
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  Totally agreed, including in this case. But just as true is that lawyers often provide contract wording that is essential for smooth resolution of disputes when they do arrive. Lawyers should be persuaded by clients and peers to keep things as simple as fits the bill, not dropped entirely from the drafting of important contracts.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I've always thought of lawyers like software developers in this case. If you give either of them carte blanche, they will tend to create overly complex and expensive systems. It's not even malicious or self-serving (at least I'd like to think it's not), but more that their jobs revolve around "edge cases", and without something to reel them back they will try their hardest to cover them all. I wonder if the software development adage of "good software is defined by what it does, great software is defined by what it doesn't do" applies to law?

paulie_a 8y ago

Outside of very special industries and knowledge you can blatantly ignore non competes without consequence. They are basically unenforceable for most circumstances and no attempt will be made.

hellogoodbyeeee 8y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I think this highly depends on the state you are in. From my googling, judges in my Midwestern state are very reluctant to strike down any kind of contract made between two adults.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I live in the Midwest and have dealt with a couple non-competes. They are toothless if you simply take a strong stance from the get go. No lawyer required.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    > They are toothless if you simply take a strong stance from the get go. By "get go" do you mean time of signing or when you're leaving? And if the latter, what does that look like at the time you're leaving?
    - paulie_a 8y ago
      Leaving, I've been threatened about legal action and basically said I didn't care, swore a few times and moved on. They won't spend the money to enforce it. Most noncompetes I've seen were written so terribly they wouldn't have a leg to stand on anyways.
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Yeah, that really requires calling their bluff. Ideally it's a bluff.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dec0dedab0de 8y ago

Noncompetes should only be for moon-lighting. For highly skilled employees, or executives I think an NDA for any trade secrets should be enough.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Non-competes shouldn't exist at all. There's no good reason for a maintenance, food service or custodial worker, or even most programmers (don't kid yourself about how novel the crap you work on is) couldn't work for two competing companies without a conflict of interests. If two competitors could both outsource the service provided by the employee to the same entity without a conflict of interests then it shouldn't be subject to a non-compete. NDAs for trade secrets and reasonable policies on use of company assets and time should be able to cover the edge cases.
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago
  Sure there wouldn't be a conflict of interests, but if I had a business, and I found out one of my employees was working for a direct competitor, it would hurt my feelings. I think it's fair to fire someone who hurt my feelings. And maybe I'm just talking about a policy instead of a noncompete contract.

finaliteration 8y ago

This is part of why I’m happy I live in Oregon. We have pretty specific laws about when a noncompete can apply[0] and Oregon tends to be more employee-friendly in general. [0]https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/653.295 https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/653.295

beardbound 8y ago
Huh. I hadn't read the statute before so I only knew about the two week thing.thats great to know. Thanks for the link. (Another person living in Oregon).

revel 8y ago

It's time we took a serious look at getting rid of the unholy trinity of employment contract law: - Non-competes - Forced arbitration - Non-disparagement / NDAs If an offer includes a non-compete, it should also include appropriate restitution to the employee for the opportunity cost involved. This means paid garden leave and also extra compensation to help employees find their next job since their skills are likely to have degraded during the fallow period. Forced arbitration is used to rob employees of their constitutional rights and I can't believe that the practice is legal. Lastly, non-disparagement clauses and NDAs are overly broad. I'm not opposed to NDAs with limited scope but NDAs have become blanket weapons used to cover up evidence of illegal or immoral acts by employers. This is particularly problematic when combined with forced arbitration since it means that employees subject to wage theft (for instance) are unable to join a class action suit and verdicts rendered by the arbitration court can be kept secret.

raverbashing 8y ago
Any clause that is valid after the termination of the contract (with the exceptions already in law, like IP) should have a compensatory counterpart
- konschubert 8y ago
  In Germany it's like this.
  - kitten_mittens_ 8y ago
    Assuming you can read German. My German is horrid, but the German company I work for assured me contracts can only be in German.
    - distances 8y ago
      For international companies it's common to provide a version in both German and English, with the caveat that only the German version is binding.

yetihehe 8y ago

Noncompetes implemented smartly are good and not a power grab over employees. I signed noncompete, but employer is required by law to pay at least 25% of my salary if he wants to enforce it. That is minimum amount, I have negotiated 50%. If he doesn't want to pay this, he can't dictate where I can work, I could go to direct competitor then.

anonymfus 8y ago
So if these 50% will be less than a living wage (due to extreme inflation for example) you become slave? At least at Worryfree they were fed.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  Perhaps the 50% makes it such that a lesser-paying job is financially feasible. I think that provides a nice buffer.
- yetihehe 8y ago
  I could receive that 50% and work somewhere else (still as a programmer, but not for direct competitor). But when extreme inflation hits, I will probably have other problems than my noncompete.
- Thiez 8y ago
  Presumably they would still be allowed to work for a company that does not compete with the one they worked at previously, so they would get those 50% on top of the salary of their new job.
ghaff 8y ago
There are too many non-competes and many are over-broad but garden leave of probably at least 50% seems a reasonable compromise if a company feels strongly about having a non-compete for whatever reason. That should be enough that it forces a company to think about whether they really want to enforce this and, while perhaps not ideal for the employee, is likely not too onerous assuming the non-compete isn't draconian in other ways.

anilakar 8y ago

EU resident here. It's routine to make employees sign non-compete agreements even when they're known to be unenforceable. The employer is free to sue, but it's generally understood that only managerial level people would end up in trouble.

ghaff 8y ago
The problem is that smaller businesses in particular may well ask you if you have a non-compete and will simply pass if you do because they can't afford to get into litigation. I worked for a small consulting firm for a number of years and we basically wouldn't touch anyone who had a remotely applicable non-compete. It just wasn't worth the risk.
maxxxxx 8y ago
In the US the "beauty" of unenforceable agreements is that the employee still has to be afraid of them because a lawsuit will be expensive. Not everyone has a few thousand dollars lying around for a lawyer and the time to pursue the case. This gives the company a huge advantage and an incentive to sneak in such clauses.

j-c-hewitt 8y ago

One of the issues with this is that bosses (or their lawyers) just google search for contracts, paste them into a document, and then have people sign them without considering whether or not they are enforceable. The proliferation of these kinds of contracts also makes them less enforceable. Noncompetes are supposed to be for executives and to prevent people from sales roles from just stealing their employer's customers and bringing them to their new job. It's not supposed to prevent the sandwich guy at Arby's from getting a job at Subway to earn an extra $2/hr. Were those kinds of contracts to be enforced consistently, it would bankrupt state courts and create a lot of confusion.

chillydawg 8y ago
I doubt many places really do that. In the UK, for example, it only costs a couple hundred quid for a boilerplate employment contract from a proper employment lawyer that you can fill the blanks in on and re use for a long time. Copying and pasting a Google search contract would be insane. Then again, I'm a sane business owner so maybe I'm not qualified to comment on dumbass ones.
- j-c-hewitt 8y ago
  Nah, I know for a fact that many employers just C&P the contracts.
smelendez 8y ago
I applied for freelance work once for some sort of tech Q&A platform. It was basically answering people's one-off questions, like "how do I change my screen resolution on Windows 10" or whatever. They asked me to sign a contract with a clause saying that I'd assign them any inventions I came up with in the course of my work, sign anything reasonably related to them pursuing patents for these inventions and grant them power of attorney to do so on my behalf if I didn't do so promptly. (There was a separate copyright clause that was itself reasonable). I pointed out that the work wouldn't result in any inventions and that I couldn't possibly agree to sign future agreements or assign even limited power of attorney to them. They seemed genuinely confused at why I was objecting and wouldn't budge.

Teknoman117 8y ago

This one is of the fantastic things about living in California. Noncompetes are illegal here. It's not like we don't have a whole bunch of other problems, but at least this isn't one of them.

danschumann 8y ago

They used to use pensions to keep workers in a job.. now they use non-competes. I liked the carrot better.

downrightmike 8y ago
All it is now is stick stick stick.

_red 8y ago

Just as a footnote. The vast majority (90+%) of Non-Competes are basically boilerplate that are unenforceable in most circumstances. Most businesses include them as an "optical deterrent" to prevent employees from quitting and jumping ship, only a fraction of them are enforceable. Courts have routinely taken the position that "an employment contract cannot be used to deny a worker from his livelihood in the ordinary course of business". The NC which are enforceable are generally very specific and usually cover things like trade secrets or proprietary data (ie. secret formulas, customer list, etc). So you leaving your current job to work at another mechanic shop is entirely unenforceable, whereas you downloading the entire customer DB and shopping yourself around to other shops (with data in-hand) probably is enforceable.

howard941 8y ago
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Some of this might be correct in _red's jurisdiction but every assertion is incorrect in my state. Who knows about your jurisdiction? IAAL but IANYL
- _red 8y ago
  Yes, it does vary by state. Of course what I wrote shouldn't be taken as any sort of legal advice, it was water-cooler talk only. Here is a handy chart that describes each states approach to the issue (note: the majority match up with what I wrote) https://www.faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Noncompetes-50-State-Survey-Chart-20180805.pdf https://www.faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/0...
skybrian 8y ago
Doesn't this vary by state? I would be wary of giving what looks like legal advice.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  oh come on, nobody is going to mistake a comment on the internet for legal advice (or if they do, it'll be a learning experience). adding "IANAL" has gotten just as out of hand. the vast majority of the population are not lawyers and therefore the vast majority of people on the internet are also not lawyers. so why do you insist on calling this out? to draw an analogy here, it's like lawyers adding non-competes to contracts. maybe we can stop adding IANAL to comments first. enough with the ass covering.

vxNsr 8y ago

> One of the central contradictions of capitalism is that what makes it work — competition — is also what capitalists want to get rid of the most. The subtext of this, that capitalism is bad (and perhaps socialism is better) is pretty disingenuous. The only reason non-competes work is because we don't have pure capitalism (I'm not arguing for that, it'd be bad, but) the government is stepping in and saying you have to follow the rules of this contract which are not in your best interest.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
Au contraire: "pure capitalism" would permit two parties to sign any binding contract they wish, free from government regulations about which clauses are permissible.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  > the government is stepping in and saying you have to follow the rules of this contract which are not in your best interest. I think they may be arguing that pure capitalism would be like Mad Max - you just do what you want until the next powerful leather-clad CEO decides to change the rules and use you not as software engineer but as a blood bag.
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    I'm arguing that building a new social contract because the current one isn't perfect is foolish and naive in the extreme. The author kinda touches on it later in the article, but the only reason we have these contracts and they were deemed enforceable is because we wanted to avoid a breakdown where executives would steal all their company's secrets and then go to a competitor. Slightly amended regulation is necessary, not some sorta social uprising.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      > Slightly amended regulation is necessary, not some sorta social uprising. And here I'd just broken out my leather chaps. In that case I totally agree with you. What was once a tool for a company to protect itself against someone with leverage is now a method to discourage and oppress those at a disadvantage.

Rizz 8y ago

How would an employer react if the roles were reversed, i.e. the employer can't hire another programmer for two years if you, a programmer, leave? Ridiculous of course, which shows why it is just as ridiculous for an employee to have to agree to a non-compete.

ttmb 8y ago
Something like this reversal is actually the law in some countries. An employer cannot hire someone else for your position for some period of time if they "lay you off", as distinct from firing you.
- stefkors 8y ago
  Thats cool, what countries are that?

andyidsinga 8y ago

fwiw : faq re non-competes in Oregon : https://www.oregon.gov/boli/TA/Pages/ta_faq_noncompete.aspx https://www.oregon.gov/boli/TA/Pages/ta_faq_noncompete.aspx interestingly, this item: <snip snip> In order to be valid, noncompetition agreements must meet the following criteria pursuant to ORS 653.295: - The employee is exempt from minimum wage and overtime as a “white collar” employee (i.e., he or she fits into either the executive, administrative or professional exemption); - At termination, the employee’s annual salary and commissions exceed the median family income for a family of four as determined by the U.S. Census Bureau; - The employer has what is called a “protectable” interest. This means that the employee will have access to trade secrets or competitively sensitive confidential business or professional information, such as product development, product launch, marketing or sales plans and strategies; - The agreement is entered into at the beginning of employment (or bona fide advancement), and the employer has provided a written notice to the employee - at least two weeks before employment begins - that a noncompetition agreement will be required; and - The agreement is not effective for longer than 18 months from the date of the employee’s termination. </snip snip>

JJMcJ 8y ago
So 99% of the people who read HN will be subject to Oregon non-competes. As a comfort, at least the sandwich makers and delivery drivers aren't covered.
- andyidsinga 8y ago
  yep

hx2a 8y ago

Even if a non-compete is legally unenforceable in court it can still be used to bully employees or those who attempt to hire them. I once worked at a consulting company (one of the big dot-com consulting companies) that put a clause in the contract that said no employee could leave to go work for any client of the company. That was fine when the company was small and had few clients, but when they became large it prevented us from leaving to go to any reasonably successful firm because almost all of them were clients. If anyone attempted this the company would reach out to the potential employer and warn them not to hire the person. The other company would then back down because they didn't want to jeopardize their business relationship with the consulting firm. As the dot-com bubble burst and the consulting firm became a sinking ship they continued to enforce it. We had to wait for layoffs to be exempt from that clause.

gumby 8y ago

Ironic that they chose to illustrate their article with a photo from SF where noncompetes are illegal.

ghaff 8y ago
Not illegal but generally unenforceable.

tombert 8y ago

I had a job in the past that snuck in a non-compete into the non-disclosure agreement, which I stupidly signed. Fortunately, the company went bankrupt before they had a chance, but they sent me an intimidation letter when I quit that any work I do is subject to their approval, with a photocopy of the NDA attached. It was horrifying.

subway 8y ago

Similar to noncompetes, forced arbitration agreements are infesting every employer/employee relationship. I recently had to pass on joining a really cool startup because their PEO insisted on an arbitration agreement. The startup offered to bring me on 1099 to work around the PEO, but I'm not really interested in the overhead of managing my own health insurance, etc right now. Somewhat amusingly, days after settling back in at my current employer I logged in to our PEO's interface and found myself staring at fresh employment agreement... with a nasty arbitration clause smack in the middle. Fortunately current employer was willing to stand up to their PEO and get it removed company wide. Fucking lawyers man.

gwbas1c 8y ago
I'm loosing count of the number of situations I've walked away from because the contract included boilerplate stuff like that; AND the person who wanted me to sign the contract had no clue about the BS in the contract. Right out of college, some guy wanted me to sign a NOLO contract that you'd use for hiring someone as a general contractor for your home. Walked away from that. I almost bought some land where the developer set up a boilerplate HOA that restricted things like boats in a town where everyone has a boat... And my direct neighbor wasn't part of the HOA!

microcolonel 8y ago

Don't sign it.

0x8BADF00D 8y ago

We have not had real capitalism in this country since the Gilded Age, when the dollar was backed by gold. Fiat currency and Keynesian economics sparked the mess that were are in today.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
Probably for good reason: Unless you had capital, capitalism in the Gilded Age was awful to you.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> We have not had real capitalism in this country since the Gilded Age Yeah, capitalism globally fell to the mixed economy throughout the developed world, to the point that most modern references to “capitalism” refer to the mixed economy, not the original system named “capitalism”, because while people may not have been sold on the prescriptions of more radical alternatives like Communism, they broadly weren't satisfied with capitalism, either.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

Noncompetes, especially ones that seek to limit what you can do after the employ of the company are pure evil, and give absolutely no benefit whatsoever to the employees. They should be unilaterally banned.

mti27 8y ago

For a janitor, a non-compete would be ridiculous! As a software developer, it's annoying but survivable by switching industries. What's worse IMHO is a non-solicitation agreement. I worked at a business that was shutting down operations locally, and a bunch of people were leaving at all levels. One of the departing top execs wanted to hire our development team and we wanted to go. But due to his non-solicitation, he was afraid to even talk to us about any plans he had for at least a year. And by that time we all had to find other jobs...

jwilk 8y ago

Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20181018173502/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/18/even-janitors-have-noncompetes-now-nobody-is-safe/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181018173502/https://www.washi...

013a 8y ago

> One of the central contradictions of capitalism is that what makes it work — competition No. Competition and Capitalism are literally antithetical. This is outlined better than I could ever explain in Zero To One by Peter Thiel, but in essence: Capitalism is all about, including in its very name, the access to and deployment of Capital. Competition destroys Capital. In its most basic form, think of the airline industry. It's highly competitive, which forces airlines to run razer-thin margins and drop prices. This kills R&D, and while its great for consumers in the short-run, it can actually hurt consumers in the long run because it doesn't even matter if Delta would love to invest more R&D into more efficient planes, allowing them to make them roomier and cheaper; they can't, because they don't have the capital to spend on it. In the worst case, companies abuse incumbent/monopolistic positions by sitting on their asses and doing nothing with the capital they bring in. That's why a market without competition gets a bad rep. But this isn't always the case, especially in the modern market where companies are deathly afraid of technological disruption. Competition is necessary, but that doesn't make it a great thing. And it certainly is not a core component of capitalism; it's a core, necessary component of Free Markets.

a7776f88862 8y ago
This is why antitrust legislation and enforcement is so important.

lordlimecat 8y ago

It would be a bit more compelling if the articles the author referenced to support his claim that non-competes are everywhere were not all written by him. It makes me wonder, are these common scenarios, or is the author on a crusade and has found some rare instances of it happening that he is blowing out of proportion?

wolco 8y ago

Changing your name could be the next trend.