3 ms·

What if I don't want to be "protected" from non-compete agreements? If my company wants to pay me 7 figures to not work for 1-2 years (or to work in another ind

What if I don't want to be "protected" from non-compete agreements? If my company wants to pay me 7 figures to not work for 1-2 years (or to work in another industry and double dip), I should have the right to take them up on the offer. Why do you think you're entitled to ban me from entering a mutually beneficial arrangement with my employer because you made the paternalistic assumption that such contracts are intrinsically bad for me?

drdeca 8y ago
Would you find a tax on non-compete clauses (perhaps with a size depending on how many non-compete clauses are currently active) somewhat less objectionable? I’m not wholly advocating for that, but it seems to me like a compromise position with the benefit that it has a clear upper bound on the cost it would impose (when denominated in money), while still doing something towards whatever people are trying to do by banning it.
- esoterica 8y ago
  Any tax on the employer-employee relationship is essentially a tax on the employee. It’s like how payroll taxes are economically equivalent to income taxes, even though one is (partly) administratively levied on the employer, not the employee.
  - drdeca 8y ago
    I didn’t mean to distinguish between the tax being on the employer vs on the employee. I am aware that they are equivalent. Do you mean to say that the majority of the burden of the tax falls on the employee? In that case, I don’t understand why that would be.
    - esoterica 8y ago
      If it's a tax proportional to the number of employees then it's a headcount tax, and headcount taxes are essentially a form of income taxes.
      - drdeca 8y ago
        This tax would only be applied per instance of a non-compete clause, not per employee. That way the non-compete clause isn’t included unless the company gets sufficient benefit from it to outweigh the tax. I would think that if the size of this tax was large enough, it would be equivalent to banning non-compete clauses, and if it was 0 it would be like doing nothing. Doesn’t this therefore allow for interpolating between “non-compete clauses are allowed” and “non-compete clauses are forbidden”?

drdeca 8y ago

Would you find a tax on non-compete clauses (perhaps with a size depending on how many non-compete clauses are currently active) somewhat less objectionable? I’m not wholly advocating for that, but it seems to me like a compromise position with the benefit that it has a clear upper bound on the cost it would impose (when denominated in money), while still doing something towards whatever people are trying to do by banning it.

esoterica 8y ago
Any tax on the employer-employee relationship is essentially a tax on the employee. It’s like how payroll taxes are economically equivalent to income taxes, even though one is (partly) administratively levied on the employer, not the employee.
- drdeca 8y ago
  I didn’t mean to distinguish between the tax being on the employer vs on the employee. I am aware that they are equivalent. Do you mean to say that the majority of the burden of the tax falls on the employee? In that case, I don’t understand why that would be.
  - esoterica 8y ago
    If it's a tax proportional to the number of employees then it's a headcount tax, and headcount taxes are essentially a form of income taxes.
    - drdeca 8y ago
      This tax would only be applied per instance of a non-compete clause, not per employee. That way the non-compete clause isn’t included unless the company gets sufficient benefit from it to outweigh the tax. I would think that if the size of this tax was large enough, it would be equivalent to banning non-compete clauses, and if it was 0 it would be like doing nothing. Doesn’t this therefore allow for interpolating between “non-compete clauses are allowed” and “non-compete clauses are forbidden”?