Goncherneko gives his speech in Tallinn on 22 September 2022.

RNH Academic Director, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, attended the annual Margaret Thatcher dinner organised by Brussels think tank New Direction on 22 September 2022. This time, the venue was the House of the Blackheads (medieval merchants) in Tallinn, Estonia, and the speaker of the evening was Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncherneko, who is active in the defence of human rights at the Council of Europe. He eloquently expressed his conviction that Ukraine would repel the attack by the Russian forces under Putin.

The day after the dinner, New Direction held a debate on the direction in which European centre-right parties should go in the future. Gissurarson argued for the conservative liberalism which he described in his recent book on Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers. Its four main pillars are private property, free trade, limited government and respect for traditions, in particular traditions developed in spontaneous voluntary associations such as families, congregations, cooperatives, sports clubs and local communities. Conservative-liberal thinkers include, Gissurarson submitted, St. Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke, Michael Oakeshott, and Karl Popper.

Gissurarson said that in his opinion Hayek was perhaps the greatest representative of the conservative-liberal political tradition. Hayek’s question was how we, in spite of our inevitable individual ignorance, have been able to develop Western civilisation with its enormous variety, diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship and opportunities. His answer was that in a free society knowledge could be acquired and transmitted, between different generations through tradition and between people in different places through the price mechanism. Unlike utilitarian liberals, conservative liberals did not ignore the many ties, attachments and commitments which individuals acquire as a result of their membership in various communities.

Gissurarson made a distinction between good and bad nationalism. Good nationalism was the collective will of a community to live together, almost always based on a long, shared history and sometimes on a common language. But the community should not be closed; it had to be the subject of choice; the nation should be a daily plebiscite, in Ernest Renan’s apt phrase—a home, neither a prison nor a fortress. Bad nationalism was however aggressively directed against other communities, seeking to subdue, oppress and humiliate them. Gissurarson suggested that the War in Ukraine was between these two kinds of nationalism: the Ukrainians’ will to maintain a sovereign state which would preserve and develop their common identity, and the determination of a small clique in the Moscow Kremlin to conquer the fertile fields of Ukraine and to be seen to triumph on the international arena.

Gissurarson giving his talk.

Gissurarson also made a distinction between positive and negative populism. Positive populism consisted in taking the voters seriously, but trying to direct their emotions, interests, and frustrations into socially and politically useful channels. One example was when Margaret Thatcher sold off council houses, changing by one stroke tenants into responsible house owners and her potential supporters. Negative populism was however when unscrupulous politicians try to unite the masses against some imaginary enemies, such as the rich or the Jews. It was important, Gissurarson said, to extend the moral vision to the whole of mankind, to apply the old Catholic concept of ‘universitas hominum’, but without neglecting our duties to those standing closer to us.

The other participants in the debate were Federico Ottavio Reho, Strategic Coordinator and Senior Research Officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, who defended christian democracy, Anna Wellisz, VP for External Affairs of the Edmund Burke Foundation, who advocated national conservatism, and John O’Sullivan, President of Danube Institute and former speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, who stood up for traditional conservatism.

Prof. Gissurarson and Professor Alves.

Two of the most distinguished representatives of the conservative-liberal tradition were St. Thomas Aquinas and Edmund Burke, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director, observed in a lecture he gave at the Institute of Political Studies at the Catholic University of Lisbon on 8 September 2022. Aquinas not only taught that kings should, like everybody else, be under the law and that they could be deposed if they gravely violated the traditional liberties of their citizens. He also realised that we are all sinners, imperfect human beings, and that government should only try to deal with sins harmful to others, such as theft and assaults. Aquinas was an inspiration for the Salamanca School on which a professor at the Catholic University had ably written, André Azevedo Alves.

Edmund Burke saw a free society as being one of ‘reciprocal control’ where no single body, not even a democratically elected assembly, controlled everything but where several institutions shared power and kept one another in check. Since this was the very day in which Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Head of the Commonwealth, sadly passed away, Gissurarson recalled that one of the institutions contributing to Burke’s process of reciprocal control was the monarchy. It provided stability and continuity. According to Gissurarson, Professor João Carlos Espada of the Catholic University in his writings had perceptively explained the Anglo-American political tradition of liberty under the law. Espada had been inspired to study the Anglo-American tradition by his conversations with Karl Popper, to whom Gissurarson devotes a chapter in his recent book, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, available online free of charge.

Experience shows that socialism has failed wherever it has been tried, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director, maintained in a lecture at the Liberty International conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, 13 August 2022. The most plausible theory explaining the inevitable failure of socialism was, he added, that of the Austrian economists, Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich von Hayek. They had demonstrated the crucial role of knowledge in a dynamic, free economy where it is acquired through individual experiments and transmitted through the price mechanism. There are chapters on all three Austrians in Gissurarson’s recent book, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers. There is also a chapter in the book on perhaps the most influential economist at the end of the twentieth century, Milton Friedman, and the economic reforms he inspired in countries as different as Great Britain, Chile, New Zealand, Iceland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Gissurarson also expressed his admiration for the successful comprehensive economic reforms implemented in Georgia in 2004–2012, under the leadership of President Mikheil Saakashvili and Economics Minister Kakha Bendukidze.

Gissurarson emphasised that even if historically freedom could be seen as the product of a long tradition of mutual adjustments in the Anglo-Saxon countries, in principle every human being was fit for freedom, in Mongolia as well as Massachusetts. The conservative-liberal political tradition he described in his book rested on four pillars, private property, free trade, limited government, and respect for traditions. It had developed out of the classical liberalism of John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, as a response first to the Jacobin Revolution, and then to the Bolshevik Revolution. Edmund Burke, Benjamin Constant, and Alexis de Tocqueville had presented cogent arguments against the Jacobins, and the Austrian economists against the Bolsheviks. Gissurarson also pointed out that there was a strong conservative-liberal or non-socialist political tradition in the Nordic countries, articulated in particular by Snorri Sturluson, Anders Chydenius and Nikolai Grundtvig. The success of the Nordic countries was despite, and not because of, social democracy.

Gissurarson Slides Tbilisi August 2022

Gissurarson and Cleese.

The largest gathering of freedom supporters in the world is undoubtedly Freedomfest which economist, entrepreneur and investor Mark Skousen ably organises every year, usually in Las Vegas. In 2022, it was held 13–16 July at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, with thousands of participants. RNH Academic Director, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, attended, promoting his recent book, Twenty-First Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, in two volumes. He was invited to a dinner with Skousen, publisher Steve Forbes, writer George Gilder, and economist Arthur Laffer, after whom the Laffer Curve is named. Gissurarson also attended a reception given in honour of British actor John Cleese who has become a vocal supporter of freedom of speech, which is being threatened by the left-wing thought police. Cleese gave a talk at the conference about freedom, individuality, and creativity.

In a session on the battle of ideas, Adam Smith versus Karl Marx, Mark Skousen recalled the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who had emphasised that his comrades should not try to overthrow the rulers in a bloody revolution, but that they should rather try to undermine the system from within, achieving intellectual hegemony. Even if experience had conclusively confirmed Adam Smith’s conclusion that private property and free trade produced prosperity, the Marxists had followed Gramsci’s lead and achieved intellectual hegemony in Western universities and the media, although they usually did not call themselves Marxists, but rather environmentalists, feminists, adherents of critical legal studies or of modern monetary theory. Freedom supporters had to meet this new challenge, Skousen submitted.

From left: Laffer, Skousen, Gilder, Gissurarson.

In a session on their new book, Superabundance, economists Marian Tupy and Gale L. Pooley pointed out that each new human being on the earth was not only a new mouth to be fed, but also two more hands ready to work and an additional brain which could utilise and create knowledge. The authors argued that instead of ordinary market prices we should think about time prices, in other words how much time individuals need to work in order to buy various goods. There is no question that time prices have been falling dramatically in the last two centuries with a subsequent improvement in living standards and an increase in individual opportunities. The authors also argued that each additional human being could in fact produce more value than he or she would consume. Professor Gissurarson intervened and asked whether this argument was not an application of Adam Smith’s insight that the division of labour was limited by the extent of the market. Each additional person could be regarded as an extension of the market. The authors agreed, but they added that perhaps Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction was more significant. George Gilder wrote the foreword.

The next Freedomfest will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, 12–15 July 2023.

Dinner on 24 January. Gissurarson is second from right, Hélio Beltrão is sitting on his right, and Alejandro Chafuen is standing by them.

RNH academic director Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson attended two meetings which the Acton Institute, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, held in São Paulo for its Brazilian friends, sponsors and alumni on 24 and 25 January 2022. The institute, named after the distinguished historian Lord Acton, presents the case for liberty as grounded in Christian morality. It has conducted many seminars and summer schools in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. In São Paulo, Professor Gissurarson had talks with Kris Alan Mauren, President of Acton Institute, Alejandro A. Chafuen, Managing Director of the Institute, and Hélio Beltrão, Director of the Brazilian Mises Institute. Gissurarson’s book in two volumes, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers, is being translated into Portuguese and will be published in São Paulo by the Mises Institute. There are chapters on both Lord Acton and Ludwig von Mises in the book.

In December 2021, the Politics and Economics Centre at the Social Science Research Centre, University of Iceland, published two books by Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director. One of them is in Icelandic, Bankahrunid 2008: Utdrattur ur skyrslu [The 2008 Bank Collapse: Summary of a Report]. It is a summary in 64 pages of the report on the 2008 collapse which Gissurarson wrote in English for the Icelandic Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in 2018. His conclusion was that it was an unnecessary and brutal action when the British Labour government invoked the anti-terrorism law against Iceland in 2008. That government bailed out all British banks except the two banks owned by Icelanders, whereas it turned out that those banks were both solvent unlike some of the banks rescued, in particular RBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland. The reason why the whole banking sector in Iceland collapsed was that the Central Bank of Iceland (where Gissurarson served on the Board of Overseers between 2001 and 2009) was denied the same liquidity assistance that the Scandinavian banks received.

The other book is in English, Communism in Iceland, 1918–1998. It is a brief history, 160 pages, of the radical left-wing movement in Iceland which operated as a faction in the Labour Party (the social democrats) until 1930, in the Communist Party of Iceland in 1930–1938, in the Socialist Unity Party in 1938–1968, and in the People’s Alliance in 1968–1998. The book is largely based on documents found in Russian archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These documents, mostly in German, were copied by Russian-speaking philosopher Arnor Hannibalsson in 1992 and given to Gissurarson who has since deposited them in the National Library of Iceland. The book contains many stories about individuals and their activities, such as the narrow escape from the Gulag of renegade communist Stefan Pjetursson, who was being trained in one of Comintern’s secret camps in Moscow, the strange case of Dr Bruno Kress, a German specialist on the Icelandic language, who became a communist after having been a zealous Nazi, and the tragic fate of an Icelander’s girlfriend in Moscow, Vera Hertzsch who was arrested with their one-year old child in 1938, and sent to the Gulag where mother and child both perished. In the Conclusions, Gissurarson tries to explain why the Icelandic communists and radical socialists long had more support than the social democrats.