Dr. Birgir Thor Runolfsson, the Chair of the Economics Faculty at the University, was elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society at its biannual general meeting in New Delhi 21–26 September. The other two attendants from Iceland were Ragnar Arnason, Professor Emeritus of Fisheries Economics at the University of Iceland, and Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland. The Mont Pelerin Society is an international academy of (classical) liberal scholars and men of affairs, founded by Friedrich A. von Hayek in Switzerland in April 1947. Founding members included later Nobel Laureates Maurice Allais, Milton Friedman, and George J. Stigler, the well-known economists Frank H. Knight, founder of the Chicago School of economics, and Ludwig von Mises, founder of the Austrian School of economics, the economist Luigi Einaudi, President of Italy in 1948–1955, Dr. Trygve Hoff, Editor of Norwegian business magazine Farmand, and Swedish professors Eli F. Heckscher and Herbert Tingsten. Hannes Gissurarson attended his first meeting of the Society at Stanford in 1980. Becoming a member in 1984, he was on the Board of Directors in 1998–2004 and organised a regional meeting of the Society in Iceland in 2005.

At the New Delhi meeting, Professor Gissurarson made two interventions. In a session on economic policy in India it was described how a domestic elite replace the British raj in 1947, establishing a burdensome bureaucracy and trying to implement unrealistic ideas about central economic planning, while maintaing most formal symbols of democracy. Gissurarson asked whether it would not have been more sensible to hand over power to the existing multitude of territories, some of which had been under British rule, and some of which had been governed by Maharajas and Nawabs, such as Hyderabad and Mysore, forcibly conquered by the elite shortly after the British withdrawal. Possibly then what would have emerged would have been competition between different regimes, instead of the elite imposing on the whole of India ideas tht it had learned from left-wing university teachers in Britain. In a session on the fiftieth anniversary of Hayek’s Nobel Prize in Economics, in 1974, Gissurarson recalled when he was a student at Oxford University in 1983 that Hayek visited him and some of his fellow students. They asked him whether they could use his name and found a Hayek Society at Oxford to discuss the problems and prospects of classical liberalism. ‘Yes, if you promise me not to become Hayekians. I have noticed that the Marxists are much worse than Marx and the Keynesians much worse than Keynes,’ Hayek replied.

At the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in New Delhi the Nordic participants went together to dinner one night. From left: David Andersson, Sweden and Taiwan, Dr. Kristian Niemietz, London, Prof. Birgir Th. Runolfsson, Iceland, Dr. Lars Peder Nordbakken, Norway, Dr. Nils Karlson, Sweden, Prof. Ragnar Arnason, Prof. Anna Agnarsdottir (wife of Ragnar Arnason), Susanne Enger (wife of Nils Karlson), Sweden, Prof. Hannes H. Gissurarson, Iceland, og Håkan Gergils, Sweden.

In Frosti’s studio there is a portrait of Gissurarson’s friend David Oddsson.

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, was a guest in Frosti Logason’s podcast on 19 September 2024. He said that recent elections in European countries suggested that a lot of voters who had voted for traditional centre-right parties were now voting for more populist right-wing parties. They refused to accept 1) the unlimited immigration of people from Muslim countries if and when those immigrants rejected Western values; 2) centralisation, the transfer of power from the European nation states to the Brussels bureaucracy; 3) the dominance that intolerant left-wing intellectuals had acquired over mainstream media and the universities, using it to promote wokeism and cancel culture; 4) the extension of free trade to mainland China if and when her communist rulers did not observe the rules of a fair game. European voters were rebelling against the dominant elites. Gissurarson said that the war in Ukraine should be resolved by a ceasefire, followed by free and fair elections in contested regions about whether the inhabitants wanted to belong to Ukraine or Russia, just like the elections in 1920 in Schleswig about whether the inhabitants wanted to belong to Denmark or Germany. The resolution of the conflict in the Middle East was not two states, but rather one sovereign country, Israel, which would however grant communes (or cantons) of Palestinian Arabs within her borders extensive self-government, just like Finland after 1917 granted the Aaland Islands self-government while retaining sovereignty. On the issue of Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers in Europe a distinction had to be made, Gissurarson submitted, between those who were already citizens in a European country and those who were not. Of course, under the rule of law all citizens should enjoy equal rights irrespective of their religion. But if some citizens rejected Western values and became a nuisance and even a threat without violating the law in such a way that they could be deprived of their citizenship, then perhaps they could be paid to stay away, in countries that would have them.

RNH Academic Director Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, was invited to give a talk at a meeting of the Brussels think tank New Direction in Dublin on 17 September 2024. He used the opportunity to compare the ideas of local thinker Edmund Burke to those of three Nordic thinkers, Snorri Sturluson, Anders Chydenius, and N. F. S. Grundtvig. Snorri had in his Heimskringla presented two political principles, government by consent and the right of rebellion. These principles had later been articulated and elaborated by three British writers, John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, who could be regarded as the fathers of classical liberalism, whereas Snorri was a proto-liberal. As a result of the 1789 French Revolution, classical liberalism had split into the radical liberalism of Tom Paine (and later John Stuart Mill) and the conservative liberalism of Edmund Burke (and later Alexis de Tocqueville).

Gissurarson said that the two most influential Nordic liberals of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the Swedish pastor and politician Anders Chydenius and the Danish pastor and poet N. F. S. Grundtvig, had both been conservative liberals, preferring evolution to revolution, opposing the French Jacobins, but strongly supporting freedom of expression and of religion, private property and economic freedom. Grundtvig had translated Snorri’s Heimskringla into Danish and in his own writings emphasised the Nordic cultural heritage. It was interesting, Gissurarson added, to compare Ireland and Denmark in the nineteenth century because geographical conditions and natural resources were similar in the two of them. One reason why the Danes were more successful than the Irish was that they were a sovereign nation enjoying social cohesion, not least because of Grundtvig’s effort in education. Grundtvig was still relevant, not least his national non-aggressive liberalism. Other speakers at the meeting included an old friend of Iceland, Lord Daniel Hannan of Kingsclere.

Gissurarson Slides in Dublin

The summer of 2022 saw the publication of the book Superabundance; the Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet by Dr. Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute in Washington DC and Professor Gale Pooley. They present two main theses: 1) Population increase is not bound to be a problem because in a free economy each individual would tend to produce more than he would consume. Natural resources are by no means dwindling. 2) There has been much more progress than is reflected in the usual measurements of economic growth. What is most relevant is the time price of goods, not their money price, where time price maeans the time it takes to work for the goods.

The first thesis is amply confirmed by experience. The dire predictions in The Limits to Growth and A Blueprint for Survival which both were published in Iceland in 1973 turned out to be wrong. Food production has increased at a greater rate than the population. Natural resources have not been dwindling, for two reasons, that new resources have been discovered and that old resources are utilised more efficiently. For example, if a machine is invented that uses only half the energy of its predecessor, then it means that the energy reserves for this kind of production has doubled in size. It is also easy to argue for the second thesis. If a loaf of bread costs 200 Icelandic kronur while its consumer earns 2,000 kronur per hour, then its time price is six minutes. But if the price of the loaf increases to 220 kronur while its consumer earns 2,400 kronur per hour, then the time price has fallen to five minutes and 24 seconds. A good example of astonishing progress which is not well reflected in ordinary statistics is the price of light. In 1800, it cost 5.37 hours for a common worker to buy one hour of light. Now it costs less than 0.18 seconds.

Marian Tupy visited Iceland in July 2024 and gave a talk at the University of Iceland on 24 July, with Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University, chairing. After his talk, Tupy responded to questions. One question was whether man had really seen moral progress in the twentieth century, given its horrors, Nazi extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Stalinist and Maoist slave camps such as Karaganda. Tupy agreed that certainly there was still much evil in the world, but he pointed out that acts of evil had to be evaluated relative to the population, and then they probably turned out to be less prevalent than in the more distant past.

Probably the covid virus which caused the 2020–2022 worldwide pandemic leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan in China, although it is well nigh impossible to prove this, science writer Dr. Matt Ridley said at a meeting at the University of Iceland on 17 July 2024, sponsored by RSE, the Icelandic Research Centre in Social and Economic Affairs. Originally Ridley had thought that the virus had been transmitted from some animal, as had been the case in previous epidemics. But no route of transmission has been discovered, while increasing circumstantial evidence points to the Wuhan Institute of Virology where experiments with similar viruses had been conducted. The problem is, Ridley observed, that the Chinese authorities resolutely refuse to provide any information about the virus and try hard to hamper all independent research into its origin. A zoologist by training, Ridley co-authored in 2021 a book with molecular biologist Alina Chan, Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. In a visit to the residence of the President of Iceland, Dr. Gudni Th. Johannesson, Ridley gave him a copy.

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, chaired the meeting. After his talk, Ridley was asked what could possibly refute the lab-leak theory. ‘The discovery of an animal infected before the virus jumped into humans,’ he replied. Ridley estimated that about 28 million people had been killed by the virus while the pandemic had also been economically and socially very costly. It was understandable that the Chinese authorities did not want to assume responsibility for this calamity. But worse still was that some virologists and other scientists in the West had systematically tried to obscure evidence suggesting a leak from the Wuhan laboratory, although they were well aware of it, as was revealed in their emails. The Icelandic daily Morgunbladid quoted Ridley favourably in a leading article on 20 July, upon which the neurologist Dr. Kari Stefansson, Director of deDode genetics, published an article in the newspaper on 23 July where he asserted that Ridley’s lab-leak theory was amusing, but also unscientific because it was not testable. There was not, according to Stefansson, sufficient evidence to prove or to refute it. Professor Gissurarson replied in Morgunbladid 27 July that the theory was indeed refutable as Ridley had pointed out at the meeting: the refutation would be the discovery of an animal infected before the virus jumped into humans, as had been the case in previous epidemics. The paucity of evidence was actually, Gissurarson submitted, yet another fact in favour of the lab-leak theory because it was brought about by the Chinese authorities which behaved as if they had something to hide.

The day before the meeting, Professor Gissurarson published an article about Ridley and his best-selling books on science:

Ridley is a frequent visitor to Iceland. In 2012 he gave a talk at the University of Iceland about his book The Rational Optimist, and in 2014 AB, the Public Book Club, published an Icelandic translation of the book, with Ridley giving a talk about it at a seminar held by AB. On that occasion, former Prime Minister David Oddsson gave a dinner for Ridley at his home. After the meeting this year, Ridley attended a dinner in his honour arranged by Professor Gissurarson at the Reykjavik restaurant Grill Market, and attended by former Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde, Professor Thor Whitehead, Ridley’s Icelandic publisher Jonas Sigurgeirsson, RSE Board members Halla Sigrun Mathiesen and Einar Sigurdsson, and Ridley’s Icelandic friend from his fishing trips Magnus Sigurdsson.

Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland, was a guest at Gisli Freyr Valdorsson’s podcast on 2 July 2024, discussing many current issues. He found it strange that the welfare state was growing at the same time as the need for it was diminishing, as people were getting more prosperous, more able to support themselves and pay for what they wanted. He was not worried about an increase in population because each additional individual could produce more than he would consume if he or she was allowed freely to use their skills and abilities to their own advantage. The only effective foreign aid was free trade, Gissurarson submitted, the opportunity of Western companies to invest in the developing world and the access of companies in the developing world to Western markets. Ecofundamentalists, or extreme environmentalists, did not realise that environmental protection required designated protectors, owners of resources with an interest in conserving them and improving upon them. Gissurarson suggested that the Icelandic bank collapse in 2008 had resulted in a massive transfer of power from the elected representatives of the people to bureaucrats and regulators. It was time to transfer this power, not to government, but to the people. He recalled that two political leaders, Bjarni Benediktsson and Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, had had astonishing success in their dealings with the foreign creditors of the fallen Icelandic banks, who had had to return a significant part of their gains, to the Icelandic state.