Ragnar Árnason flytur fyrirlestur sinn.

The regional meeting of the European Students for Liberty, ESFL, which took place in Reykjavik Saturday 3 October 2015 was well-attended and very successful. Attendees included not only university students, but also many from senior high schools or grammar schools in the Reykjavik region. RNH supported the conference in various ways. The Chairman of RNH’s Academic Council, Professor Ragnar Arnason, spoke on free markets and property rights. RNH’s Director of Academic Studies, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, held a reception at his home for the foreign guests. Gisli Hauksson, RNH’s Chairman of the Board, organised a reception hosted by Gamma, a rapidly growing fund management company. The participation of RNH in the conference forms a part of the joint project with AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. Other speakers at the conference were business affairs reporter Asgeir Ingvarsson who spoke on the impact of immigration on income distribution, Icelandic MP Sigridur Andersen who discussed the relationship between politics and ideals, Roderick T. Long, Philosophy Professor at Auburn University, who described “left-wing liberalism” or the alliance of libertarians and radical leftists, both of whom are sceptical of government and hierarchies, and investor Heidar Gudjonsson, who analysed public debt in Western democracies and traced its accumulation, unsustainable in some countries, to the government monopoly of producing money. While the attendees at the conference disagreed on many issues, they generally welcomed the fresh and innovative ideas put forward there. The conference was moderated by Lukas Schweiger, originally from Austria, but residing at present in Iceland, and Eyd Aradottir from the Faroe Islands, now residing in Denmark. The conference was taped by the Sons of Libertas, and parts of it, as well as interviews with some speakers, will be included in a documentary produced by the SoL.

Slides of Ragnar Arnason

RNH is the Icelandic partner of the Remembrance and Future Centre in Wroclaw in Poland. This Centre is now undertaking a project on oral history with special reference to the connections between the Polish and Icelandic nations. In 17–27 August 2015, a workshop was conducted in Reykjavik where Polish scholars and university students interviewed Polish immigrants in Iceland, visited the oral history centre at the National Library of Iceland and listened to two scholars explaining Icelandic history on the one hand and the traditions of Icelandic biography on the other hand. RNH helped the Centre in organising the workshop.

Dr. Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland, gave an outline of Iceland’s history. It was, he said, mainly a story of the nation’s fight against ice and fire until the 20th century. The ancient Commonwealth had been an interesting attempt to resolve conflicts without government. The fishing grounds off Iceland were very fertile, but while the country was a Danish dependency in 1380–1918, the Danish King has in effect conspired with the small Icelandic landowning class to hinder the development of Icelandic fisheries. This had changed in the 19th century and the Icelanders had worked their way from poverty to affluence through the fisheries and free trade. The 2008 bank collapse had been a great shock to the nation, but it had quickly recovered as in former calamities. The nation has until recently been very homogeneous, but this was changing. Polish immigrants had adjusted better to life in Iceland than many other groups.

Dr. Gudni Johannesson, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Iceland, discussed the tradition of Icelandic biographies. He told the audience that he had himself written some biographies, including a controversial unauthorised biography of Kari Stefansson, the medical doctor and founder of Icelandic Decode, and a better-received and authorised biography of Prime Minister Gunnar Thoroddsen. Johannesson was now working on three biographies, two of them on prominent Icelanders, with the support of their families, and one about his own father. It was not always easy, Johannesson submitted, to find sources and to evaluate them. An honest historian had to approach his subject matter with sympathy, and yet critically. He had used oral sources in many of his works, but of course they had to be subject to the same critical analysis as other sources.

Gissurarson Slides 19 August 2015

From left: Thordarson, Hannan, Zahradil, Anna Fotyga, Poland, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the UK, and Zafer Sirakaya, Turkey.

Icelandic MP Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson was elected one of the Vice Presidents of AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, at a Council Meeting 22 May 2015 in Winchester in England. RNH cooperates with AECR on two projects, Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism, and Europe of the Victims. Czech EMP Jan Zahradil from the Civic Democratic Forum, ODS, is AECR President. He is an associate of former Czech President Vaclav Klaus. English EMP Daniel Hannan is  AECR Secretary. Hannan, a long-time friend of Iceland, in the autumn of 2008 defended Iceland in The Times when the British Labour government invoked the anti-terrorism law against Icelandic companies and institutions (including the Central Bank of Iceland and the Icelandic Financial Services Authority). Two parties joined AECR at the Council Meeting, a conservative party from Croatia and a reformist party from Montenegro, signing the Reykjavik Declaration, adopted 21 March 2014.

Following the Council meeting, two panel debates took place, on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and on threats to the transatlantic alliance. AECR seeks to promote transatlantic friendship and cooperation. Jim DeMint, Director of Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, attended the AECR meeting and was presented with the Edmund Burke Prize of the Alliance. RNH has enjoyed a good relationship with Heritage Foundation, one of the most active and influential think tanks in the United States.

Daniel Hannan was keynote speaker at the annual conference of the European Students for Liberty, ESFL, in Berlin 10–12 April 2015, arguing that libertarians should be sceptical about further European integration. RNH Academic Director Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson also spoke at the conference. Daniel Hannan runs a popular website, publishing his articles and speeches. He has published a book on the Anglo-Saxon political tradition, Inventing Freedom, which will be the subject of an RNH conference in Iceland in the spring of 2016, where scholars will compare the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic political traditions. Shortly after Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson was elected AECR Vice President, he published, with Swiss MP Thomas Aeschi, an article in the Telegraph, that there was life outside the EU, as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland showed, enjoying the perks of the European market without the burden of the EU.

Professor Gissurarson talking to Sirja Rank. Photo: Meeli Küttim.

When Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, RNH Academic Director, was in Estonia at the end of April, Sirja Rank from the Estonian business paper Äripäev interviewed him on the Icelandic bank collapse. The interview was published 1 May 2015. Ms Rank asked the Professor whether he, as a member of the Overseeing Board of the Central Bank of Iceland in 2001–2009, did not accept partial responsibility for the bank collapse. “The Central Bank of Iceland cannot be held responsible for the systemic error which was encountered—even discovered—in the international financial crisis,” Professor Gissurarson replied. “This was that the Icelandic banks’ field of operations was much bigger than their field of institutional support. In the end, no one supported the Icelandic banks, whereas almost all other banks in Europe were rescued. The US Fed did for example make very high dollar swap deals with the central bank of Switzerland which had just as big a banking sector as Iceland proportionally. If this had not been done, the Swiss banks would have collapsed.”

Professor Gissurarson was asked if the bank collapse had not been brought about by the neoliberalism which he had enthusiastically embraced. “On the contrary,” he replied. “The banks operated under precisely the same legal and regulatory framework as banks elsewhere in the European Economic Area. However, you can argue that the good reputation which Iceland acquired in the “neoliberal” era of 1991–2004 may have had something to do with the incredible speed with which the banks could expand. They had good credit ratings. But we have to make a distinction between the market capitalism of 1991–2004 and the crony capitalism of 2004–2008. In the latter period, a small group of oligarchs practically controlled Iceland. It owned most of the media and greatly influenced commentators, journalists and even judges. This group, led by Jon Asgeir Johannesson, did a lot of things which I am not prepared to defend.”

Professor Gissurarson was asked whether he had modified his libertarian views as a result of the bank collapse. “The main point is that the collapse was a part of the international financial crisis,” he replied, “and a major cause of that crisis was the recklessness of commercial banks, and a major cause of that recklessness was their belief that if in trouble, they would be bailed out, while if successful they could pocket the profit. This was an irrational principle. Banks should operate under the same principle of responsibility for their own actions as do other private enterprises. The common man should not bear the cost of bankers’ recklessness.”

Professor Gissurarson was asked why Iceland had been so quick to recover. “That’s because the country was never bankrupt, even if Gordon Brown claimed it was,” he replied. “The Icelanders are few in numbers, and they hold considerable assets, the fish stocks in the Icelandic waters, energy resources, an alluring country much in demand by tourists, and last, but not least, a lot of human capital. We were knocked down, and we were a bit dizzy and disoriented for a while, but now we have stood up, and we are walking on briskly.”