The next RNH event is a celebration of the publication of Ayn Rand’s influential and powerful novel, Atlas Shrugged, called “Undirstadan” in Icelandic. The book is published by Almenna bokafelagid, AB, and translated by Elin Gudmundsdottir, a professional translator. The question posed in the book is: What happens if all the creative people in a society go on strike? What is the difference between productive persons and political parasites? Who is John Galt? Rand’s novel is also a steaming love story, with Dagny Taggart, an independent and courageous railroad manageress, dealing with Francisco d’Anconia, her childhood friend and an Argentine copper mines heir, Hank Rearden, a married self-made steel magnate, and the mysterious John Galt, with a lot of other colourful characters participating in the slowly unfolding drama, such as the pirate Ragnar Danneskjold, the conscious counterpart to the mythical Robin Hood. Since its publication in 1957, Atlas Shrugged has sold in more than eight million copies around the world, and is still going strong, despite its extraordinary length: The Icelandic edition is 1146 pp.

American philosophy professor Douglas Rasmussen will give a lecture on Rand’s philosophy on the occasion of the publication, Friday 26 October 2012, at 5–6 pm in the Icelandic National House of Culture (Thjodmenningarhus) in Hverfisgata. Lawyer and philosopher Asgeir Johannesson, chairman of the Icelandic Ayn Rand society, will make a few remarks, and professional Icelandic musicians will play classical piano music of which Rand was very fond. Afterwards, 6–7 pm, a reception will be hosted on the premises by Almenna bokafelagid. Admission is free, and open to all. As Rand’s account of individuality, entrepreneurship and creativity is highly relevant to the choices the Icelanders face in the near future between different economic systems, Rasmussen’s lecture forms a part of the series of lectures on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism” which RNH is organising jointly with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

Douglas Rasmussen, born in 1948, graduated with a BA from University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from Marquette University. He currently teaches philosophy at St. John’s University in New York and is a Senior Scholar at Cato Institute in Washington DC. He has co-authored several books with Dr. Douglas Den Uyl and published papers in leading philosophy journals, including American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, American Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, The New Scholasticism, The Personalist, Public Affairs Quarterly, Social Philosophy & Policy, The Review of Metaphysics and The Thomist. He was the co-editor, with Den Uyl, of The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (1984).

Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson gives a lecture Friday 26 October 2012 on “What Political Economy Can Tell Us About Money Smell”. The lecture is a part of a programme, The Nation in a Mirror, organised by the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland, about research conducted at the School. Professor Gissurarson’s lecture is also a part of a research project he is leading on “Environmental Protection, Property Rights, and Natural Resources”. He will analyse the so-called “money smell”, the very strong smell from Icelandic fish processing plants in small fishing villages in the past, called money smell because the plants provided much-coveted jobs; going on to discuss the broader relevance of two different approaches to environmental problems, those of Arthur C. Pigou and Ronald N. Coase.

The lecture is in a seminar in Room HT-300, 15–16.45, with Dr. Sveinn Agnarsson, Director of the Economic Research Institute at the University of Iceland, in the chair. While the seminar is held by the School of Social Sciences, Gissurarson’s lecture forms a part of the project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, jointly organised by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

The next event planned by RNH is a talk by Norwegian journalist Jan Arild Snoen Monday 15 October on the European Media Bias Against the US, in meeting room O-201 in Oddi, the Social Science House, at the University of Iceland, at lunchtime, 12–13. Snoen argues that much of the coverage of Americans and their culture in European media betrays ignorance and a lack of understanding and sympathy with the subject matter. This event is co-sponsored by the IABF, the Icelandic-American Business Forum. The chairman of the Forum, financial analyst Jeffrey B. Sussman, will chair the meeting.

Jan Arild Snoen, born in 1964, works for the liberal-conservative Internet journal Minerva and has published an unauthorised biography of right-wing populist politician Carl Hagen, and a defense of globalisation. He is vice-chairman of the Monticello Society which seeks to improve relations between Norway and the United States. His wife, Ellen Christiansen, has been a member of parliament for the Conservative Party. Snoen’s lecture is a part of the project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, jointly organised by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

Tuesday 9 October 2012 the Association of Icelandic Historians holds a lunchtime meeting where Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson of the Politics Department of the University of Iceland will discuss “Poverty in Iceland 1991–2004”. The meeting takes place at the National Museum of Iceland lecture hall from 12.05 to 13.00. It has frequently been asserted, in particular before the 2003 and 2007 parliamentary elections that poverty  increased in Iceland in the 1990s and early 2000s despite much economic growth. It was even said that poverty was more prevalent here than in the other Nordic countries. But how is poverty to be defined? Is it the lack of necessities, as traditionally conceived? Or is it the counterpart to wealth, as Hegel and some other philosophers maintain? What do measurements of poverty in Iceland in 1991–2004 show? These questions will be answered by looking at the evidence presented by the Icelandic Statistical Bureau and the EU Statistical Bureau and also at surveys conducted by the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Iceland. While the meeting is held by the Association of Icelandic Historians, it forms part of the project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”, jointly organised by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.