Freedom of movement is the principle that people should be free to relocate — from one state to another, from one country to another, or into a private community — and that this freedom has effects on how governments behave. On The Bob Zadek Show, the topic was developed chiefly by law professor Ilya Somin and by Tom W. Bell, with Bob Zadek framing the discussion around first principles and the Constitution.
Foot voting and the discipline on government
Ilya Somin argued that the mere possibility of movement can deter governments from enacting harmful policies. If governments care about maintaining tax revenue and a labor force, the possibility that people can move if they do not like their policies can, to some extent, deter them from enacting harmful policies in the first place. He cautioned against making too much of this, noting that state and local governments do not always raise most of their own tax revenue and may receive much of it from the central government, which can tamp down those incentives. But at the margin, he said, it certainly has an effect Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020).
Somin tied this to the Constitution, which, at least as interpreted over the last 150 years or so, gives people a right to freedom of movement within the United States. That right prevents state and local governments from either fencing people out or locking their people in, and therefore enhances competition. He noted that many state and local governments have indirectly made movement more difficult through policies such as restrictive zoning and occupational licensing. He contrasted the present with the pre-Civil War period, when some states actively excluded some people and slavery prevented millions from being able to move at all, and with some developing nations where regional governments make migration extremely difficult Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020).
Freedom of movement as a first principle
In a later episode, Somin stated that in his view there should be a presumption of freedom of movement across international boundaries, much like the presumption of freedom of movement between states within the United States. People would then be free to move to a location with better government policies, where they can be more free and seek out opportunities for themselves and their families. He did not claim that any right can be completely absolute, but argued that limitations should not be based simply on where you were born or who your parents are, which he identified as the main limiting factor in most current immigration law Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021).
Somin compared the current immigration system to the feudal system of medieval Europe, where lords could move freely but serfs could move only if their master let them, and to racial and ethnic segregation, where where you live was determined by who your parents were. He observed that the entire immigration system, or most of it, is precisely determined by where you were born or who your parents were: if you were born on the wrong side of a line on a map or your parents were not US citizens, then most likely you are not allowed to move or live in the United States unless you get special permission, much like serfs in the Middle Ages Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020).
Bob Zadek framed the same principle in terms of hypocrisy: if one believes that humans have an inherent right to try to improve their lot and to move from place to place, then it is profoundly immoral to acknowledge freedom of movement in general and yet deny it when the movement is into the United States Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020). In the later episode, Zadek argued that it is a founding principle of the country that who your parents are should have no effect on the rights you enjoy, and that strict immigration rules promote a principle of peerage that has never been part of American DNA Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021).
Private communities and special jurisdictions
Tom W. Bell described homeowners associations, condominiums, and residential cooperative communities as examples of special jurisdictions. When a person opts out of a local municipal government and moves into an HOA, Bell said, that person is basically upgrading their government. He noted that private communities in the United States have taken off since about the 1970s, and that about 25% of all Americans now live in these private communities Vote to Float (2020).
Bell acknowledged that living in a private community is not all peaches and cream, and that there are horror stories about HOAs. He noted two things: people choose those communities because they are moving from something worse typically, and if they do not like it, they can move out. He compared it to a consumer product such as a car or a social media platform, where consumers are sometimes unhappy but the market can respond Vote to Float (2020).
Zadek raised Co-op City as an example of a cooperative development that is not limited to the wealthy. He described it as a middle-class, indeed lower middle-class, cooperative development with 55,000 people, 12 houses of worship, and a number of malls, built on the site of a former amusement park. Bell confirmed the figures, describing a series of high-rises with homes, schools, businesses, and houses of worship, over 50,000 people, solidly middle and even lower middle class, and very racially diverse. Bell noted that it was a subsidized program and not pure free market, but called it a step in the right direction and a demonstration that these models are not just for the wealthy Vote to Float (2020).
Zadek observed that California and New York were trying to pass laws that make you pay to leave, which he characterized as building an economic Berlin Wall around California so that people leaving for Texas or Nevada would have to pay taxes even after leaving. He said there is freedom of movement, and invoked Milton Friedman’s phrase “free to choose” to describe the process of choosing where you live and the system that governs you Vote to Float (2020).
Movement between classes
In a discussion of socialism and capitalism, Zadek raised the question of whether capitalism self-adjusts, including in terms of people having some freedom of movement between classes. He said that such movement still exists, though not as much as in the past, and contrasted self-correcting income inequality with imposition by government backed by the threat of jail Is Socialism Still a Dirty Word? (2021).
John Judis responded that a purely voluntary system relying on the charity of a few billionaires has not existed since maybe the late 19th century, and that Andrew Carnegie was a proponent of the inheritance tax. Judis noted that the income tax was an amendment in 1913, that it has always been progressive, and that there has always been force involved in capitalism, citing police and the National Guard being sent after strikers in the 1890s and the possibility of injunctions in court for strikes Is Socialism Still a Dirty Word? (2021).
Across episodes: the same question in more than one episode
The topic appears in four episodes. In the two 2020-05-14 segments, Ilya Somin developed the constitutional and first-principles case for freedom of movement and its application to immigration; in the 2020-09-17 episode, Tom W. Bell extended the concept to private communities and special jurisdictions, with Zadek raising Co-op City and the California and New York tax proposals; in the 2021-05-11 episode, Zadek raised freedom of movement between classes in a discussion with John Judis about capitalism and socialism; and in the 2021-08-23 episode, Somin restated the first principles of freedom of movement in the context of asylum and Afghanistan. The excerpts show no development of the concept over time so much as its application to different contexts by different guests.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the name of any bill, the holding of any case, or which amendment the right to freedom of movement turns on. They do not give the founding date of any principle or the title of any statute. Where an excerpt ends mid-sentence, the sources stop there, and no position is attributed to a speaker beyond what the labeled excerpt states.