ZadekpediaFree to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom is a book by Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University. Somin discussed it with Bob Zadek on The Bob Zadek Show, where Zadek described it as “just published” and “a must-read.” Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020) Somin is also the author of [[library/democracy-and-political-ignorance-why-smaller-government-is-smarter|Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter]], The Grasping Hand, about Kelo v. City of New London, and, with a co-author, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Helo Conspiracy and the Healthcare Case. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
Defining foot voting
Somin defines foot voting as the ability to choose what government policies you want to live under by deciding where you’re going to live or, in some cases, what kinds of governments or other services you want to make use of. He distinguishes several forms: moving within a federal system to a different state, county or city; international migration; and private-sector choices such as what private schools you might attend, choosing churches or other civil society organizations, or living in a private planned community like a condo association, which he says almost 70 million Americans already do. He adds that the vast majority of Americans are in the US today because they or their ancestors voted with their feet for the United States over other countries. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
Zadek framed the book as arguing that foot voting, or the threat of voting with one’s feet, is far more powerful than ballot box voting in shaping the behavior of governments, and that the right to move from place to place is crucial to preserving freedom. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
Internal and international migration
Somin’s key point is a fundamental similarity between foot voting through international migration and foot voting internally within a single country in a federal system: in both cases it provides opportunities for political freedom and a chance to enhance your economic situation and your liberty more generally. He calls it ironic that the two issues are usually discussed separately, with people on the right who like internal foot voting and boast about Texas gaining migrants from blue states often viewing international migration with great suspicion, while people on the left often have the reverse set of attitudes. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
One key difference, Somin says, is that the gains from free international migration are much larger than those from internal foot voting, because the difference between the best American state and the worst one is small compared to the differences between countries; even the worst American state is not nearly as bad as Cuba or Venezuela or Haiti. He cites the estimate that free migration throughout the world could approximately double world GDP, and says a person who moves to the US from Venezuela or Cuba experiences a massive increase in freedom almost impossible to replicate through internal migration. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
Barriers to mobility
Somin identifies serious barriers such as zoning to people moving to places where they can take advantage of agglomeration—areas like Silicon Valley where people in the same or closely related industries can be more productive through face-to-face interaction. He says his concern is that too few people have access to such places, rather than that too many people live in big cities. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020) The episode’s topic list also names occupational licensing among the regulatory barriers restricting human mobility. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
On the coronavirus, Somin partly agreed that some jobs can be done as well from home and that the crisis may accelerate recognition of that, but said predictions are dangerous or difficult to make and that he was skeptical that the real problem is too many people living in big cities or agglomeration areas. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)
Across episodes
The book is discussed in the 2020 episode as a newly published work, and in later episodes it is cited as an established reference: in the 2021 episode on asylum and Afghanistan, Zadek recalls that Somin joined the show upon the book’s publication, Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021) and in the 2022 episode on the National Constitution Center’s project, Zadek calls it the book he is most fond of citing. 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022) In the 2022 episode, Somin describes the libertarian team report—written with Walter Olson and Clark Neily, both of the Cato Institute—as addressing immediate threats to the integrity of the electoral system, ways to empower people to vote with their feet about policies in the federal system and in the private sector, and strengthening the jury system. 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022) The episodes show the foot-voting theme recurring across the episodes rather than a change in Somin’s treatment of it.