Lobbyists or socialists must have gotten to Brock Greenfield. On Tuesday, the Clark Senator quietly withdrew Senate Bill 108, his (actually Frank Kloucek’s, but who’s counting?) really good idea to halve the maximum length of non-compete clauses in South Dakota from two years to one. Senator Jeff Monroe paused from throwing trash in the Missouri for crawdad condos to stick his heels in the right mud for once and voted against drowning Greenfield’s bill, but the other five members of Senate Commerce and Energy (not counting skipper Al, who had more important things to do Tuesday than legislate) acceded to the sponsor’s request and the demands of a crony business class that believes in anarcho-capitalism for itself but strict authoritarian restrictions on free market practices for workers.
Non-compete clauses are anti-capitalist. They prevent workers from moving freely in the labor marketplace and swiftly deploying their talents where they can do the most good for the best price. According to the Center for American Progress, non-compete clauses “contribute to larger negative trends in the American economy that are reducing economic dynamism, impeding labor market competition, and, consequently, driving wage stagnation across the economy.”
If you believe in capitalism, you have to believe in capitalism for everyone, including workers. And my belief in capitalism says that an employer’s say over an employee’s activities last only as long as an employer is signing an employee’s paycheck. When we’re done, we’re done. Get back on that horse, Brock, and let’s fight for honest capitalism. Down with non-compete clauses!
Noncompetes are crap. I’m surprised they haven’t been found unconstitutional for the very reason you stated. An employer cannot control the actions of a worker who is not in their employ. It’s crap
Mr. H, does that mean that the ban against government employees quitting and going to work as a capitalistic lobbist for corporate America should be stricken? Could an elected fellow in the legislatures term out of the building, as they say, and then go lobbing about right away? That seems fair.