> I firmly believe that prohibiting things is rarely a good idea. It depends on how you frame the issue. Banning non-competes only prohibits courts from enforc

> I firmly believe that prohibiting things is rarely a good idea. It depends on how you frame the issue. Banning non-competes only prohibits courts from enforcing those terms of the contract. In other words, it removes an element of state coercion. The rationale for state enforcement of contracts is to promote the operation of free trade. It's become quite clear that in the vast majority of situations, even as between savvy economic agents, non-competes substantially restrain the operation of free markets. They're a net loss. Why use state coercion to such an end? Given the known facts, rather than add a bunch of exceptions limiting enforcement it's better to reverse the default rule--that is, switch from default enforceable to default unenforceable--and add affirmative exceptions for the particular situations where we know they work well. California has non-competes, they're just limited to a very small set of circumstances.