The world of non compete agreements in Massachusetts is a complicated one to be sure. This is because they are largely disfavored in the law for the reasons that they unfairly restraint persons into contractual relationships and are anathema to the right of an individual to be free to work where his or her talents take him or her. But non compete agreements in Massachusetts are also valid, enforceable and hold the potential for great ‘good’ to the individuals that use them and to society.
We can think of non compete agreements as a way for human societies to exercise their rights of self protection because we have created them and allowed them to spread throughout our various social structures.
But what would non compete agreements mean if an alien civilization was asked to evaluate them? Indeed, what if an alien civilization that had not yet developed concepts of contract or property arrived on earth and was asked to evaluate these contracts and their enforcement from its own legal and cultural framework?
In order to understand how an alien intelligence might approach the issue of non compete agreements it would be useful to consider the following: 1. What are contracts and why do we have them? 2. How do aliens establish laws? Are there concepts of property and agreement amongst aliens? 3. Alien laws could be natural laws based upon physical properties, or not. Would the cultural “laws” of an alien civilization be considered binding by the alien society. 4. The consequences of strict enforcement of a non compete agreement or of what would be a non compete agreement in an alien society. Would the aliens seek to aggressively enforce all validity contracts or allow the strength of the most powerful alien to determine their legitimacy? 5. Cultural significance of individual competitiveness to alien society. Would an alien civilization see value in allowing individuals to compete against each other? Or, would it see this concept as a misnomer intended to belabor the weak and be at odds with group cohesion and strength? 6. The significance of value placed on those who can create and establish artifice in comparison to those who can take artifice and use it effectively. Would aliens be more willing to grant strong value to an intelligent beings ability to redesign and improve a system, or would they place high value on those who could use such systems effectively? 7. Alternative styles of alien law (based on Hebrew, Roman or Egyptian law) could be evaluated as different evolutionary tracks for the origin of alien law. 8. Would the aliens be likely to adopt human law and in what way? 9. Would the aliens be likely to establish a new set of right and wrong based upon their own cultural memory and tradition? 10. Would aliens be likely to influence the development of human law and how would that effect law and individual rights in Massachusetts and in America.
For more information on the complexities of non compete agreements, you can visit the Wikipedia page on non-compete clauses.