BMX Bandit said:
That's a very liberal sentiment to think government making something overall better is a basis for federal action.
The argument it is anti-capitalist to let people contractually agree to things is absurd.
One cannot possibly consider themselves to be a conservative or believe in the constitution, if they think the federal government has the power to ban non-competition agreements.
This is stupid and gives too much credit to business just as progressives and lefties give too much credit to government.
Businesses often adopt anti-competitive practices that stifle the free markets. Especially when it comes to labor.
Most non-competes are stupid and not needed any way.
Non-competes have the effect of artificially suppressing wages. I've witnessed it first hand in engineering. Employers pay less because they know their employee won't be able to job hop within the same sector.
I've also witnessed people leave an employer and succeeding taking some customers. Ot's always because the business isn't serving them as well as they could, and employee sees the opportunity to offer a better product or service. These customers might otherwise be unserved, and no they don't put the first business out of business either because they don't have the bandwidth to serve all of the customers of the first business. They simply offer a more niche service for a small number that the original business couldn't.
It's good for consumers and for innovation if people with experience can start a business to offer better service than the current market is offering.
It's good for workers to be able to get a free market compensation.
It's bad for existing lazy business owners who want to suppress wages and not need to compete.