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.

Vargas Llosa in Miami. Photo: Atlas Network.

Three Icelanders attended the 2021 Freedom Dinner in Miami 14 December, organised by Atlas Network: RNH academic director Hannes H. Gissurarson, and young activists Magnus Orn Gunnarsson and David Snaer Jonsson. At the dinner, Mario Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Nobel Laureate in Literature, presented a prize for young journalists to Carla Gloria Colomé, for an article on ‘The Eleventh of July in San Antonio de los Baños’. What happened in July 2021 was that in San Antonio de los Baños, near Havana, and in some other places Cubans suddenly coordinated their actions online and took to the streets, demonstrating against the authoritarian regime of the Castro brothers which has turned Cuba into one of the poorest countries in Latin America. The protesters chanted the slogan ‘Patria y Vida’ made famous in a song under the same name by Cuban rapper Yotuel. While the Cuban government used massive force in suppressing the protests, arresting about 700 people and for a while shutting down the internet, it was remarkable, as Colomé notes in her article, that suddenly people were fearless of their oppressors who have lost all credibility. This might be the beginning of the end. At the Freedom Dinner, Yotuel sang his song.

This year, the Templeton Freedom Award went to India’s Centre for Civil Society, based in New Delhi. This award, $100,000, was made possible by the legendary investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The Centre for Civil Society, representated in Miami by Prashant Narang, received the Award for its work to protect and expand the rights and opportunities of India’s more than thirty million street vendors. Often harassed by local authorities, they offer indispensable services, with many of them being true entrepreneurs.

The 2021 Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award went to Dr. Tom G. Palmer, Vice President for International Programmes at Atlas Network, for his tireless efforts in the cause of liberty, by countless trips to all corners of the world (including Iceland), lectures, interviews, articles, and the publication and translation of books. In his acceptance speech he said: ‘When we argue for liberty, we should seek, not to crush, defeat, humiliate, or destroy enemies, but to win friends for liberty. The best victory in an argument is not when you hurt the other, but when you hear the other person repeat your arguments six months—or six years—later.’

Hannes speaking and Sverrir Jakobsson listening. Photo: Haraldur Bernhardsson.

The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies (Midaldastofa) held a seminar 2 December 2021 on a theory, presented in Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson’s recent book, Twenty-Four Conservative-Liberal Thinkers. It is that Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson could be seen as an early proponent of the conservative-liberal tradition in politics. Snorri (1179–1241) is probably the most famous Icelander who has ever lived, the author of the acclaimed Edda, on Nordic mythology and poems, Heimskringla, the history of the Norwegian kings, and Egil’s Saga, one of the best Icelandic sagas. Professor Sverrir Jakobsson commented on Gissurarson’s paper.

Gissurarson Slides (Icelandic) Reykjavik 2 December 2021

Accounts of the discussion were published in Morgunbladid on 4 December 2021 and on visir.is on 5 December.