Zadekpedia

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

Foot Voting

4 min read

Part of Federalism and exit.

Start here

Every episode (6)

Who argued it

Ilya Somin ×4 · Patri Friedman · Jeffrey Sutton

Federalism · Constitutional Law · Public Choice Theory · Seasteading · Competitive Governance · Charter Cities · Special Economic Zones · Decentralization

Background

Foot voting is the ability to choose which government to live under by moving — “voting with one’s feet” — as distinct from voting at the ballot box. On The Bob Zadek Show, Professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University presented the concept as the central argument of his book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, and returned to it in a later discussion of a libertarian policy report. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

Foot voting versus ballot voting

Somin’s core claim is that foot voting improves the quality of political decision-making because it gives people better incentives to seek out information. He illustrated the point with a comparison: most people spend more time and effort gathering information before buying a television set than before voting for president or governor, because the television they pick is the one that ends up in their living room, whereas the chance that a single ballot affects who holds office or what policies they pursue is very low. 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022)

Bob Zadek framed the concept for listeners as a mechanism that is “far more than ballot box voting” in its power over the behavior of governments, describing the right to move from place to place as crucial to preserving freedom. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

Internal and international migration

Somin argued that foot voting through international migration and foot voting internally within a federal system are fundamentally similar, and that it is ironic the two are usually discussed separately: people on the right who celebrate internal migration, such as Texas gaining migrants from blue states, often view international migration with suspicion, while people on the left often hold the reverse set of attitudes. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

He identified one key difference: the gains from free international migration are much larger than those from internal foot voting, because the gap between the best and worst American state is small compared with the differences between countries. Even the worst American state, he said, is not nearly as bad as Cuba, Venezuela or Haiti, so a person moving to the United States from Venezuela or Cuba experiences a massive increase in freedom that internal migration could not replicate. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

Somin also cited economic estimates that free migration throughout the world could approximately double world GDP, attributing the gain to the large differences in productivity and institutions between countries. He noted that a woman could generally be more productive in a Western nation than in Saudi Arabia, where women’s opportunities are severely restricted by the government. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

Decentralization and polarization

In a later episode discussing a libertarian policy report, Somin said the section he had the biggest hand in writing was the one dealing with foot voting, which argues that voter ignorance and excessive centralization of power make it desirable to decentralize authority to state and local governments and to the private sector. 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022)

He offered private school choice as an example of a decision in which people have better incentives to be informed, and argued that expanded foot voting and decentralization could reduce polarization, part of which he attributed to power being concentrated in the federal government and particularly in the hands of whoever sits in the White House. If people had more opportunities to vote with their feet, he said, there would be less fear of the White House or Congress being controlled by political opponents. 3 Libertarian Ideas to Strengthen Democracy (2022)

Somin conceded that the recommendation goes down easier

Backlinks