Zadekpedia

Ask BobAsk a question of every episode, 2009–2023 — answers cite the minute

Jason Sorens

5 min read

Jason Sorens is a political scientist who appears in two distinct phases of The Bob Zadek Show: in 2009 as the founder of the Free State Project, and in 2022 as co-author of the Cato Institute’s “Freedom in the 50 States.”

On the show

2 appearances, 2022.

The Free State Project

In the 2009 episode on seasteading, Bob Zadek introduced Sorens as “a college professor in Buffalo” who was encouraging libertarians to commit to move to New Hampshire once they reached 20,000 people Seasteading (2009). Zadek listed the reasons Sorens picked New Hampshire: the lowest state and local taxes in the country, the second-lowest level of dependence on federal spending, a citizen legislature whose statehouse representatives had not raised their $100-a-year salary since 1889, the lowest crime level in the US, a culture of individual responsibility with no seatbelt laws and no helmet laws, and the license plate slogan “Live Free or Die.” On Zadek’s account, Sorens’s argument was that libertarians need not move offshore: they could take over New Hampshire and make it a libertarian paradise, with citizens voting with their feet out of New York, Connecticut, California and Ohio.

Zadek returned to the project later in the same episode, describing the Free State Project as a concept started by a professor in Buffalo named Jason Sorens, who had identified New Hampshire as the target state and promoted a commitment by 20,000 libertarians to move there once the threshold was hit, at which point libertarians could assume political control over the state and live under a truly libertarian form of government Seasteading (2009). Zadek framed this as an experiment in differing lifestyles, granted that the federal government would remain “there in a very strong presence.”

Guest Patri Friedman of the Seasteading Institute responded that such state-level efforts work only to a degree, because most spending and most regulation are federal; he said a famous study found people move from high-tax to low-tax states two or three times more often than the reverse, but that the freedom the Free State Project could obtain even with 20,000 people in New Hampshire would be very limited, and that Supreme Court cases had not been very good for federalism or state autonomy Seasteading (2009).

Freedom in the 50 States

By 2022 Sorens was co-author, with Will Ruger, of the Cato Institute’s annual 50-state survey, “Freedom in the 50 States,” which Zadek described as comparing freedom across the states using hundreds and hundreds of weighted variables Which State is the Most Free? (2022). Zadek introduced Sorens as Director of Research and Education at the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, and asked whether there was any relationship between the topic and where Sorens had “hung out your professional shingle” Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022).

Sorens said the study now had 20 years of data going back to 2000, with 2020 the latest year because of a lag in data availability Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022). He reported that overall freedom at the state level had declined, but that this was misleading because it included the impact of federal policies; excluding those, freedom had increased significantly over time. The biggest factor, he said, was Obamacare, an example of Congress taking over something previously done at the state level and imposing a higher level of health insurance regulation on all states. States’ own policies, by contrast, had been increasing freedom over time, especially since about the Great Recession and especially in some of the more red states, with those states reaping benefits in stronger economies.

Sorens also offered a general pattern: when Congress federalizes a policy, it decreases freedom, with Obamacare the biggest example and GMO labeling among others where a nationwide regime preempted state laws; when the courts federalize something, it tends to increase freedom, especially personal freedom, citing Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022). He said a constitutional regime promoting freedom would combine an engaged judiciary upholding constitutional limits at all levels in the interest of individual rights with a Congress and executive held in check.

Across episodes

The two treatments are thirteen years apart and show a change in role rather than in argument: in 2009 Zadek described Sorens as a professor in Buffalo promoting the Free State Project’s 20,000-person commitment to New Hampshire, while in 2022 Sorens appeared as a Saint Anselm College research director presenting the Cato study’s findings on state freedom, with the foot-voting premise carried forward by Sorens himself in both.

Backlinks