Professor Niels Erik Rosenfeldt: Military Training in Moscow

Posted on 10.09.12

Rosenfeldt Interview: “Cruel World of Conspiracies.”

Professor Niels Erik Rosenfeldt, of the University of Copenhagen, gave a well-attended lecture at the University of Iceland 10 September 2012 on the Secret Apparatus of Comintern, on which he has published books in Danish and English. This event formed a part of a series of lectures organised jointly by RNH and AECR, the Allicance of European Conservatives and Reformists. The topic has been much-discussed in Iceland after the publication of books by Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson and Professor Thor Whitehead on the Icelandic communist movement where they stress its nature as a revolutionary movement, closely connected with Moscow. Several Comintern agents visited Iceland in the 1920s and 1930, and more than twenty Icelanders were trained at the Comintern secret schools in Moscow. In his lecture, Rosenfeldt said that in British files he had discovered some secret messages with instructions to the Icelandic communists, sent from Moscow via Copenhagen. The British Secret Service had succeeded in intercepting and decoding those messages.

In the question time after the lecture, Thor Whitehead briefly discussed the significance of those messages that he had also found. Rosenfeldt said that there was no evidence suggesting that the Icelandic students at the secret Moscow schools were exempt from the obligatory military training given in these schools. An interview with Professor Rosenfeldt was published in Morgunbladid 13 September. Rosenfeldt’s lecture is available here on Youtube.

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Rosenfeldt on Comintern’s Secret Operations, Monday 10 September, Oddi 201: 12–13

Posted on 01.08.12

The next event in the project jointly organised by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe of the Victims: Remembering Communism”, will be a lecture given by Dr. Niels Erik Rosenfeldt, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Copenhagen, on an important aspect of European history, the Secret Operations of Comintern, a topic much-discussed in Iceland after the publication of Thor Whitehead’s book in 2010, Soviet Iceland. The Country of Our Dreams. The lecture will be held in lecture room 201 in Oddi, the Social Science House of the University of Iceland, Monday 10 September, between 12–13 o’clock. It is co-sponsored by The Institute for Historical Research at the University of Iceland and the Atlantic Association of Iceland (Vardberg). Former Justice Minister Bjorn Bjarnason will chair the meeting.

Born in 1941, Niels Erik Rosenfeldt completed a cand. mag. (MA) in Russian and History and a dr. phil. (PhD) in History, both from the University of Copenhagen. He was Professor of History at the University of Copenhagen until 2011. Studying Soviet archives for decades, his two-volumes book, The ‘Special’ World: Stalin’s Power Apparatus and the Soviet System’s Secret Structures of Communication, was published in 2009. Rosenfeldt was awarded the coveted H. O. Lange Prize by the Danish Royal Library for his book on Lenin.

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Dr. Matt Ridley: Progress because of Trade

Posted on 27.07.12

Ridley giving his lecture. Professor Arnason chairing.

Dr. Matthew Ridley, former science editor of The Economist, and the author of many best-selling books on science, especially genetics, gave a lecture at The University of Iceland 27 July 2012 on Rational Optimism. The meeting was jointly held by RNH and the Institute of Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland, and is a part of a series of lectures on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, organised in cooperation with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. Ridley emphasised how much progress had been made in the last few hundred years, and traced it back to man’s capacity to exchange goods and services and thus to avail himself of more knowledge than he possessed himself. A system of free exchange, catallaxy, as F. A. Hayek calls it, has developed to the benefit of all.

Morgunbladid editorial on Ridley.

Ridley’s lecture was well attended and generated much publicity. Vidskiptabladid gave an account of Ridley’s debate with Bill Gates on global warming and African development 26 July, and Morgunbladid published an interview with Ridley 27 July, an account of the lecture 30 July, and an editorial on Ridley’s message the same day. The website visir.is published an article about Ridley 29 July, based on an interview by the television station Stod tvo, for its Sunday Show 29 July. Almenna bokafelagid decided to have Ridley’s book, The Rational Optimist, translated into Icelandic, to be published in the spring of 2014. Ridley’s lecture is available here on Youtube.

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Hannes H. Gissurarson: Capitalism Can Be Green

Posted on 20.06.12
HHG.Rio.19.06.2012

Rain forest. Photo: Ivo M. Vermeulen

RNH held an informal seminar, jointly with the US Reason Foundation, 19 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, in connection with the international conference on the environment, Rio+20, which was organised twenty years after the Rio conference on the environment. Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson and Julian Morris, Vice President for research at the Reason Foundation, spoke at the seminar. In his talk, Professor Gissurarson distinguished between four types of environmental challenges, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources, endangered species, and threats to the wilderness. An example of the first kind of problem was the “money smell” or odour from herring processing plants in Icelandic fishing towns, of the second kind overfishing in the open sea and overgrazing in mountain pastures, of the third kind whaling in the North Atlantic and the killing of elephants and rhinos in Africa, and of the fourth kind hydroelectric power plants in mountains and the cultivation of land covered with rain forests. Professor Gissurarson submitted that the solution of those environmental problems was to define more clearly and more rigorously individual rights and duties, for example by creating private property rights. Environmental protection required environmental protectors. The environment had to be taken into account, in the literal sense. Professor Gissurarson quoted research by Professor Thrainn Eggertsson on grazing rights in the Icelandic mountain pastures and by Professor Ragnar Arnasonon fishing rights, individual transferable quotas, in the Icelandic waters.

Julian Morris

Julian Morris spoke about free market environmentalism: the research programme developed by economists in the last few decades on how to use free market forces, private property rights and the price mechanism, to both protect and develop the environment. One of the participants at the seminar was Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine. He had attended the original 1992 Rio conference on the environment.

Professor Gissurarson’s talk formed a part of the research project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, jointly organised by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. Professor Gissurarson is also the leader of a research project on “Environmental Protection, Property Rights and Natural Resources” at the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Iceland and Instituto Millenium in Rio de Janeiro. Some Icelanders were delegates at the Rio+20 conference, including Arni Mathiesen, the director of the Fishing and Aquaculture Section of FAO in Rome. RNH gave a reception for them on Iceland’s national holiday, 17 June 2012, with Iceland’s consul in Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Kaare Ringseth, in attendance, with a toast being given to Jon Sigurdsson, the 19th Century leader of Iceland’s fight for independence.

Gissurarson Slides 19.06.2012

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Ridley on Rational Optimism, 27 July at 17.30–19.00

Posted on 05.06.12

The newly founded Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth (Rannsoknarsetur um nyskopun og hagvoxt, RNH) is proud to announce a lecture Friday 27 July at 5.30–7.00 pm at Askja, the Natural Science House of the University of Iceland, in meeting hall N-132. One of today’s best-known British writers, Matt Ridley (Dr. Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley), gives a talk about ‘Why I am a Rational Optimist’, followed by a discussion with the audience. Admission is open to all and free. The event is co-hosted by the Institute of Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland. Professor Ragnar Arnason will be the moderator.

Born in 1958, Ridley graduated with a D.Phil. in zoology from the University of Oxford in 1983. He was for many years the scientific editor of The Economist and contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal. Ridley’s best-selling books on science include: The Red Queen and the Evolution of Human Nature 1993; The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation 1996; Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters 2003: Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human 2003; Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code 2006; The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves 2010.

Ridley has criticized the exaggerations of doomsday prophets, for example about climate change After his latest book, The Rational Optimist, Ridley had a lively exchange with Bill Gates in the pages of The Wall Street Journal on whether or not there were good reasons for being optimistic about the world. For the book, Ridley received the Hayek Prize and the Julian Simon Prize. Here is the review of his book by Samuel Brittan in Financial Times, and here a review by David Papineau in The Observer. Ridley maintains a website and a regular blog. Many of his previous talks are on Youtube, for example this one on TED, and this one at Reason TV and this one at the Hoover Institution. Ridley’s talk in Iceland is a part of a series of lectures on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, organised jointly with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

Morgunbladid about Ridley 27 July 2012. The title is “The Pessimists are consistently wrong”.

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Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism

Posted on 05.06.12

Jointly, RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, organise a series of lectures at the University of Iceland and elsewhere, some of which will eventually be published. Icelandic and foreign scholars and writers discuss Iceland’s place in Europe after the international financial crisis of 2007–8: Is capitalism to blame for the crisis? Or misguided government intervention? If capitalism is about “creative destruction”, how can the creative side of it be encouraged? Should Iceland join the European Union? What is the historical nature and significance of socialism, not only national socialism or Nazism, but also the socialism practised in the Soviet Union and its satellite states? Partly, the lecture series is a response to a recent lecture series at the University of Iceland organised by left-wing personalities against “neo-liberalism”, resulting in a collection of essays under the name Eilifdarvelin. Uppgjor vid nyfrjalshyggjuna (The Perpetual Motion Machine. The Anatomy of Neo-liberalism).

Matt Ridley. Photo: Birgir Isl. Gunnarsson.

In the first year, the first speaker in the series was the English best-selling writer Dr. Matt Ridley 27 July 2012 who spoke about the reasons for being optimistic about the future. The next speaker was Dr. Michael Walker of the Canadian Fraser Institute 17 September 2012, on the international index of economic freedom for 2010: Under the 2009–2013 left-wing government, economic freedom in Iceland decreased significantly. Then six speakers and several commentators participated in an international conference on “Fisheries: sustainable and profitable” 6 October 2012: Professors Thrainn Eggertsson and Ragnar Arnason of the University of Iceland, Professor Rognvaldur Hannesson of the Norwegian School of Business Administration, Arni Mathiesen, Director of the Fisheries Department at FAO, Dr. Gunnar Haraldsson, Senior Fisheries Expert at the OECD, and Michael Arbuckle, Senior Fisheries Expert at the World Bank. Also, Dr. Asgeir Jonsson, Assistant Professor at the University of Iceland, and Dr. Michael De Alessi were commentators.

Kate Hoey

The next speakers in the series were: RNH Academic Director, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, of the University of Iceland 9 October 2012 on “Poverty in Iceland, 1995–2004”; Norwegian journalist Jan-Arild Snoen 15 October 2012 on the media bias in Europe against the US; Professor Douglas Rasmussen, of St. John’s University, New York, 26 October 2012 on Ayn Rand’s message for the 21st Century, on the occasion of the publication of an Icelandic translation of Atlas Shrugged by Rand; Mats Persson of Open Europe 12 November 2012, about trends in Europe; Dr. Daniel Mitchell of Cato Institute, Washington DC, 16 November 2012, on the case for the flat tax; Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson 17 November 2012, on “Churchill as a Statesman”; and Kate Hoey, MP for the London district of Vauxhall, 19 November 2012, on “The Dangers of joining the EU”.

Phil Booth

In the second year, the first speaker in the series was Dr. Nils Karlson of Ratio Institute in Stockholm who described 14 January 2013 “The New Swedish Model”. The second speaker was Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson 19 February 2013 on “Liberty, Crisis and Capitalism”. He was followed by Professor Phil Booth 13 March 2013 on the “Causes of the Financial Crisis”, and Marta Andreasen, former Chief Accounting Officer and Budget Execution Director at the European Commission, 30 August 2013 on “Holding the EU to Account”. Matthew Elliott from the British Taxpayers’ Union talked 20 September 2013 about how the Icelanders could fight the encroachment of the state.

Eamonn Butler

Precisely five years after the 2008 bank collapse, 7 October 2013, RNH organised an international conference in Reykjavik on the 2007–2009 financial crisis and the Icelandic case, with papers given by Dr. Eamonn Butler from the Adam Smith Institute and Dr. Pythagoras Petratos from the Said School of Business at Oxford University and Dr. Asgeir Jonsson and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson from the University of Iceland. On 13 october 2013, the late Mrs. Margaret Thatcher’s birthday, her senior adviser John O’Sullivan gave a talk on “The Real Iron Lady”. On 14 October 2013, RNH organised an international conference on “the quota system and a special tax on fisheries”, with Professor Ralph Townsend of the University of Maine making the case for self-governance in fisheries, Professor Ragnar Arnason arguing against a special tax on the Icelandic fisheries, Dr. Gunnar Haraldsson, director of the Economic Research Institute of the University of Iceland, discussing the CFP, Common Fisheries Policy, of the EU, and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson analysing moral and political arguments for the initial allocation of property rights to natural resources.

J.S. Gunnlaugsson

The next speakers in the project were Jon Steinar Gunnlaugsson, former Supreme Court Judge, and Helgi A. Gretarsson, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iceland, who debated 29 October 2013 whether or not the special tax on the Icelandic fisheries is constitutional. Then, Dr. Daniel Mitchell of Cato Institute shared his thoughts 4 November 2013 on how to starve the beast, the modern Leviathan. The academic director of RNH, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, also kept a busy schedule in Iceland and abroad in 2013, giving lectures in Porto Alegre 9 April 2013, Bifrost 3 May, Vilnius 12 September, Cambridge 22 September, Stockholm 29 October and Budapest 15 November on the international financial crisis and the Icelandic bank collapse.

François Heisbourg

The project continued in 2014. The English writer and commentator on current affairs, Dr. Richard North, 30 January 2014 explored choices facing the United Kingdom upon possibly leaving the EU, one of them being membership in the EEA, European Economic Area, with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. One of Europe’s most distinguished experts on collective security, François Heisbourg, discussed 5 April 2014 whether the euro would bring the EU down, requiring much tighter integration than the European countries were prepared for. Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson read papers on various aspects of the 2008 Icelandic bank collapse in Reykjavik 14 March 2014, in Berlin 15 March, in Torshavn in the Faroe Islands 22 March and in Las Vegas 14 April. He also lectured on Liberty and the Internet in Porto Alegre in Brazil 25 May and in Curitiba 31 May.

Robert Lawson

In July 2014, a century had passed since the outbreak of the First World War, which almost led to the collapse of the liberal order. On 28 July 2014, Professor Robert Lawson, one of the authors of the Index of Economic Freedom, spoke on the problems and results of measuring economic freedom. In the summer, autumn an early winter of 2014, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson gave several papers in Iceland and abroad, sponsored by RNH: 12–15 August, he read three papers at the annual meeting of NOPSA, the Nordic Political Science Association, in Gothenburg in Sweden, on the 2008–2013 Icesave dispute, on the 2008 Icelandic bank collapse, and on the Icelandic welfare state; 10 October he read a paper on how to develop F. A. Hayek’s theory of spontaneous evolution at an international conference of the Economic Freedom Institute at Manhattanville College in New York; 18 October he gave a talk criticizing Thomas Piketty’s theory of income distribution at an international conference of the European Students for Liberty in Bergen in Norway; 31 October he read a paper at a conference in Reykjavik on possible explanations for the hostility of the British government towards Iceland during the 2008 financial crisis; 27 November he lectured at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London on the topic: “Why was Iceland left out in the cold? And kept there?”

Corbett Grainger

On 21 August 2014, the Public Book Club (Almenna bokafelagid, AB) held a reception jointly with RNH to celebrate the publication of a collection of papers on income distribution and welfare, edited by Professors Ragnar Arnason and Birgir Thor Runolfsson, who both serve on the RNH Academic Council. Subsequently, on 24 October 2014, an RNH seminar was held on the subject of income distribution and taxes where the speakers were Professor Corbett Grainger on arguments against resource taxes and for private property rights to resources, Professor Ragnar Arnason on errors in the measurements of income distribution and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson on flaws in Thomas Piketty’s case for global redistribution.

Tara Smith

On 30 October 2014, when the Public Book Club published a translation of Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist, Ridley visited Iceland and gave a talk. On that occasion, Professor Thrainn Eggertsson discussed Ridley’s point of view and Professor Birgir Thor Runolfsson analysed an example of the rational management of natural resources: the system of ITQs (individual transferable quotas) in the Icelandic fisheries. RNH was one of the sponsors of an international conference 15 November 2014 organised by the European Students for Liberty. Two members of the RNH Academic Council spoke, Professor Birgir Thor Runolfsson on the Icelandic Commonwealth and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson on Piketty’s theory of capital in the 21st century. RNH also continued to promote the works of Ayn Rand: Professor Tara Smith gave a lecture 24 November on Rand’s moral theory, in particular her account of the liberating force of money.

From the January Seminar. Photo: Arni Saeberg.

The project continued in 2015. Professor Gudni Johannesson of the University of Iceland and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson spoke 14 January 2015 at an RNH seminar in Reykjavik on “New Evidence on the Bank Collapse”. Professor Gissurarson read several papers to conferences in early 2015: 9 april he gave a talk on Swedish-Icelandic relationships 9 April 2015 to a breakfast meeting at the think tank Ratio in Stockholm in Sweden; 11 April he provided personal recollections of three modern masters, Friedrich A. von Hayek, Karl R. Popper and Milton Friedman, at the annual conference of the European Students for Liberty in Berlin in Germany; 21 April, he spoke about the sometimes misguided sale of Icelandic assets abroad after the 2008 bank collapse 21 April 2015 at a conference of the Institute of Business Research at the University of Iceland; 30 April, he gave a talk on Piketty’s  challenge to capitalism at the Business School in Tallinn.

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