This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 11th, 2018. I'm Caleb Brown.

Opting out of government is high on the wish list for many libertarians and that kind of change is coming to the world,

but maybe not in the United States just yet.

Tom Bell is author of Your Next Government from the nation-state to stateless nations. We discussed opting out and the emerging idea of special U.S. economic zones.

To what extent can people right now choose their governments?

Right now people can choose their governments at least in the United States to a large degree

by way of homeowners associations, condominium associations, and similar private communities.

Some of these are the size of small cities with tens of thousands of people, schools, businesses,

everything a city has.

That's very common in the United States.

So in the United States, yes, you can choose your government,

municipal government, very freely.

Well, I'm thinking also of just moving.

That's true. You can already do that but a nice thing

with these private communities you could stay within DC and move to a new condo

association and really you spend most of your day in the building probably you

really have kind of a new government.

That's a small example.

There's bigger examples of choice in government,

but that's one that's close to home, literally.

So scaling that up, that kind of opportunity to make those sort of marginal choices about what's allowed here,

what's mandatory here, that sort of thing, how much you pay for all of that.

...