This tendency is not necessarily human. There are enormous numbers of humans disinterested in control of others, or their environment, etc.
Those who want control might suggest otherwise, and they might actually believe it, but that's just lack of creativity (thinking of other possible worldviews) or empathy (realizing that others might see things differently).
Yup. In a group of 100 people, if only one wants control, guess who will probably get control? Paradoxically, it's probably the last person you want having control.
If that’s all they were, then we would have never seen companies create broad non competes that deprive a person of their livelihood.
I agree that’s one purpose, but I think another is to penalize the employee for leaving, discouraging them from doing so… and as a result increasing retention and/or reducing the pressure on the company to deliver increased benefits and wages in the future.
Interestingly, when I am presented with an employment contract, there are two things that often appear and that I always require to be removed: noncompete clauses and wording that assigns the rights to all of the work I do (even work that does not use my employer's time, resources, or knowledge) to my employer.
I have never once had an employer refuse to remove or modify those terms, but a couple of times it took a bit of negotiation to get there.
Jimmy John’s forced fast food employees to sign non-competes.
The labor pool of potential fast food workers is so vast, and the number of employees is so vast that it’s very clear these non competes were intended to threaten workers and suppress wages.
More like—if you can do something that's very, very unlikely to benefit you, but also costs you nothing and cannot hurt you, you may as well do it (unless you care about, like, ethics or any of that mumbo-jumbo)
Those who want control might suggest otherwise, and they might actually believe it, but that's just lack of creativity (thinking of other possible worldviews) or empathy (realizing that others might see things differently).