Oksanen

The keynote speaker at the Platform of European Memory and Conscience conference in Prague in the Czech Republic 12–13 June on „The Legacy of Totalitarianism“ is Estonian-Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen whose novels, Purge and Stalin’s Cows, have been published in Icelandic translations. Oksanen received the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2010. The leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemílev, will receive the Prize of the Platform for his patient and non-violent struggle for the rights of his nation—deported by Stalin in 1944—and, during the Soviet period, for his dissident activities supporting human rights in general. The conference is under the protecton of Miluše Horská, Vice-Chairman of the Czech Senate, and takes place in the Senate building. Speakers at the conference include Daniel Herman, Czech Minister of Culture, Monica Macovei, former Romanian Justice Minister, Stéphane Courtois, editor of the Black Book of Communism, which has been published in Icelandic, and Vytautas Landsbergis, former President of Lithuania who is well known in Iceland. Dr. Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland, represents RNH—a member of the Platform—at the conference, moderating a seminar with Landsbergis and others on the role of the European Union in reconciling the Eastern and Western parts of Europe.

Two films will be shown during the conference, Katyn, made by Andrzej Wajda in Poland in 2009 about the massacre of Polish officers, on Stalin’s orders, in the Katyn wood, and the Soviet Story made by Edvīns Šnore in Latvia in 2008, about the cooperation between Stalin and  Hitler when they divided Central and Eastern Europe up between themselves in 1939–41. Professor Gissurarson’s participation in the conference forms a part in the joint project by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe of the Victims”.

Glenn Cripe of Language of Liberty and Prof. Gissurarson, Curitiba Old City Hall.

The argument for individual freedom is greatly strengthened by various data and statistics available on the internet, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson said in a lecture at a conference on “Liberty in the Information Age” in Curitiba in Brazil 31 May 2014. The conference was organised by the Brazilian Students for Liberty, Estudantes pela liberdade, and co-sponsored by the American Language of Liberty Institute and by the German Friedrich Naumann Stiftung. In this context, Professor Gissurarson mentioned the websites of research institutes such as Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, and of international associations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and many UN organisations, and also internet data banks such as the Index of Economic Freedom and Angus Maddison’s historical figures. Of liberal bloggers and commentators two stood out, according to Professor Gissurarson, English science writer Matt Ridley and Scottish historian Niall Ferguson, always offering fresh insights. In his presentation, Professor Gissurarson showed in graphs with data from Angus Maddison the traditional comparisons between West Germany and East Germany and between South and North Korea: the same nation performing differently in two areas as a result of different economic institutions. He also compared some regions which could be regarded as comparable, such as the “Nordic” provinces of Canada (Manitoba) and states of the US (Minnesota and Southern Dakota, discounting North Dakota because of its oil wealth) on the one hand and the Nordic countries on the other hand (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, discounting Norway because of its oil wealth). It turned out that the North American Nordic people enjoyed significantly higher living standards than the European Nordic people. Another interesting comparison was between economic development in Australia and Argentina—two countries with almost identical living standards in 1929, before the Great Depression, both populated by immigrants of Caucasian origin and both with similar natural resources. Presently, however, Argentina was lagging far behind Australia. A comparison could also be made between the economic development of Singapore and Jamaica—two small tropical islands and former British colonies. For a while, Jamaica had a larger GDP per capita than Singapore, whereas Singapore made much greater progress after independence, in the last fifty years, the difference being that the Singapore economy was one of the freest in the world.

Professor Gissurarson’s lecture formed a part of the joint research project by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. Here is his graph on the comparison between Singapore and Jamaica:

Professor Gissurarson lecturing in Porto Alegre.

The internet is a veritable fountain of intellectual resources, data and information, supporting individual freedom. This is what Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson argued in a lecture at a conference in Porto Alegre 25 May 2014, organised by the Brazilian Students for Liberty, or Estudantes pela liberdade, on “Liberty in the Information Age”. The conference was co-sponsored by the American institute Language of Liberty and the German Friedrich Naumann Stiftung. Professor Gissurarson mentioned the websites of research institutes such as Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, and of international associations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and many UN organisations, and also internet data banks such as the Index of Economic Freedom. Many stimulating ideas and arguments were also to be found, he said, in internet commentaries and blogs by liberal writers, for example by best-selling science writer Matt Ridley and historian Niall Ferguson. In the lecture, Professor Gissurarson showed many graphs which he had constructed from data available on the internet. One example was a graph with statistics from FAO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which demonstrated that the productivity of cultivated land had increased at a faster rate than the area of land cultivated, a development sometimes called the “Green Revolution”. Professor Gissurarson pointed out that the Malthusian scenario of an impending demographic disaster where population was growing at a faster rate than food production—spelling the eventual doom of capitalism—had not turned out to be true, even if Malthus’ prophecies were echoed in relatively recent works like the 1972 Limits to Growth (translated into Icelandic in 1974). Professor Gissurarson added that the rate of growth of world population had indeed slowed down in the last twenty years.

Here is Gissurarson’s lecture on Youtube:

Professor Gissurarson’s lecture formed a part of the joint research project of RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. Here is his graph on the Green Revolution:

From left: Hauksson, Juliusson and Bartoszek.

RNH has received the Kjartan Gunnarsson Freedom Prize for 2014, awarded by the Board of the Young Independents, SUS. The Prize is given annually to one institution and to one individual for their services to individual freedom. RNH received the institutional Prize for its contribution to research on the benefits of economic freedom. The Centre has, as the SUS Board recognises in its declaration, explored the causes of, and hindrances to, innovation and economic freedom. In its research, a special emphasis is put on the way in which individuals can by spontaneous cooperation, mutually beneficial trade instead of commands from above, fulfil their needs and improve their living standards.

“RNH has organised several conferences and meetings and has invited to Iceland many foreign scholars and activists to participate in the Icelandic discussion and debate on freedom. RNH also does research on income distribution and taxation, resource management, environment protection, innovation and entrepreneurship. Moreover, RNH has made a powerful contribution to keeping alive the memory of those who lost their lives to 20th Century totalitarianism,” the SUS Board declares.

The individual recipient of the Freedom Prize this year is Pawel Bartoszek, a frequent commentator on current affairs, the son of Polish immigrants to Iceland and a mathematician by training. Two members of RNH’s academic board, Professors Ragnar Arnason and Hannes H. Gissurarson, are among previous recipients of the individual Prize. On behalf of RNH, Gisli Hauksson, Chairman of the Board, received the institutional Prize from Magnus Juliusson, Chairman of the Young Independents, at a ceremony in Valholl, headquarters of the Independence Party, Friday 23 May 2014. The Prize is named after Kjartan Gunnarsson, an investor and former Executive Director of the Independence Party, who was and is well-known for his firm support of freedom.

Dan Grossman

Dan Grossman, chairman of the board of Atlas Network and member of the board of Students for Liberty, briefly visited Iceland on 11–12 May 2014. He had a luncheon meeting with Gisli Hauksson, chairman of RNH’s board, and a few other people involved in RNH’s activities. Hauksson gave Grossman a brief account of what RNH has been doing in the last two years, including the publication of three Ayn Rand novels, many international conferences on fisheries management and on the financial crisis—two topics of particular relevance to Icelanders—and several lectures by foreign and Icelandic scholars. Hauksson also told Grossman about a few RNH projects in the next few months, including meetings on taxation and income distribution, the index of economic freedom, and Herbert Spencer, the publication of online editions of many out-of-print anti-totalitarian books in Icelandic, including the Icelandic translation of the landmark Black Book on Communism, and the publication in Icelandic of a book by best-selling science writer Matt Ridley on the reasons to be optimistic. RNH is a part of the Atlas Network, whose founder, Sir Anthony Fisher, once came to Iceland and inspired many members of the Icelandic business community reminding them of how important it was to defend economic freedom and to facilitate the work of those few and embattled intellectuals supporting it.