The agency system you are advocating for has only a few decades of history. Chevron was a 1984 decision, and didn’t really rise to prominence until the Obama administration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....
That’s what Chevron deference is about. There is no law on the books that gives the FTC authorization to ban non-competes. They just argued that it kinda-sorta fell within the scope of their expertise and did it.
That is by and large how the government has been run for the last decade and a half. It is not how the government has run for most of the last 100 years as you claim. Most of that time period the agencies stuck to the letter of the law, only deviating in rare circumstances.
Sure there is; it's the Federal Trade Commission Act, which says "Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful."
They, through the regulatory process, correctly determined that non-competes are unfair methods of competition.
> But prior to Obama’s administration, it was really rare the agencies would enforce policies with no basis in the law whatsoever.
Obama's administration changed the makeup of the court with his loss of Scalia's seat, failure to pressure RBG to resign, and Trump's subsequent picks; that's what changed. The regulatory setup long predates his presidency. Chevron fell because the court got extra conservative members, nothing more.
Not really. Do you think "Unfair" has an objective definition? Just saying something is unfair won't make it automatically or objectively unfair. Non competes are not deceptive.
It may be covered but the point it is not logically implied by the text you quoted.
Compare that with the objectivity of this (still contains a lot subjectivity):
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2013-title42/html...
The first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission
Chevron was a failed attempt at knocking that setup down.