President Biden recently touted the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal to ban all non-compete agreements, which prevent employees who leave jobs from working for rival firms for a limited time. But the FTC’s staggeringly broad proposal would stunt job growth and curb investment in research and development. That’ll hurt every U.S. worker. Non-compete agreements have existed for hundreds of years, for good reason. One of the earliest cases upheld in court involved rival bakers in 18th-century London. Today, non-competes are common in high-tech industries, where senior employees are privy to highly confidential data, formulas, techniques, processes, and other trade secrets that...