As two towering figures in the history of liberty, F.A. Hayek and the philosopher John Stuart Mill both arrived at broadly libertarian conclusions, yet their routes to liberty diverged in significant ways. This difference in reasoning is highlighted by Cass Sunstein, the Harvard Law School professor and political theorist, in a recent thoughtful discussion:
Mill regarded choosers with a certain romance—emphasizing the capabilities and knowledge of individuals like you and me—whereas Hayek treated choosers with far less romanticism. He instead celebrated the emergence of orders and traditions not devised by planners, and he remained skeptical of centralized design.
Mill cast a bright light on individuals—their knowledge, potential, and agency. Hayek, in contrast, illuminated markets and inherited traditions, and drew attention to what government planners cannot know.
In essence, Mill celebrated the advantages of personal freedom of choice, arguing that it empowers each person to govern his or her own affairs and to host valuable “experiments in living.” Hayek, by contrast, drew attention to the shortcomings of top-down planners and the gaps in their knowledge.
As Sunstein observes, these positions are not inherently antagonistic. They can even bolster one another by offering alternate foundations for the same overall judgment. Yet a tension remains: Hayek also championed the value of “spontaneous order” and the traditions it yields, which he regarded as more reliable guides to decision-making than the unassisted reasoning of individuals. This stance stands in contrast to Mill’s emphasis on autonomous thought and personal judgment.
Furthermore, if tradition wields considerable force, one might ask why not employ governmental authority to safeguard it against those who defy it? And if individual reasoning and experimentation are so advantageous, why not trust the judgments of voters at the polls to restrain personal choice?
I cannot settle every tension between these viewpoints. Still, the gap narrows considerably when we acknowledge that people tend to make better decisions in some circumstances than in others, notably when they can “vote with their feet” rather than cast a ballot. This realization strengthens both Mill’s faith in individual autonomy and Hayek’s critique of planning and his defense of spontaneous order.
As I have argued elsewhere (and at greater length in my book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom), people exercise this foot voting by choosing private-sector options, determining their jurisdiction within a federal framework, or engaging in international migration. What unites these forms of choice is that the individual’s decision is likely to have a decisive impact. By contrast, votes cast at the ballot box typically have an infinitesimal chance of deciding the outcome—often on the order of one in millions (roughly one in sixty million in a U.S. presidential contest, though exact probabilities vary by state).
Consequently, foot voters are incentivized to seek out relevant information and assess it with care. Historical and empirical evidence suggests they can make sound decisions even under adverse conditions, such as people fleeing totalitarian regimes that restrict external information or Black individuals escaping slavery and segregation who sought better opportunities. By contrast, a combination of rational ignorance (the lack of incentive to pursue political information) and rational irrationality (the bias introduced by incomplete or skewed evaluation) tends to leave many voters ignorant of basic political facts and predisposed to view information through a partisan lens. In tandem, these factors mean that many individuals rely on incomplete information and biased interpretations when forming political opinions.
Recognizing that people generally make markedly better decisions as foot voters than as ballot-box voters makes it easier to reconcile Hayek’s and Mill’s perspectives.
For Hayek, this distinction clarifies why he could admire the value of traditions arising from spontaneous, individual choices while also criticizing conservatives who seek to enforce tradition through state power, as he argued in his well-known essay Why I Am Not a Conservative. The reasoning is that traditions formed by individuals’ foot voting are more likely to carry genuine epistemic value than those imposed by coercive force, whether by democratic governments or authoritarian regimes.
Hayek did not embrace tradition wholesale. He was willing to reject traditions that were imposed or perpetuated through government coercion. For instance, he opposed anti-sodomy laws and other restrictions on consensual sexual behavior, despite being rooted in long-standing custom. The distinction between decisions made by feet and those dictated by the ballot box helps justify this stance.
The same applies to Mill’s emphasis on personal autonomy. Foot voters are more likely to make sound choices and thereby foster better “experiments in living.” Mill himself worried about voter ignorance; in Considerations on Representative Government, he argued that voters should become well-informed and even proposed giving extra votes to more educated voters to improve decision quality.
Yet he did not fully account for the fact that even comparatively educated voters remain susceptible to rational ignorance (even if they generally know more than the less educated) and can still act as biased “political fans.” Any given group tends to make better decisions when voting with their feet than when voting at the ballot box. The stronger incentives faced by foot voters justify granting them broader autonomy while limiting the power of government to override their preferences.
As I contend in Free to Move and in related writings, these considerations also justify decentralizing political power to broaden opportunities for foot voting within federal systems. This aligns with Hayek’s early advocacy of decentralized federalism, including a 1939 piece that stressed removing barriers to the movement of people, goods, and capital between states.
In short, acknowledging the problem of voter ignorance and the advantages of foot voting strengthens both Hayek’s defense of liberty and Mill’s advocacy of autonomy. Liberty enables individuals to make better-informed private-sector decisions, reinforcing Mill’s emphasis on individual freedom. At the same time, voter ignorance undermines the efficiency of centralized planning, supporting Hayek’s critique while clarifying why he endorsed some traditions but rejected others.
The arguments presented here do not erase all distinctions between Mill and Hayek, nor do they by themselves constitute a complete blueprint for a libertarian or classical liberal political program. Yet they illustrate how the superior decision-making demonstrated by foot voters relative to ballot-box voters can reinforce both thinkers’ perspectives and render them mutually compatible.
